Liquid Sky matches striking visuals and sci fi plot with fluid queerness, feminism, and fashionable apathy. It’s kept alternative audiences captive with its violence and shock, but held them in with postulations of freer identities, however valuable those may be. The legacy of Liquid Sky, narrow and specialized, yet everlasting, remains relevant to subcultures that manifest as time goes on.
There are four different dominant genres that Liquid Sky vacillates between- the plot can best be described by following each kernel. The first, least personal is the genre of sci-fi. In this lens, the movie is about small aliens that land on top of a woman’s roof. They act like a parasite, killing people she sleeps with after they gain her victim’s orgasmic energy, with a knowing scientist who watches it all unfold, unable to stop anything despite his knowledge. Most of the film, however, focuses specifically on Margaret, the lead character. She falls into the trope of ‘Girl Moving From a Conservative Hometown to NY (or LA) to Be An Artist”, the second theme. However, she’s isn’t the usual manifestation of this trope. She lives with no delusions of her fame. She knows her life sounds like that trope, so she works hard and keeps her expectations low, acting apathetic and unconvinced when she’s made promises of easily rising to the top. As level-headed as she is, she dresses erratically and is constantly mocked for it. Despite her relatively realistic thinking and defensive skepticism (which put her distinctly apart from the other girls trying to “make it”), she’s taken advantage of all the same: but with no sickly-sweet promises of stardom. However, there is a clear arc from the first man that rapes her in the movie to his ultimate demise by her new power. Thus, this is also a rape-revenge movie. All three of these genres are wrapped tightly by the underground club-kid aesthetic of the early 80’s (popularized by Michael Alig and James St. James, with the notable early days of Rupaul). As the other tropes and genres weave fluidly on screen, they are matched with bright, overly saturated hues, frankness and frequent mentions of sex and drugs, and apathy towards it all.
A significant trope of this film is it’s setting: early 80’s New York. Specifically, Downtown; the temporal and spatial setting were known for it’s seediness. New York is known to be hard, cutting place to live and make it big in. There are transition shots of the skyline of tightly packed skyscrapers and bumper-to-bumper stagnant traffic. There are also shots off of Margaret’s balcony and roof showing that, even in high up in a penthouse, there’s no escaping the tall buildings that surround each block. It’s claustrophobic and dirty — downtown NY and the early 80’s (a bridge between disco and techno, two music genres practically synonymous with drugs and “loose morals”) exuded sex, drugs, queerness, exploitation, fashion, and experimentalism. In other words, a positively perfect setting for this story. Tsukerman has said that the movie could never be recreated in modern New York, implying it’s now currently too clean, and not “filthy” enough. (Genis, 2014)
This film is widely recognized as a cult classic for many reasons. There’s the exclusivity of the film: it was hard to find in individual copies, making midnight screenings (heard about by underground word-of-mouth in it’s hay-day) the main way to consume it, facilitating communal viewing and reinforcing it’s setting in the midnight movie ritual. (Genis, 2014) It also rebels against the “WASP”, mainstream lifestyle, choosing instead to revere the film’s gender-queer lead(s), and celebrate the color of an alternative (albeit drug-and-abuse-laiden) lifestyle.
It’s part of the New Wave movement, the 80’s artistic movement that embraced taking raw footage and experimentation, screening in St. Marks at the New Theatre. (Inoa, 2018) This movement was heavily participatory: many people in attendance had been in a different film shown there a different night. Thusly, the content fed off not only the lives of this tight-knit community, but also served to entertain this specific crowd, naturally leading to a particular kind of style. This style happened to be very open and experimental, favoring tackiness and lack of plot over cliches. Liquid Sky’s popularity was spread in the way that most midnight movies were spread: by word of mouth in underground circles. (Genis, 2014) Even in the early days of the internet before the film’s 2017 restoration, it was hard to find. It’s since been uploaded on Youtube and Dailymotion for free (as of 6/12/18 at least, and only at a low resolution). Before it’s 2017 restoration, the known film copies were said to be rapidly decaying. (Anderson, 2018)
Despite the rampant sex and drug use, there has been surprisingly little backlash against the film. Technically speaking, there is no nudity — no breasts, no genitals, only insinuations of such. There are, however, certain scenes of blatant drug use. The best explanation for the lack of controversy was due two-fold to the film’s obvious reliance for drugs and sex within the plot, and the limited, word-of-mouth popularity. To expand on the first reason, audiences likely won’t be surprised when a film, which is summarized as being a film about aliens who come to Earth for heroin and orgasims, shows drugs and sex. Also, the underground nature of the film was successfully kept under the radar of more “up-tight” audiences who would object to this content.
