Promptly after the premiere of FLAMING CREATURES—Smith’s orgiastic, messy tangle of bodies, lipstick, and vampires—at the Bleeker Street Cinema in New York City, police arrived at the theater and seized the print, and the film was banned across the country and internationally. Filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who was charged with violating New York’s obscenity laws for screening the film in 1964, wrote in Film Comment of his arrest, “It is my duty as an artist and as a man to show the best work of my contemporaries to the people. It is my duty to bring to your attention the ridiculousness and illegality of the licensing and obscenity laws. The duty of the artist is to ignore bad laws and fight them every moment of his life. All works of art, all expressions of man’s spirit must be permitted, must be available to the people. In what times do we live, when works of art are identified with the workings of crime? What a beautiful insanity!”
Film Center Member Presale: Monday, August 14 - 10:00AM online / 5:30PM box office
General Public: Thursday, August 17 - 10:00AM online / 5:30PM box office