Strange Culture, a documentary film directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson
about Critical Art Ensemble artist Steve Kurtz, featuring Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan
Docurama Films, 2007
Governments do not have to censor or circumscribe, prosecute or persecute, but out of a concern for their own power, and to protect moneyed interests, and sometimes to ensure public safety, they do. One such occasion seems to be that of artist Steve Kurtz, whose work with Critical Art Ensemble, a five-person collective, investigated the relationships among industry, science, the government, and the public, especially regarding the introduction of genetically modified food, without proper labeling, to the consumer market: people literally do not know what they are eating, or what the long term effects are likely to be (they are walking experiments). In addition, with the current and increasing inclination of corporations to patent life forms, greater monopoly threatens. In Strange Culture, we see how two events converged in Steve Kurtz’s life to profoundly detrimental effect. As Steve and his wife Hope Kurtz and their colleagues prepared for a large exhibit focused on experimental produce, as part of his work Steve acquired through an internet purchase bacteria that he prepared in glass-enclosed cultures (he was consulting scientists too); and in May 2004 when Kurtz awoke in bed to realize that his wife Hope—an editor known for her gift for identifying patterns and anomalies—was not breathing, he then reported that, and the people investigating the sudden death saw his arty science work, the equipment and chemicals, and they feared bioterrorism—and Kurtz’s prosecution, or persecution, began. The justice authorities knew nothing of contemporary art, and the broad range of domains art explores or the analytical practices it engages; and they did not care to listen as Steve Kurt tried to explain. Ignorance and power were aligned against Steve Kurtz.
Strange Culture is an intelligent and useful film, demonstrating how several cultures acquire and disseminate knowledge, specifically the art world and the justice system. It allows experts to speak, and it presents evidence. We even see some art—some of which is expectedly odd, and some of which is obvious tribute to tradition. The center of the film is Steve Kurtz, a long-haired blond, blue-jeaned artist and teacher, with dark circles under his eyes and a soft, humorous manner. He talks directly to the camera; and other times he is impersonated, quite effectively, in scenes by actor Thomas Jay Ryan, who projects sensitivity with intelligence, an indirect sensuality, and a certain impatience. Several ironies occur: the work of Kurtz and his associates was about the nature of social justice, and the impact of ignorance and knowledge on the public, and Kurtz came to feel the force of law (knowledge did not protect him); and when police authorities—the local police and then the Federal Bureau of Investigation—did their own work, driven by a supposed suspicion of bioterrorism, they were careless and clumsy with the materials they handled and the garbage they left behind. Kurtz’s case embodies his worry, exemplifying the warning in his work; and the manner and methods of the policing authorities defied their own announced standards and concern for possibly hazardous materials. Both the police and the FBI autopsy Hope Kurtz; and heart failure is found as the cause of her death, but they persist in pursuing her grieving, stunned husband. Steve Kurtz is described as an open and giving collaborator and teacher, someone who is missed as he becomes involved in the legal case against him; and his students, who are fond of him, are afraid of signing a petition on his behalf. The students do not want to be on the FBI’s radar. It is sad to think that a benign gesture could threaten one’s own security (it makes an individual wonder about whether the genuine complaints one has lodged, or the legitimate protests one has joined, are part of a file that—ignobly, maliciously—will be used against one). Why should an individual be punished for seeking justice, especially by the justice department? Kurtz does get a vigorous defense from a lawyer named Cambria who has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union; and that defense is necessary, as Kurtz realizes that a persona and crime are being constructed by the prosecutors that bear no real resemblance to who he is or what he has done. Government investigators ask those who know Kurtz about Kurtz’s politics, sexual habits, and drug use, questions that seem both crass and stupid. Why is such an effort being made? More than one person says that this is an attempt to broaden the reach of the (George W. Bush) government into academe and art, achieving the ability to silence dissent. Making civil issues a criminal matter could do that; and agencies and laws—and the power they create and employ—survive the change in administrations. First, silence the artists and thinkers. An auction at the Paula Cooper Gallery is held, with writer Wallace Shawn’s participation, and many in the art world seem to rally and more than one-hundred-and-sixty thousand dollars are raised for the defense of Kurtz and the ailing scientist who is charged with him, Robert Ferrell. One might think the case could be dropped completely when the public health commissioner declares that Steve Kurtz’s work did not provide or provoke a threat to public safety, but then prosecutors simply shift gears, charging him with wire fraud connected to how the bacteria he used was acquired. (Someone says it is a unique fraud charge, in which no one directly involved—buyer or seller, museum or artist, or anyone else—has complained of being defrauded.) The film Strange Culture was made before the case was resolved, and shows us some of the artists and lawyers who were actually involved in this real world event but it also features dramatic scenes with Tilda Swinton (smart, quick, shrewd, honest) as Hope, and Thomas Jay Ryan (casually comprehensive and responsive) as Steve. It is one of those real world matters that you have to see to believe and even then it seems fantastical—or, more precisely, nightmarish.
