News
DVD on The San Francisco Gate
12/13/09
The San Francisco Gate
DVD: 'Hori Smoku Sailer Jerry'
John Stanley
Sunday, December 13, 2009
This thing is more than skin-deep. It's crude and rude, a penetrating, butt-kicking documentary about one of the world's leading experts who once enhanced human flesh with imaginative, ink-drenched images. But don't dive head-first into the subculture of Norman "Sailor Jerry" Collins ("father of modern tattooing") unless you're ready for obscene language and graphic imagery of tattoo-saturated human bodies (my favorite: a sailor's buttocks with a boat propeller on each cheek). Writer-director Erich Weiss spent three years interviewing tattoo kings around the country who knew Collins when he was considered the best in his trade because of his Japanese-inspired images and unique colors. For decades, Collins ran his Honolulu shop on Hotel Street, where the phrase "stewed, screwed and tattooed" originated - a description of the thousands of sailors who once flocked into the area. A onetime sailor, Collins was a raucous, coarse-tongued character in his personal life, his cynical views retrieved by Weiss from the many letters he once wrote to his counterparts. He hated government and taxes and had no self-illusions. Although he died in 1973, at 62, Collins' spirit and techniques have been carried on by the on-camera contemporaries. Weiss provides a commentary and additional interview pieces with more of the gutter talk.
HORI SMOKU SAILOR JERRY
NOT RATED
2008
INDIEPIX FILMS
$24.95