Alongside the visual and sonic elements, much of the film’s cult status has to do with many extra-textual aspects. It seems to have predicted the AIDS epidemic, it was created with simple tech (a super 8 camera and a basic, early 80’s synth) and with costumes from the thrift store. It’s queerness expresses itself within the plot, but also in the style. Then, there is the fact that 4 of the movie’s central crew were of Soviet origin, filming it in the states during the Cold War.
Some songs in the soundtrack were based off of classical songs, adding to the baroque style that had a resurgence in the New Wave and Dark 80’s movement (other features of this baroque style: large poofy hair, frills, mask-like makeup). (Genis, 2014) The soundtrack was made by distinctly untrained Tsukerman. It remains simplistic yet haunting, building tension and engulfing viewers into it’s minimalistic melodies. Much of these attributes of the soundtrack are due to the synths available at the time, thus the primordial form of the synth in that particular moment in time incidentally set the tone of this movement, and that of an upcoming genre: the soundtrack is said to have inspired the Electroclash music movement of the late 90’s. (Spitz, 2015) Brian Eno was reportedly initially tapped to do the soundtrack, but it was decided that he was not appropriate for the desired sound. Andy Warhol also agreed to make an appearance in the film, apropos considering the film was an homage to him, but the plan never came to fruition. (Genis, 2014)
There are aspects of Liquid Sky that seem to be referential to the AIDS epidemic: people dying from sex, rampant intravenous drug use, queerness, and the 80’s setting. However, this movie was released in ’82, right on the cusp of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Some scientists believe that the AIDS epidemic had it’s patient zero around the mid 60’s, and spread slowly through out then. Supposedly doctors began noticing some possible victims of HIV in San Francisco and New York in ’81, but it was not well known of by then. The spike in HIV victims occured around ’84, ’85 (the data is notably hard to find, as the conservative US government at the time intentionally turned a blind eye to this epidemic). (CDC, 2016) Everyone that worked on the 1982 film swore that it was not guided by the epidemic, and that they themselves found the coincidence “eerie”. (Spitz, 2015)
The iconic costumes of the movie were said to primarily have come from thrift stores, or else from Carlisle’s closet herself. (Genis, 2014) This lends the film another layer of authenticity- these clothes weren’t bought to make a character, many of these pieces were regularly seen on the town as an earnest outfit. Or else, they were gathered exactly how the characters themselves would’ve gotten them: from a thrift store. In a similar vein of authenticity, Margaret’s penthouse in the movie was Carlisle’s real-life dwelling. (Genis, 2014)
Liquid Sky is distinctly queer, long before the days of current days of same-sex marriage rights and the growing awareness of non-binary genders. The most telling sign of this is there in the medium itself: Anne Carlisle plays Margaret, but she also plays Jimmy, who is understood throughout the film as a man. Each of her characters has a distinct costume and personality, but there is no intention on the part of the crew to make them blatantly distinct. In fact, they offer scenes in which the two characters face one another (a highly impressive feat for a low-budget film in the early 80’s), leaving the viewer unable to mistake the similarities. However, each character is fully formed, and Carlisle’s performance is earnest and sincerely gender-bending.
Just as how Carlisle acts, Margaret revels in her androgyny. She claims, in her glow-in-the-dark make up monologue, that she is androgynous. Earlier in the film, when asked if she’s Adrian’s (another woman’s) girlfriend, Margaret responds, “I’m always curious about people who have to make those kind of sexual definitions.” She continues by saying, ”Whether or not I like someone doesn’t depend on what kind of genitals they have, as long as I find them attractive….” (Liquid Sky, 1982) Seeing that she describes herself as androgynous (and of course informed by the real-life knowledge of Carlisle’s own gender deviation, shown in the two characters she plays), we can gather that her own genitals likely don’t dictate the way she views herself either. This separation of genitals from gender was widely radical in that time, and is still very new to many people. Thus, this is another area in which Liquid Sky was ahead of its time, showcased in a bold and androgynous lead character and displaying one actress moving swiftly between two genders — and not making the movie centered around that fact (a feat that, to my knowledge, has yet to have been recreated). The film not only preaches fluidity, it manifests it.
The director and co-writer Slava Tsukerman, despite having made this hugely influential film, has a sparse Wikipedia page that tells of his movements to different countries, but tells more about Liquid Sky itself than anything else. The best source about Tsukerman himself seems to be from article by Tablet, a “daily online magazine of Jewish news, ides, and culture” (Fitting, as Tsukerman is a Russian Jew) Much of the article centers around his Jewish background which, in the context of the publication, makes sense. His Jewish upbringing and obviously Jewish last name held him back in Russia, as well as his resistant to joining the Soviet Union’s Communist Party held back his success. He and his wife moved to Israel and lived there for awhile before moving to New York City. (Hoffman, 2018) He made Perestroika, another well-recieved film, then made a small documentary of Liquid Sky that would show on it’s restoration DVD.
