The Z Effect: The Films of Mike Z

Italy, 1980 - One week after its premiere, the film Cannibal Holocaust is banned in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Italy, the reels are seized by Italian authorities, and director Ruggero Deodato is hauled before court in order to prove that the “documentary” murders depicted in it are fake. Facing life in prison, Deodato explains how he staged the realistic-looking deaths, and then produces his actors on an Italian TV show, breaking their 1-year media silence contract in doing so. Despite this, his film has been mistaken for snuff in America as recently as 1993, and the uncut version remains banned in the UK.

Japan, 1991 - Actor Charlie Sheen comes across what he thinks is an actual murder caught on tape, and turns it over to the FBI. In order to determine its origin, the feds arrest Charles Balun, an early American distributor, which spawns Congressional hearings into the existence of snuff films. The movie in question was the 1985 film Flowers of Flesh and Blood, part of the realistic “Guinea Pig” series of Japanese horror movies purportedly based on actual snuff films. Shortly thereafter the Japanese production company that made the film releases the Making Of which shows how the explicit special effects were achieved, and the FBI drops the investigation. A few years later, controversy is rekindled when real-life Japanese serial killer Tsutoma Miyazaki is caught after re-enacting the scenes from the movie.

New Jersey, 1999 - Mike Z posts his film Military Takeover of New York City, a handheld short shot to look like a race riot planned for Y2K, on his website. Two weeks later, the FBI arrives at his doorstep asking for it to be shut down, claiming they’ve been alerted to the film by letters from concerned citizens who feared it was real. When Mike declines and puts his PC in storage, the Bureau works with the U.S. Attorney’s office to intimidate his web host into pulling the site. The ACLU becomes involved after learning that the government had no subpoena, and when they threaten Janet Reno with a first amendment case, the FBI drops the investigation and denies ever asking anyone to take it offline.

Censorship, incarceration, copycat crimes; such are the rewards for being a successful director-provocateur. And recently, I found out that even screening such films can make you the target of a backlash.

Springing one of Mike Z’s films on an unsuspecting audience is dangerous. Film festival programmers know this, which is why they rarely risk doing so. But I’ve always felt that to assume you know what’s best for an audience is to look down on them, for as soon as you start thinking of yourself as some kind of arbiter of taste, you become a de facto censor, and this planet already has plenty of them.

Grandiose convictions aside, I still possessed the instinct of self-preservation. I knew that if playing one of Mike’s films was hazardous, playing three of them might be downright masochistic. Perhaps I went against my better judgment, though, for if you attended the 2006 Austin Underground Film Festival, that’s just what you saw, whether you realized it or not. You may have been one of the people who watched in confused silence after the intermission as a short video about a spin doctor focus group played that wasn’t on the program, and then ended sans credits.

Or you might have been among the many people who came up to me afterwards and told me, “Andy, great festival, I really liked all the movies… except that long, weird one about the anarchists. I mean, what were you thinking?”

Fair enough. Let’s take a little trip through my thought process, then, shall we? First of all, who is Mike Z? I first learned of his work from MicroCineFest founder Skizz Cyzyk, whom I happened to meet at the New York Underground Film Fest. At the time, he and I both wrote for the cult film journal Cashiers du Cinemart, published by one Mike White, the “anti-Tarantino guy.” Cyzyk had done an article about Mike Z’s films that had piqued my interest, so I dialed up Mike’s website and watched the couple of films he has viewable there - The Real George W. Bush, a candid conversation supposedly captured by a Bush campaign contributor’s cell-phone camera, and Could This Be Real?, which features a woman with a headset speaking to an unseen group of people, as it gradually becomes clear that she’s talking about staging a presidential assassination.

Impressed, I e-mailed Mike and basically told him that if he would be so kind as to supply me with more of his films, there was a good chance I’d program at least one, judging by what I’d seen. He didn’t bother submitting them to festivals anymore, I learned, because they so divide the judges that few end up selecting them. A week later, though, a package arrived on my Austin apartment doorstep containing every single film Mike had ever made.

I ended up choosing How To Start A Revolution In America, Mike’s fake-documentary satire on three self-styled anarchists, the aforementioned Could This Be Real?, and his newest film, Focus Group, which Mike hadn’t screened anywhere yet and which we decided to sneak-world premiere at the festival.

Even though one of my co-programmers didn’t like Revolution and didn’t understand Could This Be Real?, I insisted that they were perfect matches for the AUFF. I was confident in my belief that Austin’s audiences are among the most open-minded and discriminating around, sophisticated enough to rival those of New York, London, Paris. So, in retrospect, was I naïve? Well, yes and no.

Yes, the audience seemed more baffled than anything by Focus Group, several people walked out during Revolution, and I got an earful from several people, including Sergio Carvajal of the Facundo festival, about how much they hated the latter. To my surprise, though, even Mike Z went out in the hall during Revolution, later confiding that he preferred not to watch some of his movies with audiences. He surprised me further by telling me that none of his friends back home even knew he made films.

On the up-side, there was applause after his films, even Revolution, and the Flicker Film Festival organizers who were in attendance told me that they absolutely loved it. My buddy Sean said afterwards, “I’m gonna vote for the anarchist one just because I know no one else is.” In fact, it got several votes; every film on the lineup got at least one, which seemed like a good spread and hopefully indicated that there was a little something for everyone.

At the 1929 premiere of his surreal Dali collaboration An Andalusian Dog, which famously opens with a shot of an eyeball being sliced with a razor, director Luis Bunuel stood behind the movie screen with his pockets full of rocks in case the Parisian audience rioted. In a time when moviegoers are more desensitized than ever, its nice to know that there’s still filmmakers out there who can shock us out of their apathy. I can only imagine the mutiny that may have resulted had I played the two-hour uncut version of Mike’s Homeless Man Steals A Camera (And Kills Someone).

Looking back, I’m glad that Revolution ended up being the conversation piece of the festival, since even those who outright despised it couldn’t stop telling me about it.

But maybe next time I play Mike’s work, it would be better to have a Q&A afterwards, so he can explain his films.

Or maybe not.

-Andy GatelyHear Mike Z in his own words (scroll to the middle of the page).