863 Multiple Maniacs

[bainbridgezu]

Multiple Maniacs



The gloriously grotesque second feature directed by John Waters is replete with all manner of depravity, from robbery to murder to one of cinema's most memorably blasphemous moments. Made on a shoestring budget in Waters' native Baltimore, with the filmmaker taking on nearly every technical task, this gleeful mockery of the peace-and-love ethos of its era features the Cavalcade of Perversion, a traveling show mounted by a troupe of misfits whose shocking proclivities are topped only by those of their leader: the glammer-than-glam, larger-than-life Divine, out for blood after discovering her lover's affair. Starring Waters' beloved regular cast the Dreamlanders (including David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller), Multiple Maniacs is an anarchic masterwork from an artist who has doggedly tested the limits of good taste for decades.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED EDITION:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director John Waters, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New audio commentary featuring Waters
• New interviews with cast and crew members Pat Moran, Vincent Peranio, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, and George Figgs
• More!
• PLUS: An essay by critic Linda Yablonsky

[Raymond Marble]

I assume Mondo Trasho would be part of a Waters box? Hopefully Multiple Maniacs turns up there too. Would love to toss my bootleg in the bin.

Unfortunately, Waters stated at a recent retrospective that neither Multiple Maniacs nor any of his shorts would ever be released commercially.

We can hope Criterion at least gets around to revisiting Pink Flamingos and Polyester, though I wouldn't mind if they picked up Female Trouble and Desperate Living as well. The former would be especially nice as New Line's DVD was heavily cropped without Water's involvement, often to the exclusion of Divine's various hairstyles.

I have a lot of trouble believing that Criterion--or anyone, for that matter--will release Mondo Trasho. And yes, to my understanding, the main thing holding up its release since its VHS days (which remains the last time it was legally released) is the music rights.

With that in mind, when Criterion released Pink Flamingos on laserdisc, it didn't actually have all of its original music intact. I wonder if they'd be willing to go down a similar route with Mondo Trasho...

[bainbridgezu]

Looking back, it appears that Multiple Maniacs is indeed the Waters film which was recently restored in preparation for re-release. Mondo Trasho and the shorts will remain unavailable apart from rare retrospective screenings.

[kidc85]

Looking back, it appears that Multiple Maniacs is indeed the Waters film which was recently restored in preparation for re-release.

I'd love for you to be right about this, what are you basing this on?

[R0lf]

Looking back, it appears that Multiple Maniacs is indeed the Waters film which was recently restored in preparation for re-release.

I'd love for you to be right about this, what are you basing this on?

Saw John Waters do his Christmas show tonight and during the Q&A portion he mentioned that a re-release of Multiple Maniacs was in the works and will look great. He didn't specifically mention Criterion, but given that he was just there a few weeks ago...

[ianungstad]

That clip Criterion showed is certainly from John Water's Multiple Maniacs. Fantastic news.

[Minkin]

That clip Criterion showed is certainly from John Water's Multiple Maniacs. Fantastic news.

Is this with WB or did the rights revert back to Waters? In either case, I'm sure Criterion also licensed Pink Flamingos + Polyester from WB (both former laserdisc titles).

Did they specifically mention Cinemascope? Or was it just an "of that era" widescreen? I can't think of any other film that would match widescreen + arctic + in need of restoration better than The Savage Innocents (wasn't this tied up with Olive Films? But they rejected it due to bad print quality?).

[albucat]

Janus just announced theatrical screenings of Multiple Maniacs following a restoration. Waters will be doing some interviews to promote the film, too, which implies that they likely have more than just this in the pipeline.

Also notable, to me at least, is that the press screening is actually at Criterion. I haven't paid attention to these for a while (I write fewer film reviews than I used to), but that might be a first.

[FrauBlucher]

Water's Multiple Manics gets restored (Criterion) and screened (Janus) at teh Provincetown Film Festival.

[sir_luke]

Janus just announced theatrical screenings of Multiple Maniacs following a restoration. Waters will be doing some interviews to promote the film, too, which implies that they likely have more than just this in the pipeline.

Also notable, to me at least, is that the press screening is actually at Criterion. I haven't paid attention to these for a while (I write fewer film reviews than I used to), but that might be a first.

Trailer

[sir_luke]

Trailer for Janus' restoration of Multiple Maniacs

[Raymond Marble]

I wonder if the eventual physical media release of Multiple Maniacs will include as special features Waters' 60s-era shorts ("Hag in a Black Leather Jacket," "Eat Your Makeup," "Roman Candles"), which have never been released on any home video format before, and are virtually impossible to have seen. He used to keep a tight grip on them, but at least twice in the past fifteen years he's allowed them to be screened in New York, which is an improvement on not screening them anywhere for decades, at least.

