Directing

Richard Kern

Born December 20, 1954 · Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, USA (age 71)

Richard Kern is a New York underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to underground prominence as part of the underground cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films featuring underground personalities of the time such as Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Sonic Youth, Kembra Pfahler, and Henry Rollins. Like many of the …

Known For

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget · 2004

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget

A collection of Marilyn Manson's music videos.

IDn4

I am so endlessly alone. Whats my illusions, whats my odds, and illusions have to be killed, I don't have more time to destroy. Is my loneliness real and is my longing about what? Then who are this people?

Submit to Me

Submit to Me · 1985

Cinema of Transgression pioneers and participants (Lydia Lunch, Lung Leg, Nick Zedd, etc.) perform a series of acts as they submit to director Richard Kern's camera. Originally created for DTNY acid parties; Submit to Me was eventually edited down to 10 minutes and given an accompanying score.

Woman at the Wheel

Woman at the Wheel · 1985

Woman at the Wheel

A woman takes each of her boyfriends - one poor and one rich- for a drive in her new car. Each argues with her and insists on taking the wheel. She beats one of them up, before crashing into a group of youths and, finally, a wall.

Russ Meyer: King of Sexploitation

Russ Meyer: King of Sexploitation · 2004

Russ Meyer: King of Sexploitation

MovieDocumentaryTV Movie

Documentary about the late cult film-maker, Russ Meyer, with a penchant for strong, curvaceous women.

Submit to Me Now

Submit to Me Now · 1987

Submit to Me Now

MovieHorrorMusic

Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

Catholic

Catholic · 1991

Catholic is a b/w Super-8 short written, produced and directed by Richard Kern. A Catholic student has a crisis of faith.

Russian Kiss

Russian Kiss · 2014

Norwegian singer Annie and Norwegian visual artist Bjarne Melgaard’s “Russian Kiss” is their protest song and short film, directed by Richard Kern, aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime and its anti-gay laws.

Filmography

Sort

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget · 2004

Marilyn Manson: Lest We Forget

A collection of Marilyn Manson's music videos.

Director

IDn4

I am so endlessly alone. Whats my illusions, whats my odds, and illusions have to be killed, I don't have more time to destroy. Is my loneliness real and is my longing about what? Then who are this people?

Richard Kern

Submit to Me

Submit to Me · 1985

Cinema of Transgression pioneers and participants (Lydia Lunch, Lung Leg, Nick Zedd, etc.) perform a series of acts as they submit to director Richard Kern's camera. Originally created for DTNY acid parties; Submit to Me was eventually edited down to 10 minutes and given an accompanying score.

Director

Woman at the Wheel

Woman at the Wheel · 1985

Woman at the Wheel

A woman takes each of her boyfriends - one poor and one rich- for a drive in her new car. Each argues with her and insists on taking the wheel. She beats one of them up, before crashing into a group of youths and, finally, a wall.

Director

Russ Meyer: King of Sexploitation

Russ Meyer: King of Sexploitation · 2004

Russ Meyer: King of Sexploitation

MovieDocumentaryTV Movie

Documentary about the late cult film-maker, Russ Meyer, with a penchant for strong, curvaceous women.

Submit to Me Now

Submit to Me Now · 1987

Submit to Me Now

MovieHorrorMusic

Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

Director

Catholic

Catholic · 1991

Catholic is a b/w Super-8 short written, produced and directed by Richard Kern. A Catholic student has a crisis of faith.

Director

Russian Kiss

Russian Kiss · 2014

Norwegian singer Annie and Norwegian visual artist Bjarne Melgaard’s “Russian Kiss” is their protest song and short film, directed by Richard Kern, aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime and its anti-gay laws.

Director

Horoscope

Horoscope · 1991

Holly Adams plays an attractive but rather repressed young woman. She checks her horoscope, shambles homeward from her dull office job and promptly falls asleep in front of the TV. Two naked young men appear in her living room and begin dancing around for her pleasure.

Director

Goodbye 42nd Street

Goodbye 42nd Street · 1983

Goodbye 42nd Street

Shots of walking down 42nd Street showing storefronts including everything from Texas Fried Chicken to 25¢ porn arcades.

Director

Zombie Hunger

Zombie Hunger · 1984

Zombie Hunger is an experimental short film depicting a group of people shooting up and then vomiting.

Director

The Hardcore Collection

The Hardcore Collection · 2000

The Hardcore Collection

A fringe film collective of edge-dwelling New York nihilist punks and crazies whose main pathological protagonist triumvirate were voyeur smackhead Richard Kern, pouting artpunk Nick Zedd and damaged psychescream queen Lydia Lunch.

Director

Marilyn Manson: God Is In the TV

Marilyn Manson: God Is In the TV · 1999

Marilyn Manson: God Is In the TV

MovieMusicDocumentary

God Is in the T.V. is the second video album by Marilyn Manson. It features all 13 music videos Marilyn Manson spawned between July 1994 and November 1999, as well as uncensored bonus footage from the production of "The Dope Show" music video and nearly an hour of live and backstage footage from the Rock Is Dead tour.

Director

Sublapse Video Mag 1

Sublapse Video Mag 1 · 1986

Sublapse Video Mag 1

MovieDocumentaryMusic

Video Fanzine featuring: Half Japanese, Redd Kross with Sky Saxon as Purple Electricity, R Kern, Sonic Youth, White Flag, Psycho Daisies, Charlie Pickett, Nick Zedd, Morbid Opera More R&R, Film, Prose. Pencil numbering indicates there was a run of 600 tapes.

Clean

Clean is an experimental short film by NY filmmaker Richard Kern.

Director

Tumble

Tumble demonstrates Richard Kern’s departure from narrative filmmaking in the early nineties. He was clearly more interested now in photography, and specially in the merging of documentary and model photography.

Director

Worm Movie

Worm Movie · 1985

Experimental short film starring Lung Leg and a worm.

Cinematography

American Nightmare

American Nightmare · 1991

American Nightmare

A video full of swastikas, human skulls on American flag backdrops, girls frenching on department store mannequins and burning themselves with candles, military helmets and clomping boots, dudes masturbating under crucifixes, and a bunch of crotches.

Bullet on a Wire

Bullet on a Wire · 1998

Bullet on a Wire

MovieCrimeDrama

An unattractive social outcast (Jeff Strong) visits a stranger (Lara Phillips) in prison after setting off the events that landed her there.

Medicated

Medicated · 2013

MovieDocumentary

Between 2010 and 2018, Kern interviewed women about the medications they used and the effects of those meds on their outlook.

Editor

Bathtub

Bathtub · 2019

Richard Kern 2019.

Director

My Nightmare

My Nightmare · 1993

Director Richard Kern and model Susan McNamara engage in a chaotic fast-cut blend of fantasy and reality. A satire of some of Kern's own early work.

Director

You Killed Me First

You Killed Me First · 1985

You Killed Me First

MovieDramaHorror

Elizabeth bristles at the religious directives of her parents, asserting her right to personhood outside demure hairstyles and turkey dinners, constructing voodoo dolls and entertaining other manners of dark drawing in her dank emo-den. When confronted with the humanity and hypocrisy of her tormentors, the young antihero vanquishes their belief systems (and bodies) asserting, "You killed me first!"

Director

Goo

MovieMusicDocumentary

In 1991, a long-form music video version of Goo was released on VHS and LaserDisc. A music video for each song from the album was included; the track listing was identical to that of the original album.

Director