SCFZ poll: John Waters

[flip]

Polling the films of John Waters.

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Waters films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: greennui, bure, roscoe, kanafani, greg x, silga, oscarwerner, john ryan, mrcarmady, umbugbene, evelyn, m arkadin, jiri, brian d, nrh, rischka, aberration, searchlike, st gloede, ofrene, wba, grabmymask

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

just because we don't talk about waters much, and his filmography isn't so extensive, i think we'll use the extended rules for this poll to be sure we can get to a top ten:

- if you have seen an odd number of films, you can round up when deciding the length of your ballot (e.g. if you have seen 7, you can vote for 4 instead of the usual 3)
- if you have seen more than 10, you can vote for more than 5, subject to the restriction above (e.g. if you have seen 11, you can vote for up to 6)

[flip]

Pecker

seen only two

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

1. Multiple Maniacs
2. Hairspray

Seen 3.

[niminy-piminy]

ha, finally a decent American filmmaker!
finally someone from the U.S. i am familiar with!

Multiple Maniacs
Pink Flamingos
Desperate Living
Mondo Trasho
Female Trouble
Dorothy, the Kansas City Pot Head

THE DIANE LINKLETTER STORY
A DIRTY SHAME
SERIAL MOM
HAIRSPRAY
POLYESTER
PECKER

the only surviving footage of John Waters' unproduced movie "Dorothy - the Kansas City Pothead" with Pat Moran and George Figgs.

https://youtu.be/GHPDVGyrOx4

[greennui]

12.

Desperate Living
Female Trouble
Multiple Maniacs
Polyester
Hairspray
Cry-Baby

[grabmymask]

Ok I’ve seen 12 features and 2 shorts, so I guess that means I can vote for 7?

1. Female Trouble
2. Multiple Maniacs
3. Pink Flamingos
4. Desperate Living
5. Hairspray
6. Polyester
7. A Dirty Shame

[Roscoe]

FEMALE TROUBLE
MULTIPLE MANIACS
PINK FLAMINGOS
THE DIANE LINKLETTER STORY
HAIRSPRAY

[niminy-piminy]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-water ... 1417623232

John Waters’s Favorite Things


“ON THE LEFT is a model you can buy online of Michael Jackson famously holding his baby out the window. I think it’s amazing. The mirror is from a joke shop—I love joke shops. When you pick it up, it screams. Whenever I’m in a bad mood I do that, and it puts me in a good one. But I’m never in a bad mood. The cigarette is also a fake: I used to smoke five packs of Kools a day, but I haven’t had a cigarette now in 4,293 days. I use those stamps because I send thank-you notes on postcards—they’re the best way to let somebody know you really like them. The little building is a scale model of the Unabomber’s house, part of a series of models of buildings where disasters happened. I collect them. Those are tulips in the back. I love cut flowers; they perk up a house, and they’re always worth the money. A friend made me the “Waters World” drawing while he was in jail. He’s out now. I like people who have recovered from things. I included index cards because people ask me how I’m so organized. Every day I write on a card what I have to do and cross it off. And I always use the same brand of black and red clear Bic pens. Behind is a photo of sexploitation star Chesty Morgan. I was heavily influenced by her. She was an extreme show-business person, and I’ve always been formed by extreme people. My friend Bob Pringle made me this thumb sculpture before I left on my hitchhiking journey for my book Carsick. My life was getting too plain and controlled in my 60s. I felt I needed some street cred for myself. And I got it.”

[niminy-piminy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Linkletter

On October 4, 1969, 20-year-old Diane died after jumping out of her sixth-floor kitchen window. Linkletter claimed that her death was drug-related because she was on, or having a flashback from, an LSD trip (toxicology tests later determined there were no drugs in Diane's system at the time of her death). After Diane's death, Linkletter spoke out against drugs to prevent children from straying into a drug habit. On October 24, 1969, he said "Anybody who has said anything which would encourage my daughter to take LSD was unwittingly a part of being her murderer." His record, "We Love You, Call Collect", recorded before her death, featured a discussion about permissiveness in modern society, along with a rebuttal by Diane, titled "Dear Mom and Dad". The record won a 1970 Grammy Award for the "Best Spoken Word Recording".

https://youtu.be/J7IRsQr5qdo
https://youtu.be/bkT2zJNM7Mg

[wba]

hmm, not a fan so far, but I guess I just haven't seen his best films, yet.

