DVD Release: Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground

By
Laurence
– January 3, 2020Find Others: DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: ,

DVD Release Date: Dec. 17, 2019
Price: DVD $19.99
Studio: MVD

Chuck Smith’s 2019 documentary Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground takes a look at the sadly brief life of of avant-garde filmmaker Barbara Rubin, a near-mythical “Zelig” of the artistic counterculture thriving in 1960s New York.

Made when she was just 18 years old, Barbara Rubin’s art-porn masterpiece Christmas On Earth (1963-65) shocked NYC’s experimental film scene and served as an inspiration in NYC’s thriving underground.

For the next four years her filmmaking and irrepressible energy helped shatter artistic and sexist boundaries (even as she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan to the Kabbalah!).

But beyond shaping the spirit of the sixties, Barbara was seeking the deeper meaning of life. After retiring to a farm with Allen Ginsberg, she shocked everyone by converting to Hasidic Judaism, marrying and moving to France to live an anonymous life.

Tragically, Rubin died in 1980 after giving birth to her fifth child. For years, New York underground film guru Jonas Mekas treasured all of Barbara’s letters and films and cherished her memory. Working with Mekas’ footage, the film takes us inside the world and mind of Barbara Rubin; a woman who truly believed that film could change the world.

The DVD includes a musical to the late Jonas Mekas.

Buy or Rent Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
on DVD

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.