Anniversary Post: John Waters

John Waters

Today, 22 April, director and creepy mustache-lover John Waters is 74 years old. It’s kind of hard not to love him because is work is all over the place. Who in the world doesn’t enjoy either Pink Flamingos or Hairspray or both?

And what psychotronic fan can resist Waters’ love letter to all of us, Serial Mom?

But it’s hardly surprising that Waters has given up directing. As he’s shown a number of times, he can competently direct a standard narrative film. But it clearly isn’t what he’s interested in.

In Female Trouble, far more care was taken applying the tread marks to Divine’s underwear than were applied to any shot in the film. What John Waters added to cinema was his unique interests and twisted sense of humor.

This is core to this site. If you have the money, creating a professional film is easy (as long as you are willing to let the professionals do their jobs). But what’s most interesting is when a filmmaker offers something unique. John Waters does that.


Image cropped from John Waters by PEN America, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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