01. Serial Mom

Waters seen: 3

[flip]

Ok I’ve seen 12 features and 2 shorts, so I guess that means I can vote for 7?

yes, shorts count, so with 14 seen, you can vote for 7. the extra slots, after #5, just award fractions of a point - they mainly just ensure we get votes for enough films, and break ties. for ballots of more than five films, the 6th place film awards 0.5 pts, the 7th place awards 0.3 pts, the 8th awards 0.1 pts, and any films beyond that award 0 pts.

[Silga]

Seen 1

Serial Mom

I love Serial Mom!

[niminy-piminy]

The Infant of Prague and Lady Divine from John Waters' Multiple Maniacs, 1970.
While Lady Divine contemplates her rape, the Infant of Prague appears and leads her to a church.

https://lwlies.com/interviews/john-wate ... e-maniacs/

Multiple Maniacs has many shocking scenes, most notably a sequence centred on a small child.

That’s the Infant of Prague – a kind of fairy tale in Baltimore. He’s a saint we honour. You buy a little doll and you change its little outfits all year. The Infant of Prague slogan was: ‘The more you honour Me, the more I will bless you’. That’s so narcissistic! I mean, that’s right to the point. You honour me and I’ll give it back. So everybody in Baltimore in working class Catholic communities had the Infant of Prague in their house.

i also read elsewhere (besides the quote above) that due to ‘The more you honour Me, the more I will bless you’ narcissism, Infant of Prague is John Water's favorite saint.
and i must admit i also have an affinity to Infant of Prague! ... https://www.pragjesu.cz/en/the-appearan ... he-statue/
Infant of Prague is a infant-Jesus with Osho's "Inner Child" spirit ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_Jesus_of_Prague
(something utterly different than the usual Jesus' depiction full of sadomasochism.)

the dwelling place of Infant of Prague is the "Church of Our Lady Victorious"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of ... Victorious
i must admit i also have an affinity to this holy shrine!
i love the early-baroque frontal facade of "Church of Our Lady Victorious" (it is mysteriously so perfect — every part seems to have the right proportion — the whole is very balanced and esthetically pleasing) ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of ... litske.jpg
the main altar is very unusual because it is adorned with sculptures made of copper and gold (thus having an unusual red & golden color combination).
these "red" sculptures were recently restored to their full reddish splendor... https://www.pragjesu.cz/en/restoration- ... ain-altar/
(because in the past some idiot covered them fully in gold (adding a fake full-gold layer).)

left = before restoration, right = after restoration.


Infant of Prague inhabits a side chapel in the middle of the main nave.
in the "history of veneration" section of the website of the place, one can read...

https://www.pragjesu.cz/en/the-history- ... ant-jesus/

Journey to Prague
It an established fact that the statue of the Infant Jesus was brought to Prague by the Spanish Duchess Marie Manriquez de Lara, who married Vrastislav of Pernstejn in 1556. Later she gave the statue to her daughter Polyxena of Lobkovic as a wedding gift. She greatly venerated the statue and received consolation and help from it many times.

which is (actually) another reason i feel an affinity to Infant of Prague.
aforementioned Vrastislav of Pernstejn was a feudal landlord of my hometown in 16th century and as a gift of love to Marie Manriquez de Lara, he built a renaissance castle in my hometown... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litomy%C5%A1l_Castle
so, Spanish Duchess Marie Manriquez de Lara who was a resident of my hometown in the 16th century brought Infant of Prague to Czechia (Prague).
whenever Spanish or Latino people (and probably even Americans from Baltimore) come to Prague, they usually flock around "Church of Our Lady Victorious".