[R0lf]

I wonder if the eventual physical media release of Multiple Maniacs will include as special features Waters' 60s-era shorts ("Hag in a Black Leather Jacket," "Eat Your Makeup," "Roman Candles"), which have never been released on any home video format before, and are virtually impossible to have seen. He used to keep a tight grip on them, but at least twice in the past fifteen years he's allowed them to be screened in New York, which is an improvement on not screening them anywhere for decades, at least.

BFI also screened them in digital form during their Waters season last year.

[Minkin]

Janus' Multiple Maniacs poster:

[Drucker]

Multiple Maniacs will be in 1:66.

[goblinfootballs]

Just saw Multiple Maniacs last night at Hollywood Theatre in Portland, OR. The restoration is fantastic considering the production quality. There are shots that aren't quite in focus and it might benefit from the use of subtitles in some scenes on the presumed home video release, but that's more about how it was made than anything else. It felt like a less directly and/or less coherently political dry run for Female Trouble in some ways, and there are a number of scenes which are deliriously quintessential John Waters, including...

Spoiler

...the rosary/stations of the cross sequence, the Jacobean tragedy of the mass murder in the apartment, and the use of Mars and God Bless America in the final sequence. Not to mention Lobstera.

Highly recommended.

[swo17]

Coming in March

[Lino]

Coming in March

This has just made my day and alongside Blow Up, Ludwig and Story of Sin, has made March 2017 a very seriously wallet-breaking month!

[Roscoe]

I'm hoping for some extras, some good old extras, like maybe The Diane Linkletter Story.

[Lino]

Is it possible to include Mondo Trasho as an extra and get away with all the music copyright issues plaguing that movie since home video was born? This question came to my mind as maybe the only possibility for it to be released on any kind of home video format and the eventual release of Multiple Maniacs would be a unique opportunity to get it out of that particular purgatory.

Any thoughts?

[tenia]

Releasing it as an extra won't prevent having to untie whatever rights issue is with the movie.

[Minkin]

The more! has been revealed:

New video essay by scholar Gary Needham
Trailer

[colinr0380]

Here's something interesting that just turned up in one of the latest BBFC podcasts "Ask The Chief Executive" from 8th December, in which David Austin answered some Twitter questions. Here's his response to a question about revisiting classification decisions, which after the general response mentions Multiple Maniacs:

You also asked about films that were banned or cut in the past and the answer to that question really is that we will look at films again when they are submitted for classification, so we don't go through our archive and say "Well, we classified this film in 1980, shouldn't we take another look at it?". We respond to film distributors sending in content and we will judge those films according to our classification guidelines as they stand now, and as UK law stands now.

So there's an example actually that we have been dealing with this week, which is an old John Waters film called Multiple Maniacs, which is getting a release in Northern Ireland in 2016. When this film came into us in 1990 we cut it. There is a sequence which we, at the time, considered to be blasphemous and at the time there was a statute that made blasphemy illegal. Since 1990 when we classified the film that statute is no longer on the statute book and it is no longer an offence in England and Wales to make comment about the established church in the way that it was back in 1990. So we are now able to pass that film uncut in England in Wales and there has not been a prosecution for blasphemy in Scotland or Northern Ireland for many, many, many years, so we considered that issue and that it would be safe to classify the film at 18 without any cuts.

So that is an example of where the law may have changed so a film that we were not able to pass legally uncut in the past, we are now able to classify.

[GaryC]

Here's something interesting that just turned up in one of the latest BBFC podcasts "Ask The Chief Executive" from 8th December, in which David Austin answered some Twitter questions. Here's his response to a question about revisiting classification decisions, which after the general response mentions Multiple Maniacs:

You also asked about films that were banned or cut in the past and the answer to that question really is that we will look at films again when they are submitted for classification, so we don't go through our archive and say "Well, we classified this film in 1980, shouldn't we take another look at it?". We respond to film distributors sending in content and we will judge those films according to our classification guidelines as they stand now, and as UK law stands now.

So there's an example actually that we have been dealing with this week, which is an old John Waters film called Multiple Maniacs, which is getting a release in Northern Ireland in 2016. When this film came into us in 1990 we cut it. There is a sequence which we, at the time, considered to be blasphemous and at the time there was a statute that made blasphemy illegal. Since 1990 when we classified the film that statute is no longer on the statute book and it is no longer an offence in England and Wales to make comment about the established church in the way that it was back in 1990. So we are now able to pass that film uncut in England in Wales and there has not been a prosecution for blasphemy in Scotland or Northern Ireland for many, many, many years, so we considered that issue and that it would be safe to classify the film at 18 without any cuts.

So that is an example of where the law may have changed so a film that we were not able to pass legally uncut in the past, we are now able to classify.

Not just in Northern Ireland, it's getting a cinema reissue on 17 February. I don't know how widely it will be showing, but the BFI Southbank in London is one of the places showing it.

[Ribs]

Beaver