henry darger - outsider artist

"Do you believe it, unlike most children, I hated to see the day come when I will be grown up. I never wanted to. I wished to be young always. I am a grownup now and an old lame man, darn it."--Henry J. Darger

One night I saw a documentary about Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger … PBS also showed a different short about the animator who took the original from the outsider artist’s 20,000 pages of story and collages & drawings & exquisite watercolors and attempted to give it motion.

“The work of Darger's life was a saga titled ‘The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnean War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.’ It is a seemingly endless, repetitious and obsessively detailed narrative of child martyrdom, massacre and Edenic innocence set on an imaginary planet largely populated by moppets of six to 10.” (Time Magazine)



However, I really strongly recommend you see the documentary from 2004. Its his true biography interlaced with sequences from the storyline of his literature. It is about an autistic savant, outsider artist (developmentally deficient for you pc types) whose absolutely inspired epic about “the Vivian Girls” battle fantastic creatures in an invented world where children are sometimes enslaved by the oddly Confederate overlords and later armed by these seven Vivian Girls. Alternating between profane violence and blissful paradises, innocently hermaphroditic nude children and butterflies tangle with all sorts of challenges from creatures to labor reform. It eerily charming and absolutely fascinating to me.

Henry was a weird cat. He was institutionalized at a very young age in a scandal plagued madhouse and upon his escape lived a reclusive existence in Chicago as a janitor for a Catholic charitable hospital. He rarely left his apartment and no one knew about his epic story creation until about a month before he died in his 80’s.

a volume from "Story of the Vivian Girls" by Darger displayed at Amon Carter Museum, photo by Suzi Migdol

He was hyper-concerned with child welfare and was inspired to design one of the Vivian girls based on a photo printed of a murdered waif from the 30’s. We might also mention that he kept that photo around with him for several decades until it was lost after an apartment break-in.

Mural Size Vivian Girls by Darger displayed at Amon Carter Museum, photo by Suzi Migdol

  detail of Vivian Girls mural by Darger displayed at Amon Carter Museum, photo by Suzi Migdol

back side of Mural Size Vivian Girls by Darger displayed at Amon Carter Museum, photo by Suzi Migdol

 There is much controversy about whether Henry was a harmless, misunderstood creative child in the body of an adult or if he was an untried pedophile and murderer, driven to create by obsession and guilt. I tend to want to think that he was obsessive compulsive and was too religious to allow himself to hurt a fly much less act on sinful impulses. I think the obvious fact that the genitalia of the characters in his work is naïve and unformed by the exposure to female anatomy, suggests that Henry had never had a girlfriend or lover. This behavior suggest to me that his repression would not allow him to act on romantic interests and probably precluded him from more sinister criminal pursuits as well. I think his work is the product of retarded genius, the dark scenes project his lifelong struggle with the evil on Earth that his god does not prevent and get pretty gruesome. The scenes of joy and light revel in the innocence of nature, fantasy and childhood and are colorful and deliberate.

There is an exhibit in New York at the American Folk Art Museum that just closed of 300 watercolors from the roughly 15,000 pieces held in their permanent collection. There are also rumblings of an exhibit in Chicago recreating his pack-rack apartment. I adore outsider art & Henry is justifiably becoming increasingly famous after his own lifetime.

If you like abnormal psychology or outsider art, Henry is a fascinating research subject. There are very good texts by both Michael Bonesteel (whose Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings includes some of Henry's writings) and John MacGregor (I prefer Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal as MacGregor spent more time with the material). The landlord’s wife who owns the copyrights to Henry’s work also was more involved in a beautifully illustrated book organized by Klaus Biesenbach called Henry Darger

Henry's original studio space in his apartment

Tour inside Henry's Apartment in Chicago > www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWbjIpfi_7w

Pics of Henry Darger’s works:
hammer gallery
edlin gallery

Readings on Darger:
time magazine
gseart
wiki
henryjdarger(dot)com
saraayers(dot)com
american folk art museum

henry darger reading list

Re-creation of Darger's apartment on display in Chicago

 

a volume from life memoirs by Darger displayed at Amon Carter Museum, photo by Suzi Migdol

Henry Darger's typewriter, photo by Jacinda Russell

& finally, one of the most accessible collections of photographs from his epic book can be found in:
Darger: The Henry Darger Collection at the American Folk Art Museum
 American Folk Art Museum in association with Harry N. Abrams, 2001 at 128 glossy colored pages.

review of : Boondocks Saints: All Saints Day

**no spoilers**

So Sam Raimi made Evil Dead & if you had seen that original as a very serious horror movie, then the sequel would have been a surprise. The first Boondocks Saints movie is often compared to Scarface, the sequel carves a less serious niche all its own. But as a young filmmaker, sometimes they have to give themselves permission to have fun with the process. If they have a strong fan base this can be a vital self confidence boosting exercise, important to their evolution as a later artist.

That being said, the sequel to The Boondock Saints
 is this screenwriter/director Troy Duffy’s second movie to make ever. In person, you can tell he enjoys film and was very nice & down to earth but Duffy isn’t the most confident guy in the room. In our conversation, I told him it was okay to take his time between movies to do it right. I also told him “fuk Weinstein.”

