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BEGOTTEN
A profoundly repellant yet strangely lyrical and poetic cinemutation, BEGOTTEN is a wordless black and white reverie in which God kills himself and begets Mother Earth, who in turn begets Mankind, who in turn endures all manner of abuse. Yes, that’s the premise (more or less) of this amazing creation, as unique and unprecedented, in its way, as David Lynch’s seminal ERASERHEAD.
The Package
Filmmaker E. Elias Merhige is best known as the director of 2000’s vastly
overrated SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE and ‘04’s dreary SUSPECT ZERO, as well as
Marilyn Manson’s notorious “Anti-Christ Superstar” music video. Merhige’s
premiere feature BEGOTTEN appeared in 1989 and dwarfs all his subsequent film
work; for that matter, it eclipses most other “experimental” features then and
now.
BEGOTTEN came out of the director’s years at the State University of New
York at Purchase, where Merhige formed the Theatreofmaterial (patterned,
apparently, after the Viennese “Materialactionfilms” of Otto Muhl and Kurt Kren),
whose members assisted in the creation of BEGOTTEN. In conceiving the film
Merhige claims: “I used those parts that scared me, or that I just couldn’t
understand—the parts that stuck with me for days and that forced me to wonder
where within me did this come from?” The film was shot in various New York
state locations and then subjected to a torturous post-production process in
which Merhige utilized a specially designed optical printer to create a uniquely
grainy, bleached-out look.
Unsurprisingly, BEGOTTEN didn’t exactly set the box office on fire.
Initial screenings were confined to colleges and museums, but interest in the
film steadily mounted and it was eventually released on video in 1995 and DVD in
2001. Both are now out of print, unfortunately, but interested parties are
urged to track down a copy ASAP!
The Story
Since BEGOTTEN has nothing remotely resembling a traditional “story”, any
attempt at explaining its wildly elliptical, symbolic narrative is automatically
doomed to failure. Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try.
In a secluded cabin in the midst of a forest, God, wearing a long white lab
coat and scraggly haired wig, relentlessly mutilates himself with a straight
razor (we know this because the end credits identify the figure as “God
Killing Himself”). Once the orgy of hacking, bleeding, vomiting and
shitting is finished a young woman in a Mardi gras eye mask emerges from under
God’s cloak. This is Mother Earth, who frees God’s penis—which evidently still
works despite the fact that its user has died—and impregnates herself with it.
Next we see Mother Earth wandering through a nightmarish primordial
landscape with a naked young man identified in the credits as “Son of
Earth—Flesh on Bone”, who appears to be undergoing a perpetual epileptic
seizure. He vomits up several large pustules which are eagerly collected by a
nomadic tribe who happen to be in the area; in exchange, the tribe helps Mother
Earth and her charge by attaching ropes to Son of Earth and dragging him over a
cliff (he being apparently unable to walk).
A bit later Mother Earth is set upon by another tribe, this one a band of
savages who rape and disembowel her. This attracts several basket-headed
farmers, who gather up Mother Earth’s remains and take them to a farm-like
enclosure. Thus Son of Earth has to crawl through the world by himself, at
least until the basket-heads track him down and beat him to death. A vast
rainstorm follows, after which the farmers use the organs of Mother Earth and
her offspring to fertilize the barren ground.
The Direction
What immediately impresses the viewer about BEGOTTEN is its look: an
elemental black and white dreamscape. Sometimes the images have an artificial
sheen akin to animation and at others are speckled with visible grain that
pulses and strobes. This, combined with the total lack of dialogue, subtitles
or narration, means it’s often difficult to make out what’s happening, which
only enhances the film’s otherworldly allure. Particularly noteworthy is the
stunning opening, with God killing Himself amidst a torrent of spurting blood
and erupting viscera. At once deeply off-putting and hypnotically beautiful, it
is arguably the film’s finest sequence and certainly a benchmark in the realm of
cinematic grotesquerie.
Much of the remainder of BEGOTTEN was apparently shot on and around
construction sights, yet, as seen through Merhige’s chiaroscuro images, the
landscapes have a genuinely mythic, almost prehistoric feel (marred only by
visible tire tracks in one scene). Other notables include slow and fast motion,
some truly odd camera angles and enough gore to fill a dozen FRIDAY THE
THRITEENTH movies. Not every viewer will appreciate E. Elias Merhige’s Stan
Brakhage-meets-Lucio Fulci aesthetic; BEGOTTEN is deeply uncompromising not only
in its extreme violence but also in its torturously slow pace and often
agonizingly uneventful narrative. It’s a measure of Merhige’s accomplishment
that I was never once tempted to abandon the film, even at its most tedious
and/or gruesome moments.
Vital Statistics
BEGOTTEN
Complex Corporation/Theatreofmaterial
Director/Producer/Screenwriter/Cinematographer/Editor: Edmund Elias Merhige
Cast: Brian Salzburg, Donna Dempsey, Stephen Charles Barry, James Gandia, Arthur
Streeter, Michael Phillips, Erik Slavin, Garfield White, Daniel Harkins, Adolpho
Vargas, Terry Anderse