Jeffrey Schwarz is an Emmy Award-winning producer and director known for a very impressive body of excellent documentary work of some of the most fabulous queer iconic figures. They include The Fabulous Allan Carr, Tab Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine, Vito, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon and Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story.
Now he is turning his attention to an outrageous movie that bombed at the box office when it was released in 1995 but went on to become a cult classic especially with LGBT audiences.
Showgirls was was a highly anticipated, big-budget extravaganza directed by Dutch auteur Paul Verhoeven who was riding a wave of the success of Robocop, and Basic Instinct.. He cast Elizabeth Berkley to be his star and uo until then she was , best known for her role on a squeaky-clean 90’s sitcom, but now she was literally expected to bare all in this very lurid role
Audiences expected a highly erotic movie but instead of being turned on they just laughed out load ……. and also walked out in droves. Poor Elizabeth Berkley would go on to work a lot in TV but her appearance in Showgirls robbed her of any ambitions for movie stardom
Now as a passionate cinefile Schwarz is one of many people who have not only re-discovered the movie but find such sheer delight but for for none of the reasons that Verhoeven intended. Much of Schwarz’s own work has been about celebrating and re-claiming objects of ridicule, and therefore Showgirls makes a perfect fit for his next project.
Titled Goddess: The Fall and Rise of Showgirls is going to delve into all the myths and sort the facts out from the fiction as it investigates why the initial negative response should turn 360 degrees for the film to become practically worshipped in some quarters. He will also look at how Elizabeth Berkley who was so unfairly blames as a scapegoat, survived to tell another tale.
Schwarz is now close to finishing production, and hope to premiere the completed documentary in 2020 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Showgirls. He needs help however with the post-production cost to make this one of his dreams come true.
The Kickstarter page is now LIVE and ready to accept contributions with lots of nifty incentives. Here’s the link:
Meanwhile here is the trailer for he original movie, so you can see partly what all the fuss was about.
