and then robbed and killed by Divine.
Multiple Maniacsis still quite a trip to watch today.
You read that right.
Credit: Steve Zak Photography/FilmMagic
Oh, and he also reveals his very John Waters-ish nickname for video-on-demand.
JOHN WATERS:Oh, its so magical to me, honestly.
Janus was the very first distributor that I associated with quality art films.
They released all the Ingmar Bergman movies in Baltimore when I was growing up.
And Ingmar Bergman, I know it might be hard to see, was a huge influence on me.
He always had vomit and suicide and adult subject matter in his films.
And the very classy Criterion Collection is putting out the DVD/Blu-ray.
It just shows that I always do well at the top and the bottom and never in the middle.
Youve said that it looks now like a bad John Cassavetes movie.
[Laughs] It does.
I know its been restored but I want to reassure people that it still looks bad.
Or maybe it depends.
If you like the film youll say it looks primitive.
If you hate the film youll say bad.
It actually has a100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of today, at least.
[Laughs] Yeah.
Well, you were way ahead of that trend, werent you?
Oh, the lobster.
Yep, what can I say?
Divine gets raped by a lobster.
Rape is never funny, but its kinda a little bit funny with a lobster.
There are actually two rape scenes inMultiple Maniacsthat are kinda funny.
A homicidal bearded drag queen is that politically correct?
Do you think people have become too politically correct?
Maybe the movie is worse than it ever was.
But people laugh, even at the rape scenes.
If something is turned around and made ridiculous enough, anything can be funny.
Where did the idea of the lobster come from?
And while tripping, I did think of that for the rape scene.
Where did the movie first screen?
In Baltimore in a Unitarian church.
Then it also played in Provincetown.
But this was 1970 and I would rent an art theater and give out flyers on the street.
If nobody came Id owe them a fortune, but we always used to sell out.
And so you actually made some money on the release?
I distributed it myself.
I would have the prints in the trunk of my car and Divine and I would drive around.
Sometimes Divine would be in costume and wed hand out flyers and stuff.
And to get to be socially redeeming, theyd put on a midnight show of avant garde movies.
It was a great booking because you got a dollar a minute.
What did your dad think of the movie?
He was horrified and never saw it, but was very amazed that I paid him back with interest.
That was the front lawn of my parents house!
you could see my parents house in the background.
Im sure they were huddled inside, nervous.
That scene at the end when Divine goes looking in peoples windows that was my parents neighbors house.
We didnt say anything.
Luckily they werent having breakfast.
Can you imagine having breakfast and you look up and see Divine staring through your window?
Is there anybody like Divine now?
I would say no, although Ill get in trouble for that.
Because Divines influence is felt everywhere.
Every drag queen you see on RuPauls show.
And they dida whole tribute show last year to my movies, which I was on.
When I was young, drag queens were square.
They wanted to be Miss America.
And those pretty drag queens hated Divine.
Hed show up with fake scars on his face, carrying a chainsaw and stuff.
They didnt know how to deal with that.
But almost every drag queen today is like Divine.
Even if you hate my movies, he made drag queens more hip and more cool and more cutting-edge.
Drag queens didnt want to be their mothers anymore.
And the influence is seen with female comedians, too.
People like Amy Schumer or Melissa McCarthy are definitely drawing on that vulgar, elevated style.
In most of your early films, Divine is shot or executed.
Well, inMultiple Maniacs, Divine is saved by the Infant of Prague, my favorite Catholic saint.
So I guess its redemptive.
But then shes definitely punished in the end.
Yeah, because at the end he has become Godzilla.
Ive always said that Divine never wanted to pass as a woman.
Divine was not one bit transgender.
He wanted to pass as Godzilla.
And at the end, hes the monster that everybody feared.
I think theres a tank or an armored vehicle in the background, too.
I think thats your imagination.
There was no tank, believe me.
I could barely afford the 10 soldier uniforms I rented from a costume shop.
Or maybe we got them at Sunny Surplus, I cant remember.
But, yeah, that plays really well today.
People might be more shocked by it today than they were back then.
How did you film that final chase scene?
Theres a dog in the crowd and a baby and a blind man.
Yes, the blind mans in every shot.
We come around the corner and theres the blind man and his stick again.
And that is because I just couldnt stop him.
I mean, I had no permit to do that or anything.
That was just Sunday morning on the streets of Baltimore.
So people just sort of joined the crowd, like kids that were just in the neighborhood.
We had been arrested while making my first film,Mondo Trasho, so I was nervous about that.
But no police came.
Why did you choose to endMultiple Maniacswith the music of America the Beautiful?
Was that a snarky commentary?
No, I liked that song.
And it would open in a church.
For all the perversion in your movies, youre not really cynical, are you?
And why should I be?
And I said to myself, I love America.
What are your favorite movies of this year so far?
I do my 10 best inArtforumevery year so Ill save the full list for that.
But I would say my two favorites so far in 2016 have beenWeiner-DogandTickled.
You havent made a film sinceA Dirty Shame, which was more than 10 years ago.
Are there any updates onFruitcake, a movie that you were working on?
The update is that its DOA.
Ive been pregnant with that one for eight years.
But I cant even seem to have an anal birth on that one.