Other Films
Documentaries, new, recent, and old, are not the only films worth considering; however, a film such as Strange Culture contains much that does, or should, concern us. There are some films that I think might be great, films certainly worth discussing: The Dry Land, The Exploding Girl, Wendy and Lucy, and Winter’s Bone. The Dry Land, starring Ryan O’Nan and America Ferrara, focuses on a young couple after the husband returns from war, having forgotten a painful event there, in which his compassion rather than his violent impulses led him astray; The Exploding Girl, about an epileptic girl played by Zoe Kazan, and her best male friend, two college students who return to the city while on break, as her boyfriend moves further from her and her best male friend considers that he and she might become closer; Wendy and Lucy, about a quietly desperate and nearly destitute girl (actress Michelle Williams) who is traveling with her dog; and Winter’s Bone, about a young woman (actress Jennifer Lawrence) who must find her absent, drug-making father who is out on bail, or face being evicted with her mother and siblings from the family home, which has been used for the father’s bond, and to find her father she must seek out dangerous relatives, crazy country people. These films, with exceptional writing and cinematography and acting, present portraits of America that are true: we recognize both experience—the brutal confusion of war, the struggle for survival, the drift of youth, and the desire for friendship and love—and what we know about experience.
As well, I liked Columbus Short in Armored, as a caretaker for his younger brother and a man who takes a security guard job and is induced to participate in a robbery; and Omari Hardwick as a bisexual husband to a controlling magazine editor in For Colored Girls, the recent film interpretation, also featuring Kimberley Elise and Whoopi Goldberg, of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem theatrical production. Short’s acting is full of emotional detail—concern, fear, outrage, pride, and shrewdness; and Omar Hardwick has the cool surface and nagging tension of a man balancing desire and responsibility. I liked the rakish Ewan McGregor in The Ghost Writer and as a gentleman in Miss Potter. I admired Natalie Portman’s performance in both The Other Woman and No Strings Attached, two films with different spirits (in the former, about marriage, adultery, and grief, Portman plays an angry young woman, and in the second about friendship and sex, with a deeply charming and effective Ashton Kutcher, Portman is both alienated and free). I thought the musical Burlesque, featuring Cher and Christina Aguilera, was amusing and sweet, an achievement in a treatment of a subject that could be tawdry (and Aguilera’s voice is genuinely amazing); and City Island, about a prison guard father (starring Andy Garcia) who discovers his abandoned son in prison and takes him home, had a similarly light spirit. I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes; and Somewhere. I could note that I did not particularly like Precious or The Social Network (the characters and the situations were mostly repellent), though I appreciated Paula Patton in the first and Armie Hammer in the second; and there are things—positive and negative, I think—to be said about Beastly, Big Fan, The Company Men, The Fighter, Love and Other Drugs, The Next Three Days and other movies. Yet, a film like Strange Culture is not only about the world we live in, but it is about how the world came to be and continues to be what it is.
