Director John Cameron Mitchell’s “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” tells the story of an East German boy named Hansel Schmidt, enamored of a familiar fantasy--becoming an American rock star. He gets his chance through marriage to American G.I. Sergeant Luther Robinson (Maurice Dean Wint), but the bungled sex-change operation leaves him, now Hedwig Robinson (John Cameron Mitchell), with an angry inch. More disappointment follows when she’s abandoned in a trailer park in Junction City, Kansas. Love with Tommy Speck (Michael Pitt) follows only to have Tommy rip off her rock songs and act, become famous, and ignore Hedwig. Meantime, she and her Angry Inch band play nickel and dime restaurants and third-rate clubs. They’re bitter, desperate, and confrontational.
As the story progresses, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” takes glam rock, transsexual performance, learned gender stereotypes, doomed romance, undeserved fame, and another dozen topics and breathes glorious new life into them. As Hedwig, Mitchell is brilliant, putting on wig and makeup, singing the transformation while celebrating the masquerade as a courageous act of energy and defense. Stephen Trask received a Grammy nomination for the eclectic punk anthems soundtrack, which everyone at its 2001 Sundance Film Festival premiere left humming. Frank DeMarco’s eye-popping cinematography and Andrew Marcus’ vibrant editing propel the film. Conflicts and confrontations, when they occur, have astonishing impact relieved with comic interludes. Animation by Emily Hubley is seamlessly, playfully integrated as it also comments seriously on the lessons and philosophies absorbed through tales. In those moments, Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s “Symposium” takes center stage. Revitalized as a significant myth delivered in song through “The Origin of Love,” it posits a heretofore unified human being the jealous gods divided into two, the halves forever longing for reunification.
The immensely entertaining “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” won both the audience and the best director awards at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. When director, screenwriter, and star John Cameron Mitchell took the stage after the premiere performance which I attended, his modesty and poise melted when it met the unbridled enthusiasm of ecstatic fans. Seldom has a debut film presented an off-Broadway play so flawlessly and cinematically. Mitchell was gracious and delighted, having successfully transferred his role as Hedwig in the 1998 stage musical of the same title to the screen, not an easy adaptation to achieve so flawlessly.
David Bowie hovers elusively in the background but “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” also invokes numerous rock stars, pop culture, Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Goldmine,” and the exuberance of “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” will knock your socks off and is one fine celebration. Presented in partnership with the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” will screen at Webster University’s Winifred Moore auditorium on Thursday, May 28, at 7:30 p.m. that evening with free admission. For more information, you may visit the film series website at: Webster.edu/filmseries.
In addition, Saturday, June 13, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. the Contemporary Art Museum presents “Behind this Mask: Celebrating Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore” featuring new artistic works by Elizabeth Hoover and John Cameron Mitchell plus a conversation between Jennifer Shaw and exhibition co-curators Dean Daderko and Svetlana Kitto, along with Hoover and Mitchell. You may visit the CAM website for more information at: https://camstl.org/?s=behind+this+mask