Valley Girl
Michelle O¹Marah
Feature Video 115:00 2002 Midwest Premiere
"Two questions: (1) Why are most films shown in the gallery or museum
context so expensive and so pukoid? (2) In the shadow of the Hollywood
sign, what is the difference between an appropriation and a remake, given
that the remake is an industry standard, for better (Douglas Sirk's daunting
Imitation of Life) or worse (Jim McBride's anemic Breathless),
producing indifference (Steven Soderbergh's empty Ocean's II) or grandiose
inanity (Cameron Crowe's chiasmatic Vanilla Sky)? Rechanneling both trends,
Michele O'Marah's feature-length video Valley Girl captures and intensifies the
heart and soul of Martha Coolidge's original 1983 crossover hit that
launched Nicholas Cage, starred Deborah Foreman, and gave the always
fascinating Elizabeth Dailey a nice turn as the sad, slightly slutty
Loryn. Casting friends and providing them with savvy costuming, satisfying yet
no-frills props, and punk-riot grrrl chutzpah, O'Marah has created a
guerrilla tour de force and a heady meditation on the simple act of
doing something again.
If Coolidge is the mother muse for this project, then Jack Smith and Ed
Wood provide avuncular inspiration and methodology--what might be called
Valley Girl's antinatural naturalism. To mistake O'Marah's mode as lazy,
cynical, or you'd have to ignore her exuberant attention to the material and to
the specificity of her own vision. Unlike Laura Cottingham's art-world
driven Anita Pallenberg Story, 1999, which, with its strident nostalgia, never
surpassed karaoke redux, Valley Girl doesn't exist only to be cool. The
artist created something much more prepossessing than a critique of
Hollywood by, loopy as it might sound, believing in what she believes:
that reshooting, with almost no budget, a sweet oddball progirl Hollywood
indie film might be a way to make art." - Bruce Hainley, Artforum
PURCHASE TICKET-WEDNESDAY 8/19 5:45 PM
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