A closer look
If Hollywood was about high-budget glamour, Jack Smith was about dumpster-diving for rhinestones. The pioneer of underground trash-baroque cinema famously shot his controversial 1963 film "Flaming Creatures" on expired film stock using stolen props and actors who were mostly just his fabulous, heavily made-up friends loitering on a New York rooftop. His aesthetic aggressively mocked consumer culture by showing that true, chaotic glamour could be achieved with nothing but moldy theatrical costumes and a complete disregard for obscenity laws.
