Barbara Rubin & the Exploding NY Underground

Discussion of the 1960s underground scene in New York usually concentrates on major artists such as Andy Warhol. Chuck Smith’s documentary emphasizes the importance of Barbara Rubin (1945-1980), a young woman who inspired and brought together many of the movement’s leading figures, including Warhol, poet Allen Ginsberg, filmmaker Paul Morrissey, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and members of the musical group The Velvet Underground. After a brief sketch of Rubin’s turbulent childhood, including time spent in a psychiatric institution, Smith covers Rubin’s association with Jonas Mekas’s Film-Makers’ Cooperative, where she was not only instrumental in arranging screenings of avant-garde films like Jack Smith’s controversial Flaming Creatures (1963) but also made Christmas on Earth (1963), a groundbreaking experimental film (two separate reels were projected simultaneously) that was also a seminal work of queer and feminist cinema. Smith does not overlook Rubin’s increased drug use and health problems, but he focuses on her relationship with Ginsberg, with whom she founded an artists’ retreat on a remote New York farm, before turning to her interest in the Kabbalah and her joining an ultra-orthodox Jewish community, where she remained until her untimely death. The documentary serves up a vibrant collage of excerpts from Rubin’s work, coupled with archival stills and home movie footage—much of it from Mekas’s collection—and clips of interviews with Mekas and other friends and admirers of Rubin, as well as snippets from her letters presented in voiceover. As a whole, the film—which features sexually graphic material—is an engrossing portrait of a woman whose contributions to the burgeoning counterculture of ‘60s New York deserve greater recognition. Extras include a brief tribute to Mekas, who died in 2019. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)