Thursday, March 21, 2013

Fingered (Richard Kern, 1986)

Always encased in the tightest fishnets money can buy (though, truth be told, I sincerely hope she shoplifts them), the supple legs attached to the torso belonging to the irascible Lydia Lunch (Vortex) will severely test the durability of the synthetic material that covers your pathetic crotch. Unless, of course, you're wearing sweatpants. If that's the case, may your bulge be large and fruitful. If, however, you happen to have self-respect, and are wearing real pants when you watch this film, then may god have mercy on your groin and its uphill battle to stay lukewarm and well-ventilated. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about all you ladies out there. Dangling in a manner that will no doubt drive discerning lesbians wild with cunt-drenching desire, Lydia Lunch's powerful, Smithsonian-worthy stems will surely compromise the impermeability of the fabric that surrounds your soon to be damp pussy. Either way, whether being poked with unplanned hardness or drowned in wave after wave of tepid vagina water, your stain-laden pants are going to have to be put in the wash after they get through watching Fingered, a sleazy, disgusting film that begs the question: Does Lydia Lunch moisturize her thighs, or are they just naturally creamy? Mmm, creamy thighs throbbing on my plate, oozing thickness from every pore. Um, yeah, anyway. I know, pants can't watch movies (they don't have eyes, or a central nervous system, for that matter). But they're going to feel like they have after they experience the Lydia Lunch-a-thon that is this short but sweet trip to Scumbagville, U.S.A., population: Who gives a shit.
 
 
Told to stomp, kick, straddle, run, twitch, and some times told to just plain walk, Lydia Lunch's gams are put through their shapely paces in this film. The person instructing her legs to stomp, kick, straddle, etc. is none other than underground filmmaker Richard Kern, a man who probably knows a thing or two about photographing Lydia Lunch's world famous organic structure whilst under duress. 
 
 
After being subjected to a lengthy disclaimer, one that includes the words, "shock," "insult," and irritate," Fingered opens with a shot of Lydia Lunch–whose character's name is never mentioned, so let's just call her Lydia Lunch–talking on the telephone. Asking one of her regular phone-sex customers for their credit card number, Lydia Lunch slowly starts to lose patience with him. "The fucking credit card number," she yells at him at one point. When the card number is finally divulged, the caller (Emilio Cubeiro) goes on this long tirade about "human garbage" and "human excrement." I guess he didn't like the sarcastic tone she used when she said, "yes...mommy's here."  Hey, you call Lydia Lunch for phone-sex, you're bound to get some sarcasm. At any rate, Lydia Lunch hangs up on the caller after his three minutes are up.
 
 
While I liked the weird energy of the opening scene, and I could have sworn the "human garbage" line was sampled on a Skinny Puppy song (Velvet Acid Christ, perhaps?), I thought we spent too much time in the caller's squalid apartment and not enough with Lydia Lunch, who looked super-foxy in her black see-trough negligee.
 
 
The self-proclaimed "hottest slut in town" has no trouble getting another caller on the line. Bent over a table, Lydia Lunch tells Marty Nation all the wonderful things she would do if she had access to his genitals. Stroking his cock in, what looks like, an auto-body shop, Marty Nation can't wait to stick his "fat juicy cock" in Lydia Lunch's "greasy little hole." Call me sane, but I love the way Lydia Lunch says "cock" in this movie. It's one of my favourite words, so to hear it uttered by one of the sexiest women on the planet was a real treat.    
 
 
You know these two aren't going to be fully satisfied until they meet face-to-face, or, in this film's case, hand-to-muff, so they arrange to rendezvous with one another. Sitting on a table, her black heels gripping its surface with a quiet desperation, Lydia Lunch hurls her fishnet pantyhose/black panties-adorned crotch two and fro in an attempt to unfurl the hopefully bulbous contents that lie on the other side of a complex series of jagged metal teeth. Teasing a clearly flabbergasted Marty Nation, the owner and chief proprietor of said hopefully bulbous contents, to the point of madness, Lydia, who is also wearing black opera gloves and black vinyl footless suspender tights over top of her black fishnet pantyhose, ceases to mock thrust her dewy undercarriage.
 
 
Pulling out his trusty switchblade, Marty Nation cuts a path to Lydia Lunch's vagina. Declaring, "I want your pussy now," Marty Nation plants his face in her lap just as Lydia Lunch instructs him to "take it."
 
 
When they finish with the foreplay, Fingered starts to live up to its name.
 