Weinstein is a studio exec that this director must’ve pissed off. I asked him how he managed to do that & he just laughed. There is a quite defamatory “documentary” funded by that studio exec which features a lot of cleverly edited outbursts taken out of context & shown in a way that makes the director look like a tool. Troy Duffy & Sean Patrick Flannery both confirmed this was the case in Q&A, they also put the rumors to rest and said 100% of the people involved in the last film came back to work on the sequel. The holy trinity of filmmaking is to have a single artist direct, film & edit their own work. The Coen Brothers do it, so does Robert Rodriguez. It is a rare thing because the studios don’t like giving any one person that much control.

Studios also don’t like giving the audiences that much control. Distribution of film is tricky business & its based on what they assume will be popular (who their selected control group of test audiences deem fit for mall release). Sleeper cult hits are a nagging reminder that studios don’t always know what the audience wants.

The director said that he originally got no profits out of the first film & the studios didn’t even give him the rights to the sequel. They fought in court for five years before all parties settled with him out of court for an “undisclosed sum of money” Lucky for us, he also got the right to make a sequel & do it his way.

"Boondocks Saints: All Saints Day” is a fun movie to watch. It looks like it was pretty fun to make too. It is a little heavier on comic relief than I would like, but the gratuitous violence is still there. The Brothers McManus still have the same chemistry & it was fun to watch them interact in real life. The new Mexican sidekick introduced in the film tries to be funny but he reminded me of one of Street Fighter Sonny Chiba’s wacky helpers.      But I will forgive his unnecessary slapstick, because the fight scene the sidekick is introduced with is pretty freaking awesome.

Julie Benz from the series Dexter plays an FBI agent and he films her like it’s a Russ Meyer movie, from the taking down of her hair to her cherry red heels. I appreciate a tough as nails & smart female character that isn’t there to be avenged or rescued. Speaking of great characters, I really liked the dark psychological stuff going on with the bad guy “shooter.”

There are lots of dream sequences & re-enactments of all new murders which lend a surreal quality to the movie. This gives the story a sense of balance actually & keeps it from being uneven. I suppose the comic relief is a break for the intensity of all the killing, which still has that odd sense of reverence (who knew I would also run into a highly religious boondocks fan at the afterparty lol). Excellent prequel flashbacks tell the origin story of the father’s own violent youth.
The priest from the first movie has been murdered in an attempt to frame the brothers and lure them out of hiding. Three cops from the last movie are back (including stand up comic Bob Marley who I was hoping would get taken out before his next attempt at a joke) and are joined by the lady FBI agent. The brothers are in self imposed exile in Ireland & take the murder as a challenge to return. In an almost A-Team moment of preparation, we get to enjoy a shower scene of the brothers featuring the boys’ fine backside assets. This is my kind of exploitation movie. The sequel brings more vigilanteeism, interrogations, setups & over the top plans. Fight choreography reminded me of a music video at times. But it was worth it all to see the plot culminate in the greenhouse. The dialogue between those two characters… firelight flickering off their glasses, ah that scene looked great.

The director talked about the symbolism of bad guy Peter Fonda’s ritualistic snack and was worried that we had missed it with our audience’s rowdy laughter. I told him I caught the comment about the tomatoes on the phone and then I compared it to the scene in Angel Heart where deNiro is eating the egg. The director seemed relieved and a little flattered. He shook his head in agreement, “that is exactly the mood I was going for there.” I also told him he had enough artistic serious footage that he didn’t have to add so much cheese but I still enjoyed the film.

They leave a wide door open for another sequel. Personally, I am thrilled.  Army of Darkness was a really fun movie done with great production values after the first two The Evil Dead pictures became underground sensations, leading director Sam Raimi to head the Spider-Man franchise for a while. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Troy Duffy. If this picture gives him the confidence & contacts to do another film (whether its in the Boondocks storyline or not), I expect good things. If the fans stick with him after All Saints Day & have fun with this sequel, I think Duffy will not be afraid to take himself seriously.

Writer/Director Troy Duffy and actors Sean Patrick Flanery & Norman Reedus were in attendance at the screening as well as the drunken afterparty at the Irish pub, Trinity Hall. There was massive fan presence & they all signed autographs for at least two hours at the pub. The brothers needed their bodyguards to keep the lusting females at bay. But both actors had conversations with the fans while Reedus took smoke breaks, posing for pictures, signing memorabilia like tattoos inspired by the movie & defying bodyguards in general. The director hung out and talked film with all the movie nerds like me.

The theatre was filled to capacity an hour before show time (my companion waited in line for two & half hours for our seats). Many people were turned away, others were smuggled in & sat lining the walls of the theatre as well as the center row. Fans drove from all over this state and a few neighboring ones to see the film, some travelling over 5 & 6 hours. Q&A questions about the documentary, kudos to the filmmaker & fans from places like Oklahoma City asking when will this movie come to big screen in little town America?