Shock trooper

>> New York underground film pioneer
Nick Zedd on subversion, 9/11,
escapism and propaganda

by RICK TREMBLES

The last time Nick Zedd tried to screen Whoregasm in Montreal, his copy was seized by Canada Customs and eventually returned with a letter calling it “morally bankrupt.” He’s been making underground films since the ’70s starring the likes of proto-punk Richard Hell and no wave diva Lydia Lunch. In the ’80s he established the “Cinema of Transgression” to break free from the “academic snobbery” prevalent in experimental film at the time. Zedd currently directs the cable access TV series Electra Elf out of Brooklyn. This Thursday, March 13, Cinema Abattoir presents the Montreal premiere of Angélique Bosio’s new documentary on Zedd and Co. Llik Your Idols with Zedd in attendance to present his 16mm classics (Whoregasm included). Friday, he’ll be screening his recent teleplays preceded by a collection of locally made underground shorts.

Mirror: What’s the difference between making films 30 years ago and today?

Nick Zedd: I’ve reinvented myself by producing G-rated fetish farces disguised as action/adventure. No more Super-8 or 16mm. Now it’s mini-DV and editing on a computer. I can do special effects and CGI where before it would have cost thousands. Still use miniatures, puppetry and cheap costumes with better results than Hollywood. Still DIY with unpaid actors. Same themes; targets I satirize from the same compost heap. I’m probably reaching more people now with the Internet and public access television. The amateur approach is the best way to break new ground; it all gets lost when professionalism takes over.

M: What would you consider subversive to the average viewer these days when so much mainstream material is geared to shock now, albeit on a more superficial level?

NZ: My recent “No Plague Like Home” examines the 9/11 false flag operation and identifies the perpetrators within the shadow government i.e. David Rockefeller, the Rothschilds, the drunken mole Cheney, the traitor Bush and other members of the global elite, although in a light-hearted way, naturally. The dominant myth of our age, the 9/11 lie is the false foundation propping up the last eight years of economic collapse, unrestrained military imperialism and global dominance unleashed on the world. It is imperative to dismantle this myth in every forum available in order to reverse the suicidal course of the U.S. empire whose sovereignty is targeted for annihilation by the masters of the Illuminati who now pull the strings of our puppet leaders. America is a nation of sheep led by a handful of pigs.

Hitting nerves

M: Is hitting a nerve nowadays more a matter of the context of the presentation than the content?

NZ: Both. Honest content’s buried or ridiculed by our corporate media, which is thinly veiled imperialist propaganda. Content can be integrated from insurgent sources into the media through pranks, actions and comedy programs which are the best source of information now that we’re living in a sad, sorry, fucked up simulation.

M: Where do you think new breeding grounds for communities of counterculture and dissent could best emanate from?

NZ: In the sewers, dive bars, under bridges, alleyways, shantytowns, FEMA trailers, classrooms and prisons.

M: You’ve said that typical current Tinseltown escapist fare resembles “elaborate propaganda sucking in audiences starved for a substitute reality to the mundane nightmare of capitalism.” Your recent teleplays employ special effects and elaborate costumes in humorous ways, basically creating your own alternate universe. How do you differentiate that from escapism?

NZ: It’s disguised as escapism but core truths are revealed in the subtexts readily apparent to anyone who’s paying attention.

M: Was 9/11 an inside job?

NZ: Of course. How else could 19 fanatics with boxcutters led by a guy in a cave on a dialysis machine breach the most heavily guarded airspace on Earth and not be intercepted before hitting two skyscrapers which then magically collapse at free fall speed in a controlled demolition secretly installed by Marvin Bush’s company Securacom in collusion with real estate tycoon Larry Silverstein, hoping to make a quick buck on his white elephant while helping the PNAC crazies jump-start a convenient war of aggression in the Middle East in order to gouge oil prices and augment massive profits for the multinational conglomerates controlling everything?

M: If you were awarded a substantial budget for your next film, how would you spend it?

NZ: On building a movie theatre to show it in.

M: Obama or Hillary?

NZ: Obama, even though neither of them is saying what needs to be said. Elections in America are a gigantic mass deception.

Nick Zedd shows his work this Thursday,
March 13 and Friday, March 14 at Friendship Cove
(215-A Murray), 8 p.m., $7

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