![]() Especially in the early days, there was a sense of fun and, as Homer Flynn says in the film, naïveté, where they didn’t know what they couldn’t do. “They tinker with technology and sound and visuals, and it very much is a collective approach where there’s no bad ideas. “They’re almost like scientists,” Hardy posits. They’ve been early experimenters of technologies ranging from videotape to laserdisc to CD-ROM, often undertaking ambitious projects doomed to the rapid obscurity of their formats. Over the next 40-odd years, they recorded mutated pop songs ( The Commercial Album), deconstructed rock and roll ( The Third Reich ‘n Roll, The American Composers Series), created an imaginary folk music ( Eskimo) and a multi-part opera about warring cultures and their pop idols ( The Mole Trilogy). Hardy digs up archival footage showing the band’s irreverent invasions of folk-club open mic nights, already sporting aliases and disguises. What is known about the Residents is that they originally hail from Shreveport, Louisiana, and that they struck out for the Bay Area in the late ‘60s in thrall to such idiosyncratic creators as Captain Beefheart and Harry Partch. It’s more about a collective spirit that I gravitated toward.” “The further I dug into the archives and interviewed the people that they’ve worked with for all these years, it became clear pretty quickly that who they are isn’t really all that important. “I never really thought that would be something I’d want to do,” Hardy says about revealing the Residents’ identities. The true story of the reclusive creators is left to be glimpsed between the lines of their ever-evolving mythology. As always, the band is spoken for by Homer Flynn and Hardy Fox, co-founders of the Cryptic Corporation, friends of the band who’ve managed their careers and maintained their public faces from the beginning. ![]() 27, doesn’t go so far as to put faces and names to the Residents. It’s not really spoiling anything to reveal that Theory of Obscurity, which will have its Philly premiere at International House for a single screening on Wednesday, Jan. was inevitably asked whenever he told people that he was working on a documentary about the legendarily mysterious Residents was, “You’re going to reveal their identities, right?” In most minds, any film purporting to tell the four-decade story of the anonymous Bay Area weirdoes had only one possible ending: the unmasking of those top-hatted eyeball heads. The first question that filmmaker Don Hardy, Jr. The film not only captures skillfully the essential of The Residents, but it also serves as a commentary to the superficial, commercial nature of today’s show business, and raises important questions on individuality and independence.Theory of Obscurity poster | designed by Casey Howard This documentary is a delicious summary of the band’s incredible history. ![]() At the same time, these delightfully off-kilter guys are viewed practically as gods in the underground scene. In addition to music, the band creates obscure and hazardous visual art and multimedia pieces, many of which are lost on the average viewer. ![]() Since the beginning of their career, the band’s costumes and masks have been an integral part of their look, and the band members have carefully hidden their identities for over 40 years. ![]() Theory of Obscurity is a documentary about the mysterious The Residents, a mindfuck-DIY-avant garde group that is perhaps best known for the fact that no one really knows anything about them. Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents (USA, 2015) Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents ![]()
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