Larry Wessel interviewed by Dwid Hellion for Dissonance radio

Dwid's Halloween Special

Guest Host: Dwid Hellion (Integrity, Psywarfare, Sledgehammer, Roses Never Fade)

Playlist:

Dwid reads "The Raven" by Guido Gezelle | Dwid reads "Hellhounds" | interview with artist Stephen Kasner ( Works: 1993 - 2006) | Stephen Kasner feat. James Plotkin - Blood Fountain | interview with Craig Mack (Living Hell) |

Living Hell - Malleus Dei | Pulling Teeth - Dead Is Dead | Vegas - Cure My Heart from Beating | Vegas - Rhythm of Decline | Shoot to Kill - North | Ringworm - Hangman | Pale Creation - Kaliira | Roses Never Fade - Rosa Italia |

Roses Never Fade - The Man They Want to Hang | interview with filmmaker Larry Wessel ( Iconoclast) | Dwid Hellion and Boyd Rice - Total War | Boyd Rice

& Friends - Disneyland Can Wait | Scorpion Wind - Never Forget | Boyd Rice & Friends - I'd Rather Be Your Enemy |

LISTEN

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ATTN BOYD RICE FANS: ICONOCLASTMOVIE.COM HAS LAUNCHED!!

Dear Friends,

At Last...today...

The long wait is over!!

Please click this link below...



The trailer for ICONOCLAST (my Boyd Rice documentary) is now online.

The World Premiere is at WWW.ICONOCLASTMOVIE.COM



The expected release for ICONOCLAST is Summer 2008.

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Larry Wessel's films at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF 8)



MUFF 8 PROGRAM

It's Time To Pay Homage: Larry Wessel

Jack Sargeant


In an age in which film is characterized by rapid fire edits designed to sate the briefest of attention spans Larry Wessel makes movies that demand the audience sit down and watch.

While some contemporary documentarians maintain a didactic narration, and even an on-screen presence to guide an audience, Wessel's work is characterised by long takes that seek to render - to quote Mel Lyman - "something as it really

is".

Influenced at an early age by Robert Flaherty's homage to the Inuit existence already disappearing into memory Nanook of the North (1922) and Fredrick Wiseman's 1967 grim asylum documentary Titticut Follies,

Wessel – in the majority of his films – occupies the role of passive observer, letting the world unveil itself before his gaze.

Wessel takes his camera to the kind of places most people don't get to see and meets the individuals most people don't get to meet.

In Tattoo Deluxe (1998) the camera presents life in a San Pedro tattoo studio, while Sugar and Spice (1995) depicts the Los Angeles transgender and drag communities, and features the legendary Goddess Bunny amongst others.

Letting the camera roll and giving his subjects the time and space to be themselves Wessel enables the audience to maintain a degree of empathy with the various personalities that populate his films.

Wessel's obsessive nature ensures that his work pursue uniquely personal interests unwaveringly. Each shot, each frame, each edit building upon and revealing his own fascinations.

Best seen in Taurobolium (1994) his masterwork, created from footage from more than 200 of Tijuana's corridas,

the film captures the Duende of the bullring with a relentless rhythmic intensity that only ends in the gore of the slaughterhouse.

In 1997 Wessel began working on Sex, Death and the Hollywood Mystique. Loosely based on the historical writings of cult LA noir author John Gilmore, stardom intermixed with sleaze, decadence, and other tales of the Hollywood Dream

gone bad.

The film marks a break with the director's previous direct cinema style instead. As Wessel wrote, the movie has "a more Felliniesque approach to the documentary form"

which includes a scene depicting Gilmore shovelling dry soil onto a naked female. Michael Moore never did this.

Wessel's 1999 documentary feature Song Demo For A Helen Keller World sees the director watching prankster legend John – 'Blind Man's Penis' - Trubee working with the band the Ugly Janitors of America.

Once again the emphasis is on paying witness, as the band rehearse and record in front of Wessel's camera.

The films chosen for this MUFF retrospective cover Wessel's work throughout the '90s, and offer a glimpse into the world of Wesselmania.

In addition to Wessel's documentaries MUFF will screen Lip-Stick Liz a prize-winning music video by Wessel.

Also included here is the short Disinfo Nation documentary about Wessel. Currently directing a documentary on Boyd Rice, Wessel promises that it'll screen at MUFF in the future, but in the meantime a teaser will be screened before each

session.

Session 1: Taurobolium (1hr 45min) + Lip-Stick Liz (3mins)

Friday Sept. 21 @ 7pm

Session 2: Sugar and Spice (2hrs)

Saturday Sept. 22 @ 5pm

Session 3: Tattoo Deluxe (1hr 42min) + Disinfo Nation (3mins)

Monday Sept. 24 @ 5pm

Session 4: Sex, Death, and The Hollywood Mystique (2hrs 35min)

Monday Sept. 24 @ 7pm

Session 5: Song Demo For a Helen Keller World (2hr)

Thursday Sept. 27 @ 9pm

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SYDNEY AUSTRALIA SCREENING OF LARRY WESSEL'S TAUROBOLIUM APRIL 8TH

Saturday 8th April TAUROBOLIUM Larry Wessel's awe inspiring Mexican bullfighting film TAUROBOLIUM. Between 1991 and 1993 Wessel traveled south of the border, a Hemmingway with a video camera, the ensuing film pays witness to

the battle between men and bulls.

Inspired by the photographs of Brendan Leech and My Life as a Matador by the great Mexican matador Carlos Arruza and La Fiesta Brava by Barnaby Conrad.

Wessel's work focuses on the explosion of the carnivalesque within the rigid frame of the everyday. Wessel's videos detail a world in which illusions of order fragment and transgression becomes manifest, moments of sacrifice and excess.

"Here it is, folks: the World Series, Super Bowl, Indy 500, and World Soccer raised to the highest power.

Real people enjoying all the thrills, spills, and chills of good clean sports. The stars, the spectators, and the hard workers behind the scenes.

All this, plus a great musical score. Too bad Larry Wessel wasn't around with his camera in Rome filming the Circus Maximus." –Anton LaVey CHURCH OF SATAN

Mu-Meson Archives doors 7.30pn $10 with supper.