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MOVIES / ON DVD / JACK SMITH AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ATLANTIS
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

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Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007)

83%
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83 %
Reviews Counted: 18 Fresh: 15  Rotten:3 Average Rating: 7.3/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins

Synopsis: Jack Smith was a legendary figure on the New York avant garde art scene, and his FLAMING CREATURES is rightly hailed as a masterpiece in its field. This documentary gives an overview of Smith's incredible career. Jack Smith was a legendary figure on the New York avant garde art scene, and his FLAMING CREATURES is rightly hailed as a masterpiece in its field. This documentary gives an overview of Smith's incredible career. [More]

Genre: Education/General Interest

Starring: John Waters, Ken Jacobs, Judith Malina, Jonas Mekas, Maria Montez

Director: Mary Jordan
Screenwriter: Mary Jordan
Producer: Mary Jordan

Reviews

 
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1 - 19 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Jordan’s film is a glorious visual achievement in its own right, as well as part of the rancorous ongoing dispute over Smith’s legacy.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/14/07
Ben Walters
Time Out
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3.5/4

Mary Jordan's documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis is part unsparing explication of a life story, part love-stuck personification of Smith's working philosophy.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/30/07
Wesley Morris
Boston Globe
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3.5/5

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Full Review | comment Comment
06/05/07
Film Threat
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Full Review | comment Comment
04/25/07
Hollywood Reporter
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3/4

It's the only place you'll find clips of his notorious masterpiece Flaming Creatures (1963), and for that alone it's worth seeing.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/19/07
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
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B+

If modern art-lovers want to understand what the Jack Smith experience was like, Jordan's documentary may be their best chance.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/14/07
Noel Murray
Onion AV Club
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3/4

This invaluable record contains a treasure trove of clips from Smith's hard-to-see and still striking films, plus comments that were culled from hours of interviews with this flamboyant pioneer.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/13/07
Lou Lumenick
New York Post
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2/4

There is invaluable material here, but also a lack of context for the wonderfully outre footage.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/12/07
John Anderson
Newsday
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Mary Jordan's documentary is an impressive, fascinating achievement.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/12/07
David Noh
Film Journal International
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4/4

Alternately bizarre and inspired, but an appropriate tribute to an uncompromisingly experimental innovator in the field of cinema.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/12/07
Kam Williams
Denver Urban Spectrum
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An intriguing, and profoundly frustrating, view of the New York underground hero.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/11/07
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
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The intoxicating documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, directed by Mary Jordan, is a love poem to the New York City of the '50s and '60s, when Smith, the visionary of camp, more or less invented performance art.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/11/07
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
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3.5/4

Thank heavens for Mary Jordan's vibrant, funny and tragic documentary, an entertaining hodgepodge of artifacts and impressions of a "creature" whose influence on photography, drama, film and art is still felt today.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/11/07
Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide
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3.5/5

It's gratifying when an influential underground artist is profiled in an accessible documentary. For that reason alone, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis is worth seeing.

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04/11/07
Matt Zoller Seitz
New York Times
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In some ways Smith's art became commodified only after he died and his estranged sister gained control over his work, though that did lead to this documentary, a fascinating introduction to his special world.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/10/07
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
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Helmer Mary Jordan does an extraordinary job sorting through extensive material and gathering a who's who of collaborators and disciples, offering an insightful and incisive portrait of a self-destructive paranoid artist.

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04/10/07
Jay Weissberg
Variety
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Smith's own work, here montaged for easy digestion, is already too rich and sumptuous to require any further frosting.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/10/07
Ed Halter
Village Voice
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In Jordan’s documentary you see the roots of camp as distinctly melancholy and yearning, a world of the spirit that can never be made flesh.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/09/07
David Edelstein
New York Magazine
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2/4

The film tries a little too fastidiously to piece together a life its owner tried quite brazenly to shatter.

Full Review | comment Comment
04/09/07
Eric Henderson
Slant Magazine
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