Died Young, Stayed Pretty

This post is long overdue, but nevertheless, here it goes:

A couple of weeks ago, I went to watch “Died Young, Stayed Pretty”, Eileen Yaghoobian’s documentary that explores the underground poster culture in America, with a slight emphasis on punk rock influences. The artists featured in the film are largely unknown, quite eccentric, and somewhat vulgar. For example, one scene of the movie focused on an artist who was tampering with a touch-sensitive lamp and every time the light turned on, he would make explosion noises. Even now, I am still mystified as to what he was trying to convey. Another notable character was Art Charney, who made a poster for the band Von Zippers. The poster featured famous figures with zippers over their mouths, and he goes over each one by comically insulting the depicted celebrities.

On the other hand, the artists also carry strong and valid opinions regarding the demise of poster culture and how many of the artworks that are representative of our times are not found in a gallery, but on random poles in the streets. Yaghoobian successfully exposes this particular sector of the population, as well as their work, in all its raw and obscene glory. One of the characters interviewed referred to this movement as “…the purest form of art that our culture has.” It is also probably the most ephemeral, and Yaghoobian tries to not only capture but preserve this form of art.

Despite the documentary’s thought-provoking topic, I did not find it to be engaging nor clear. The film is composed of interviews with various artists, and their ideas did not really seem to relate to one another, making the point of their statements hard to follow. Also, the movie lacked a sense of direction since Yaghoobian left it up to the artists’ sporadic statements to shape and frame the film’s message. Without providing any parameters or some form of a narrative, the documentary appears to be nothing more than a string of fragmented sentences and images of rock posters. Though its themes were meaningful, its convoluted execution undermined the impact of these messages.