One of greatest films of all time finally on DVD - WR: Mysteries of the Organism
At the University Film Society in 1972 I started my career as a film exhibitor. Luckily for me two great films were released that year - and I have never seen any films as good……unfortunately. One of those films is “WR: Mysteries of the Organism” by Yugoslavian-American director Dusan Makavejev. Al Milgrom had arranged for him to come to The Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota to show his new film that had caused quite a stir at The New York Film Festival a few week earlier.
I watched the film - and like Godard’s “Weekend,” and latter, Bertocelli’s “Last Tango in Paris,” - I was dumbfounded, amazed, enlightened, excited. During the coming years we screened the film again, and never since then have I seen anything as provocative - not even Makavejev’s own great sequel, “Sweet Movie.”
A New York film distributor gave me a 16 mm print of the film - which I have never been able to show. I did show the film one week when I first came to the state - in October 1978. I showed it to some friends, and then at a party held in honor of The Great Info Show, with visiting library celebrities present including the president of the American Library Association, Tom Galvin, and the editor of Library Journal, John Berry, along with some local filmmakers. The event was held at Robert Gates’ film studio on Virginia Street. I had to leave the party early to get up the next day to run film projectors from noon until 6 PM non-stop. Glazer said I gave away $10,000 worth of popcorn - 6 million kernels……..It was my first film event ever in WV……….the double projectors running non-stop in the Charleston Civic Center for three days………
“WR” did come out on VHS but I never purchased it for WVLC. It is finally here on DVD. I have ordered a copy for myself of course………Amazon.com, Facets.org, etc all sell it. The Criterion Collection, the highest quality DVDs, are releasing it so you know it will be an enjoyable film experience.
Rolling Stone, or some magazine, wrote a review, agreeing with me on its importance, saying something like, “No work of art of the Sixties expresses the revolutionary feelings and ideas better than this film……” I totally agree. I once wrote a letter to Library Journal after its film reviewer panned the film…….The letter was published, and a library publishing company asked me to write a book on how “visually illiterate most librarians are………” I declined, saying that the LJ reviewer and most librarians needed to take a film course, or read a few books about cinema, and watch some of the greatest films - not read a book about how stupid they are.
A still from the film is also on the cover of my favorite film book, “Film As A Subversive Art” by Amos Vogel. ( I once met Vogel at Saratoga Spring, NY and he told an audience that “I wrote him the greatest letter he had ever received…” Someone recently suggested I write an updated version of the book which has recently been reprinted.)
Here is the www.facets.org description -
WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISMCalled “an outrageous, exuberant, marvelous work” byAmos Vogel in Film Comment, WR: Mysteries of theOrganism is a unique blend of fact and fiction.Makavejev’s landmark film deftly juxtaposes the story ofa sexual encounter between the beautiful, liberatedMilena and a repressed Soviet figure-skating championwith an exploration of the life and theories ofpsychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. The “WR” in the title standsfor either “Wilhelm Reich” or “World Revolution.”Makavejev describes it as “a black comedy, politicalcircus, a fantasy on the fascism and communism ofhuman bodies, the political life of human genitals, aproclamation of the pornographic essence of any systemof authority and power over others…If you watch for morethan five minutes, you become my accomplice.” WithDravic, Jagoda Kaloper, Tuli Kupferberg, and JackieCurtis. In Serbian with English subtitles. .Street:06/19/07DVD: DV91886 $39.95 Criterion Collection edition. New,restored high-def digital transfer supervised andapproved by director Dusan Makavejev. Includes audiocommentary assembled from Raymond Durgnat’s 1999book on the film, Hole in the Soul, Makavejev’s 1994tragicomic autobiographical short, video interview withMakavejev, improved English subtitle translation, and anew essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum.Dusan Makavejev, Yugoslavia/ West Germany, 1971, 85mins., IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT
Here is my letter that I wrote to Library Journal about the stupid pan of the VHS version of this film -
Pitman, learn film criticism!Library Journal, July 1990, p. 10
Pitman’s review of WR: Mysteries of the Organism (Video Reviews, LJ, April 15, p. 134)is exactly proof of what is wrong with American librarianship in the AV area. Last May, I listened to Pitman promote his own low-brown publication, Video Librarian, I at the American Film & Video Festival in
Chicago. I suggested that the audience subscribe to the Village Voice instead – given that it’s only the best informed film source in the world – going by width of films reviewed, quality of film reviewers, currency, etc. His review of one of the great films of the last two decade just confirms his superficiality….
The fact is that American librarians including Pitman…are dangerously uneducated about cinema. I have been trying to get AFVA to require that al librarians be made to take a film history/aesthetics course so that they will be somewhat competent when they have to select videotapes for their collections. So far no success…..My MA thesis was on this subject – attacking the near universal ignorance of film history and culture on the part of 99.99 per cent of American librarians – as shown in their film selection policies.
I hope that Pitman will go back to undergrad school and take a film serious film course – or at least read a few serious film books along with the Voice for a year or two and learn something about serious film criticism!-Steve Fesenmaier, Head, Film Svcs. West Virginia Lib. Commission and Chair, Univer. Film Society,
Minneapolis, 1972-78.
