The Super-8 camera and projector were once the beloved means by which postwar America could document itself, freezing forever, it was thought, reassuring images of kids' birthday parties, Levittown barbecues, Kodak Christmases, and other homely celebrations of unobstructed upward mobility and cheery conformity. But Super-8 vanished almost entirely from the culture long ago, and with it went all those supposedly simple lives and dreams and homespun rituals it chronicled. The greatest of these faithful, indeed one of the most powerful artists working in any medium today, is Luther Price, the subject of several recent retrospectives, including one in May 2000 at the San Francisco Cinematheque .
Price is an anomaly on many levels.
He's gay but unwelcome by the gay community , which reviled him for the alleged homophobic excesses of Sodom . Much of his personal history is mysterious, in spite of his frequent use of himself and his family and their history via photos and home movies in his films. He works in a disreputable format, appears in various guises in his own work from stylized, frozen-faced drag queen to naked performance artist to clown. And he occupies the same contested cultural space as artists like Karen Finley in being so controversial that his work has occasioned the immediate firing of programmers who have dared to show it. Increasingly revered as a filmmaker, he's also made a strong impact in his sculpture, photography, and performance art.