by Michelle Bortoni

Cult Cinema: the power of peculiarity?

Peculiar, bad, queer, weird, complicated, dark?? These and many other adjectives are used to classify “cult cinema”. It is hard to explain with an exact definition this type of film categorization; however it has been one of the hybrid film genres that possess more ambiguity and power to break the standards of “traditional” cinema.

Cult films are the ones that, for content, pure luck, or originality can become famous and become worthy of a good status in the film industry. The fusion of film genres such as science fiction with horror, a little drama, and even cartoons, among many others, generate the production of movies that later become so famous, legendary and even part of the film canon. Huge amount of followers make them survive and accepted in spite of time.

The idea of classifying a movie into a cult one is very uncertain. The notion of cult is attributed to those films people watch for countless times and generate a certain kind of devotion to: those that fanatics find something in its content so worthy to continue to watch and produce. Blockbusters and immediate success will not be words associated with this field, in the other hand, low-budget and unusual will be instant tags. Usually unknown artists, director and producers move through this world, and, when they achieve status in cult cinema, they become famous and prestigious. Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick are some directors that will be associated with cult cinema.

Those films in which the dialogues are preserved throughout the times, those that we constantly hear in parodies or even in other movies being “quoting” other movies will be considered as cult cinema. Sometimes a cult film can have so much impact that can lead to negative effects. For example Stanley Kubricks’ “A clockwork Orange” which portray a young mans’ felonious deeds and his eventual psychological punishment in the hand of the government, represents a film that acquire a cult status that produced fanatic outcomes. “A clockwork Orange” was banned in Great Britain because “a 17 year old girl was rapped in 1973 in Lancashire, at the hand of men singing Singing in the Rain. And a 16 year old boy had beaten a younger child while wearing Alex’s uniform of white overalls, black bowler hat and combat boots.” (http://www.filmsite.org/cloc.html). This is how people can become so influential by a cult film and started to see it as a way of life.

Another example will be Disney’s “Fantasia”. This animated 2 million film was unsuccessful when it was released in the 40’s, however it acquire its cult status when it was re-released in the 60’s. The “drug culture” took the movie as part of their own culture; they claim it to be one of their hallucinatory experiences. Other cases of movies getting its cult status are the acclaimed Wachowskis’ brothers “The Matrix”, Darren Aronofskys’ “Requiem for a Dream” and George Lucas’ acclaimed “Star Wars” from 1977. This and many other turn out people converge in one same idea: loving a peculiar movie.

It is important not to confuse cult cinema with the notion of “bad movies that were being accepted by luck”. Sometimes people can think cult cinema is just awful movies that were accepted merely by luck, but this is not necessarily true. Some of them have even proved to be really good creations with not or very few distribution.

For sure, cult cinema is peculiar and it is not for every one. If you like originality, un-commercial and peculiar movies, then you might like this genre. Cult cinema has its own special audiences, and for each film there is a certain group of followers that finds in a movie something in common with their own philosophy of life. If you are a cinema lover, you got to try some cult films, then you will portray what I’m trying to describe here. To start with you can watch all time “cult classics” like “A clockwork orange”, or if you want to try something really “cultish” then try David Lynchs’ “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Mulholland Dr.” (2001).