It was only this year that I discovered the legendary Jack Smith, whilst pottering around galleries in New York. Somehow, he (his work, his name even!) had completely bypassed me. How ignorant I was… As I watched his films with that sigh of relief reserved for those moments of pure, awe-inspired trust towards a creative kindred spirit, I assumed he was a contemporary artist with a fetish for nostalgia, with a flamboyant and celebratory romanticism for 60s experimental underground queer art film. Then I found out he was the real deal. Even better?

Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis was a good crash course in his world and his work, and I’m sure there are a few things in there that the seasoned Jack Smith fan would find revealing. I was put through the emotional paces as I admired his revolutionary, impassioned heroism to protect what he saw as artistic truth and integrity, his reluctance to engage in commercialisation, then found myself sad, angrily disappointed, that this tragically came hand in hand with his exploitation and rejection, his isolating and debilitating paranoia, his unforgiving existentialism, that ultimately destroyed him.