 
"Words all fail the magic prize / Nothing I can say when I'm in your..." ~ "Add It Up," The Violent Femmes

 
The black suspenders attached to Lydia Lunch's vinyl, footless leggings tear across her pale hindquarters like bad gothic poetry.
 
 
When a guy waiting for a bus asks Lydia Lunch, who has since changed into a short black skirt and a black short-sleeved blouse, where her "faggot boyfriend" is, Marty Nation sneaks up behind him and slits his throat with his aforementioned trusty switchblade.
 
 
Getting into his 1950s-style automobile, Marty Nation and Lydia Lunch, as my spirit animal Frank Booth would say, "hit the fucking the road."
 
 
You're not going to find a more beautiful image of Lydia Lunch than the sight of her arguing with Marty Nixon (who looks like Paul Barker from Ministry from certain angles) in the passenger seat of his car. Her hair is perfect. Her legs are crossed. Her earrings are divine. She's wearing fishnet pantyhose. And, most importantly, her trademark sneer is in top form.
 
 
When Marty Nation stabs his redneck friend in the leg after dry straddling Lydia Lunch for longer than he was comfortable with, I started to get the impression that is Marty Nation fella is a bit of an asshole. What am I saying, "a bit of an asshole"?!? He's a fully formed asshole. Which got me a thinking, why is Lydia Lunch hanging around this guy? He's repulsive.
 
 
Take the next scene, for example, where he shoves the barrel of a gun into Lydia Lunch's vagina. I mean, that was totally not cool. Then it dawned me, Lydia Lunch loves his cock. Only problem being, she has to put up with a lot of his "macho bull shit" to get it. Now, I realize being raped by a gun isn't your typical "macho bull shit" by any means. But the world of Fingered is anything but typical.
 
 
As a visibly annoyed Lydia Lunch and a more smug than usual Marty Nixon are talking about his revolting cock, we're introduced to a frazzled hitchhiker played by the luminous Lung Leg. Looking like she's been through hell, Lung Leg gets into their car. I know, she couldn't have picked a worse car to bum a ride from, but that's life. Sometimes we're picked up by Donnie and Marie Osmond, and sometimes we're picked up by Lydia Lunch and her sleazy as fuck boyfriend.
 
 
While I don't really want to go into what happens next , but let's just say Lung Leg is quite the trooper. Thrown around like a dishevelled ragdoll, Lung Leg gives a frighteningly real performance as an emotionally fragile woman on the brink of a complete and utter mental breakdown. The final minutes of Fingered had a sort of snuff film vibe about it. Not that I know what a snuff film looks like. But I imagine it would look something like this. Ugly, grimy, sick and twisted. It's slowly dawning on me that I just watched Fingered.


uploaded by Ac1dJazz

9 comments:

  1. yay!

    I'll write more soon. The despondence will be great.

    Lung Leg steals the very end of this film. I love her.

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  2. More Lung Leggy goodness to come. Woo-hoo!

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  3. Lung Leg's image is forever burned into my memory. I worshiped SONIC-YOUTH's "EVOL" as a piece of the true cross as a teen. That album, plus Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" and "Persona", were mental architecture changing at fourteen. Lung Leg was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I was totally hypnotized by that album cover. So much was capture in that one photograph.

    It took me a long time to finally track down Kern's films with her. He's hit or miss, really. Some of his stuff is amazing. Some of it is... not the best. Better at choosing subjects, letting them run wild, and capturing environments than forming actual films. If anyone other than Lydia or Lung Leg were in "Fingered," it would be a wreck. I'm not a fan of all the pervy upskirt stuff he's done in the past decade or so.

    I'm going to watch this again and report back.

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  4. Even though I never purchased it (I remember it being quite pricy back in the day), the cover of EVOL is hands down one of the coolest album covers of all-time.

    If Lydia Lunch and Lung Leg weren't in Fingered, I probably wouldn't have watched it.

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  5. Lung Leg was on acid when they shot her parts. That's great for her performance, but I can't imagine going through that under normal circumstances, let alone tripping.

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  6. It was ecstasy actually so was Lydia and I was stone cold sober if I recall correctly. Marty Nation

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    1. Mr. Nation, I just want you to know that your performance is absolutely incredible. Every line that comes out of your mouth is instantly memorable.

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  7. I found it recently on the free porn site "motherless"

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  8. Wow I had all these Kern films on VHS back in '90/'91 ordered from Film Threat mag. Nice to be reminded of the luminous Lung Leg and the bad gothic poetry of porno Lydia Lunch. Thanks!

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