Maidstone And Other Films By Norman Mailer: Eclipse From The Criterion Collection

Maidstone And Other Films By Norman Mailer: Eclipse From The Criterion Collection

Norman Mailer is remembered for many things - his novels, his essays, his articles, his activism, his ego. One largely forgotten chapter of his life, however, is his late-sixties, headlong, kamikaze-style plunge into making experimental films. These rough-hewn, self-financed, largely improvised metafictions are works of madness and bravado, all starring Mailer himself and with technical assistance from cinema verité trailblazers D. A. Pennebaker and Richard Leacock. The most fully realized of his directorial efforts is the blustering, brawling Maidstone, a shocking sign of the political times, in which Mailer plays a filmmaker and presidential candidate who may be the target of an assassination attempt. Along with Mailer's other films of the period - Wild 90 and Beyond the Law- it shows an uncompromising artist in thrall to both himself and a new medium.

Films Include

Maidstone

Mailer and Rip Torn's bloody, real-life, caught-on-camera tussle is but one of the jolts in this brazen political pageant.

Wild 90

Mailer and friends Buzz Farbar and Mickey Knox snarl and grunt as a trio of gangsters trapped in a New York apartment in this low-budget Sartrean exercise.

Beyond The Law

Mailer's coarse depiction of the daily routine of a group of Manhattan police officers, deglamorized and ragged.