For most folks, if the name Crispin Glover rings a bell at all, it’ll be for a long-ago role as George McFly in the first Back to the Future film (but not, rather notoriously, the second). But for aficionados of the strange and weird in culture, Glover is a bit of an icon — and he’s making a rare Florida appearance Friday night in Fort Myers.
He’ll screen his 2007 film It is Fine! Everything is Fine. He’ll also be reading from one of his books, in what is billed as “Crispin Hellion Glover’s Big Slide Show, Part 2.” Given Glover’s track record of unpredictability, seeing him in person might be worth the drive. Glover signaled his allegiance to strangeness early on with a couple of heroically unhinged appearances on David Letterman, including one during which he nearly kicked Dave in the head:
It Is Fine! was first released in 2007, to a widely admiring, if sometimes confused, reception. It’s an Art Film with a capital A, confrontational and disturbing. The central character is a man suffering from severe cerebral palsy — played by Steven C. Stewart, who also helped write the film, and died from complications of his condition shortly after filming was completed. We see Stewart wrestling with the limits his disorder places on him, and particularly on his sexuality, through a not-very-narrative sequence of surrealistic vignettes and operatic set pieces.
So, this is definitely not an easy ride. But for fans of a certain brand of ambitious cult and experimental cinema, it’s a rare new companion to the likes of Jodorowsky’s El Topo or Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising. It’s even shot to resemble those classics, with a filmed look and flat lighting that’ll take you right back to the 1960s and 70s.
It Is Fine! is the second in a planned trilogy, the first of which was 2005’s What is It, which also centered on themes of disability, but trafficked in much more overt surrealism, involving lots of snails and strange costumes.
We’d recommend getting to this screening a little early — it's likely to draw various creepos from across this great land.
(Bonus fun fact – Crispin’s dad is Bruce Glover, whose depiction of class acts like the assassin Mr. Wint in Diamonds are Forever makes it very clear where the weirdness comes from.)
Crispin Glover appears at ArtSPEAK@FSW 7 p.m., Friday, July 10, Bob Raushenberg Gallery/Rush H. Rush Library Auditorium at Florida, Florida Southwestern State College, 8099 College Parkway Southwest, Fort Myers, free; first-come, first-served.
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2015.