If you're located far from the path of today's total solar eclipse, or your forecast is for cloudy skies, we've got you covered. Feast your eyes on a very different eclipse, namely filmmaker George Kuchar's 1967 twelve minute short, Eclipse of the Sun Virgin. You won't even need special glasses!
Writing in Artforum, Ed Halter situates the film in an important moment of transition for the director that accompanied a key technological upgrade: "After switching to 16 mm, each brother worked independently, and George cast himself as nebbish-protagonist in nerdy-dirty works like Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966) and Eclipse of the Sun Virgin (1967), countering contemporary celebrations of free love with fractured ballads of sexual frustration." Kuchar had this to say of the film, which starred Deborah-Ann and Edith Fischer: "I dedicate this film poem to the behemoths of yesteryear that perished in Siberia along with the horned pachyderms of the pre-glacial epoch. This chilling montage of crimson repression must be seen. Painstakingly filmed and edited, it will be painful to watch, too." We'll let our listeners judge for themselves.
You can see Eclipse of the Sun Virgin and many more films — including the aforementioned Hold Me While I'm Naked; The Kiss of Frankenstein; Meet the Kuchar Brothers; I, of the Cyclops; Coven of the Heathenites; and Zealots of the Zinc Zone — on PennSound's George Kuchar author page, along with a three-part Close Listening program hosted by Charles Bernstein, which was recorded in Provincetown during the summer of 2009.