i have an amusing/uplifting (johnwateresque) story related to one of my visits to Infant of Prague.
once upon entering the holy shrine and walking towards the infant-saint, i started to smell a very bad odor.
soon i noticed that the epicenter of this bad odor is a huge "pavement pizza" that was spread in a huge circle over a church pew in front of Infant of Prague.
i sat in a (clean) church pew nearby this huge pile of smelly puke and was contemplating what all this unusual situation is supposed to mean (from a metaphysical perspective).
someone puking inside a church is nothing unusual but it seemed to me unusual nobody is giving a shit to clean the puke.
i was sitting there for a long, looking around and to my amazement, everybody (tourists & Christians responsible for the Chuch alike) was posing like a big pile of puke in front of Infant of Prague is pretty normal.
btw. the side chapel where Infant of Prague resides is also adorned by many little plates (attached on the wall) with many thanks to Infant of Prague for prayers (to him) being heard (and positively responded) — Infant of Prague is many times the last resort of the religious couples who have a hard time with conception.
the moment i summed 1+1 (mentioned above) the pile of puke in front of Infant of Prague started to make sense.
suddenly, it became obvious some religious lady who had a hard time getting pregnant prayed to Infant of Prague, the infant-saint responded to prayers, the lady got pregnant, came to church to say thanks, and while doing so her pregnancy nausea caused the outburst of puke.
from secular (sublunary) pov it makes sense to immediately clean the shit, but from metaphysical pov it makes sense the preserve the puke as proof of the supernatural ability of the infant-saint.
the moment i came to this conclusion, i felt i am a witness of the miracle and my affinity to Infant of Prague increased.

in the past, i also read another (johnwateresque) story related to Infant of Prague.
there was a (nearly illiterate) guy who served the statue of the Infant of Prague for decades.
when he supposed to go to pension (and thus part with the close proximity of the deity) a strange thing happened... Infant of Prague disappeared!
the guy came up with an odd tale that robbers came into the church during the night, terrorized him (the deity's guard), and stole the deity.
it was investigated, the whole story seemed suspicious, until a few days later the guy brought up the deity to light (from his hiding place).
he additionally claimed that robbers truly came into the church during the night, terrorized him, but he managed to divert their thievery interests (from a statue made just of wood & wax) to some other minor glittery objects and saved the Infant of Prague (hiding it).
his testimony was not considered very trustworthy, but since the deity was back and the guy was rather pitied, investigations were stopped (with no allegations).
this story is now part the Infant of Prague mystery because it illustrates how strong (sick) relationship one can develop to Infant of Prague.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Female Trouble
Serial Mom
Polyester

Thought I had seen more...

[sally]

i've never managed to sit all the way through one of his films, which is odd because i love reading him and think he is generally endearingly lovely

[john ryan]

seen 6.

1. Desperate Living
2. Cry-Baby
3. Multiple Maniacs

[flip]

Thought I had seen more...

if you'd like to pick a director, it's your turn, otherwise unless a new ballot comes in, i'll start a new round on tuesday

[Lencho of the Apes]

Just for the hell of it, I'll take a stab at Ismael Rodriguez. Seen 50; Rischka's seen at least four, Brian might be around 5 or 6. If that one doesn't fly, your call.

[brian d]

nice guess, i've got 6 ismael rodriguez

[flip]

let's check on ismael rodriguez! if we can find one other person with 6+ seen (preferably 7+, but six will be enough) then we'll go with him. i'll give it 24 hours, and if we haven't found anyone by then, we'll start up a new cycle.

if anyone has seen several rodriguez films, please post here!

[flip]

fairly sure the winning films in this poll are unconventional choices (i don't know waters that well, but i don't think they're among his best-known), and that's probably fitting for a waters poll. the only proper waters feature that got no support was cecil b demented (though the midlength eat your makeup and the video kiddie flamingos also got no votes).

results

1. Multiple Maniacs (1970) — 19 pts
2. Female Trouble (1974) — 18 pts
3. Desperate Living (1977) — 13 pts
4. Pink Flamingos (1972) — 10 pts
5. Serial Mom (1994) — 4 pts
5. Hairspray (1988) — 4 pts
7. Polyester (1981) — 3.5 pts
8. Cry-Baby (1990) — 2.5 pts
9. The Diane Linkletter Story (1970) — 2 pts
9. Mondo Trasho (1969) — 2 pts
11. Pecker (1998) — 1 pt
12. Dorothy, the Kansas City Pot Head (1968) — 0.5 pts
13. A Dirty Shame (2004) — 0.3 pts

[flip]

posted this to letterbox:

https://letterboxd.com/fliptrotsky/list ... -poll-273/