Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis

Watch the trailer

Filmmaker and former music video director Mary Jordan’s fascinating portrait features Jack Smith’s rare and unseen films and photographs along with audio recordings, acting appearances, and other relics squeezed from Smith’s vaulted archive. Intercutting interview commentaries from art luminaries, film critics, and Smith’s friends, family and enemies, the film presents Smith’s controversial viewpoints on capitalism, critics, and institutional art “gatekeepers.” It also explores Smith’s tenuous relationships with Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas while offering previously undocumented biographical insight into his early impoverished childhood in a poignant homage to New York’s ultimate antihero and the King of the Underground. (2006, 94 min, digital)