The original film, made with a budget of around $500K, was not without its production flaws. The crew was paid very little, worked “terrible” hours, and under-catered (as in, the crew basically begged for pizza). (Spitz, 2015) However, the film achieved considerably wide notoriety, shown at many festivals upon its release. It screened for four years at the Waverly Theatre in New York City. (Spitz, 2015) The film was even screened in Moscow in ’89. (Genis, 2014) At that point, the rigid Soviet authoritarianism had thawed slightly and Tsukerman was invited to the Moscow Film Festival, which had a “sexual theme”. After this screening, an audience member asked to show it to their “organization”. That organization, adding to the true lore of the film, was of course the Russian police, with guests from the KGB. Tsukerman thought that the screening would be his last, but he was pleasantly greeted to a round of applause. (Genis, 2014)
Camp is a crucial part of this film. The style of the film, first and foremost is striking; as the Cult Cinema textbook says,” camp transforms notions of beauty through stressing the importance of surface style”. (Mathijs and Sexton, 2012) Fashion, make up, and bright colors are essential to this film, and the word “beautiful” is used incessantly to describe each lead character. Visual style is crucial to the understanding of this film, and it’s legacy is quesitonably more relient on it’s visuals and fluid characters.
There is a distinct moment in the film where the woman that invited the scientist into her home orders Chinese food. She orders: “shrimp fried rice, an order of shrimp and pea pods, an order of shrimp with lobster sauce, and an order of jumbo shrimp.” (Liquid Sky, 1982) This is an absurd moment in the screenplay in which the writers introduce a bit of humor, or at least self-awareness (they understand the triteness of this moment in the scene- why not camp it up?). From Cult Cinema, camp is defined as “performing in a deliberately exaggerated manner to communicate with a particular group of people who understand such gestures”. (Mathijs and Sexton, 2012) The understanding group of people, in this instance, is the alternative audience who is beyond lazy rom-com dialogue. As Susan Sontag says within her “Notes on Camp”, that camp is “theatricalization of experience”. (Sontag, 1964) Most people have favorite foods that they default to when trying to make a decision on what to eat. This is theatricalized by making every item shrimp-centering. This is followed by multiple, clunky call backs only by the woman. She’s forcing this as an inside joke with her and the scientist, and it’s hard not to notice.
Adrian, a drug dealer and Margaret’s girlfriend, is a great personification of “theatricalization”. There’s a scene where she says that she wants to have sex with one of Margaret’s vicitm’s dead body. This really has no bearing to her actual desires, she’s just an edgy character that will do and say anything for attention, so much so that she’ll rub her genitals on a dead face. Shock value and transgressiveness aside, there’s the practical fact that the cold, lifeless tongue would probably provide no pleasure anyway, rendering Adrian’s actions purely theatrical. There’s a particular campy, hyperbolic nature to this “shocking” scene; it’s peppered in to give the film more street cred and entertain those in the know — and scare off the faint of heart.
Adrian’s opening performance art/ music performance is another piece of camp. She speak-sings dramatically, using her own heart beat as a beat for the track, a track titled “My Rhythm Box”. The performance is engaging, but it’s also very on-the-nose, with Adrian dragging out certain words for multiple beats. She’s simultaneously providing, interesting engaging content, yet also acting as an exaggerated stereotype of the kind of performance we would expect from a beatnik in 80’s New York in an underground club.
This film has an undeniable legacy: it’s word-of-mouth exclusivity, having been shown at a New York theatre for 4 consecutive years, to almost disintegrating before being recently restored. The queerness of its audience, living in the grit depicted in the movie, to the evolution of its audience shifting to hipster neo-Williamsburg youth, who were hardly teens at the time of the movie’s release. However much the world shifts and affects the context in which the movie’s viewed, Liquid Sky will remain shocking, displaying the unsavory, squalid activities that seem, unfortunately, constant in society. It’s use of colorful visuals and soundtrack remain revolutionary- maybe editing has advanced beyond 80’s video and audio editing, but that almost solidifies Liquid Sky’s uniqueness. It’s a snapshot of a specific point in both time and space that can never be recreated with any legitimacy. The film has a careful balance of camp, violence, revenge, and above all, serious queerness that was ahead of its time, and maybe even still ahead of our own time. Liquid Sky provides a glimpse not only into an underground, exclusive scene that will never exist again, it also shows what our future could look like, based around our human condition, and radical queerness that’s understanding only becomes deeper as time passes. As much as Liquid Sky will forever exist stuck in it’s moment, it’s a (sometimes unwitting) prophet of what all is to come, and the choices we will have as progress continues on.
Works Cited
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Liquid Sky. (1982). [film] Directed by S. Tsuckerman. New York: (self-produced)
