Cult/ Boom!

Creative misadventure, commercial flop or camp, cult classic? For John Waters, cinema’s trash-tastemaker in chief, Boom! is one of the greatest films of all time.

Sissy Goforth – a magnificently-named socialite turned recluse – lives in splendid isolation on a remote Italian island, where she is writing her memoirs. The arrival of a mysterious poet named Christopher Flanders disrupts Goforth’s brittle paradise: he claims to know her from a previous life; she believes him to be the angel of death.

Step back from its loosely-defined plot, and you’ll discover that the real story of Boom! in fact takes place elsewhere. The film’s production was notoriously chaotic – bringing together an improbable group of creatives that included a blacklisted director with communist sympathies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer battling personal and professional demons, and Hollywood’s original celebrity couple. British cinematographer Douglas Slocombe and composer John Barry also make notable contributions.

The fruits of their collective labours are both sublime and ridiculous. Over-stuffed with meaning, over-wrought with cinematic technique and elevated ever-higher by over-the-top acting, Boom! went way over audiences’ heads on its first release. Now, it has to be seen to be believed.