WHO’S AFRAID OF KATHY ACKER (Barbara Caspar, Austria/Germany). 84 minutes. Tuesday (May 19), 5:15 pm, ROM. Rating: NNNN
Barbara Caspar’s fascinating portrait of American writer Kathy Acker paints a rich portrait of a walking paradox.
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Born privileged, Acker pursued poverty. Full of rage on paper, she was almost sweet and user-friendly in person. A wholly original thinker, she couldn’t resist seizing on other (male) texts as part of her creative process. Queer? I dunno. A freak? Definitely.
She began her career as a stripper, appearing in sexually explicit experimental movies, and wrote as an act of self-creation with a sexual honesty few women had attempted before. She found a creative community with the rise of punk, and fame when Grove published Blood And Guts In High School. A plagiarism charge sent her career into the tank before the Riot Grrrl movement revived it. She died of cancer in 1997.
Using archival footage (material featuring the charismatic Acker reading is irresistible), interviews with the writer’s collaborators and new animation that brings to life Acker’s work, Caspar honours an outrageous creative talent. Don’t miss it.
