Divine Trash . Austin Chronicle . 03-30-98

Divine Trash

DIRECTED BY: Steve Yeager

REVIEWED: 03-30-98

In Steve Yeager's Divine Trash, John Waters says he went to NYU's film school for "about five minutes," and since his class was studying Potemkin and not Olga's House of Shame, which he knew he could learn much more, he quit NYU and convinced his father to give him the money set aside for John's education and invest it in his burgeoning film career instead. It would make it a tidy summation to say that the rest is film history, but to do so would bypass the hilarious and trashily fascinating details that emerge in Divine Trash. It seems a bit ill-befitting and solemn to document someone like Waters in talking-head format, but then Yeager's subject is not just Waters but underground cinema in general, so topics range from the influential cinematic avatars of trash to interviews with Divine's mother to outbursts from Mary Avara, the last film censor in America. Mink Stole recollects conditions on the sets of Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos and the Egg Lady is captured commenting on her bit of eerie Flamingos glory. Of course, the obligatory film critics are present, but in Divine Trash, they're there in part to reveal what a shrewd businessman and marketeer Waters is as they recall the flyers and updates about screenings they constantly received from him in his early career. The previously unreleased footage of the making of Pink Flamingos documents that amid the frenetic atmosphere on the set, Waters' love for trashy, do-it-yourself filmmaking has always been the core of his success.

--Claiborne Smith

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Divine Trash

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