Begotten (film)  

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Begotten is a 1989 American experimental horror film written, produced, edited, and directed by Edmund Elias Merhige. It stars Brian Salsberg, Donna Dempsy, Stephen Charles Barry, and members of Merhige's theatre company, Theatreofmaterial. The film contains no dialogue and employs a style similar in some ways to early silent films. Its enigmatic plot, drawn from elements of various creation myths, opens with the suicide of a godlike figure and the births of Mother Earth and the Son of Earth, who set out on a journey of death and rebirth through a barren landscape. According to art historian Scott MacDonald, the film's allegorical qualities and purposeful ambiguity invite multiple interpretations.

Begotten was first conceived as an experimental theatre piece with dance and live musical accompaniment, but Merhige switched to film after deciding that his vision would be too expensive to achieve as a production for live audiences. Antonin Artaud and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche were major influences on Begotten, as Merhige believed their ideas and theories had not been explored in film to their full extent. The film's visual style was inspired by Georges Franju's documentary short Blood of the Beasts, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, and the German Expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Begotten was shot on location in New York and New Jersey over a period generally thought to have been three and a half years - although, in an interview, Merhige said filming took only five and a half months.

Once the film was finished, Merhige spent the next two years trying to find a distributor willing to market it. Following its debut at the Montreal World Film Festival, it was screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where it was seen by film critics Tom Luddy and Peter Scarlet. They brought it to the attention of fellow critic Susan Sontag, whose enthusiastic praise and private screenings of the film in her own home were instrumental to its eventual release. Though largely ignored by main-stream critics, it attained cult film status and influenced several avant-garde film-makers, visual artists and musicians. The film's scarcity on home video prompted its fans to spread their own bootleg copies, a phenomenon described as a "copy-cult" by film studies scholar Ernest Mathijs. As the first part of a planned series, Begotten was followed in 2006 by Din of Celestial Birds, a short sequel with the theory of evolution as its dominant theme.

Plot

Inside a small shack, a robed figure - dubbed "God Killing Himself" in the film's credits - disembowels himself using a straight razor. After removing some of his internal organs, the robed god dies. A woman, Mother Earth, then emerges from his mutilated remains. She brings the corpse to arousal and uses his semen to impregnate herself. Time passes and Mother Earth, now visibly pregnant, stands beside a coffin. Wandering off into a vast and barren landscape, Mother Earth later gives birth to Son of Earth, a malformed convulsing man. He is soon abandoned by his mother, who leaves him to his own devices.

After an untold period of time wandering across the barren landscape, the Son of Earth encounters a group of faceless nomads who seize him by his umbilical cord. Upon being captured, the Son of Earth begins to vomit up organs, which the nomads excitedly accept as gifts. They then throw the man into a fire pit, where he burns to death. Son of Earth is resurrected by Mother Earth, who comforts her newly reborn offspring before they continue together across the barren landscape. The nomads soon return and proceed to attack the Son of Earth as Mother Earth stands in a trance-like state. Turning their attention to her, the nomads knock her to the ground, rape her, and murder her as her son watches helplessly near-by.

Once the nomads have left, a group of robed figures arrive to carry away Mother Earth's mutilated, disemboweled remains. The group returns to murder and disembowel her son, burying pieces of both mother and son into the crust of the earth. As time passes, the burial site soon becomes lush with flowers. Grainy photographs of God Killing Himself are shown. In the final scene, Mother Earth and her son appear in a flash-back, this time wandering through a forest.Template:Sfn

Cast

• Brian Salzberg as God Killing Himself:

A mysterious, robed entity who disembowels himself with a straight razor. He is also the father of Mother Earth and Son of Earth, the latter of which was born through artificial insemination.

• Donna Dempsey as Mother Earth:

A female entity based on the earth deity of the same name. She is the mother of Son of Earth, whom she conceived via artificial insemination.

• Stephen Charles Barry as Son of Earth (Flesh on Bone):

The deformed, convulsing son of Mother Earth and God Killing Himself. Barry would later reprise his role in the film's sequel, Din of Celestial Birds, which was also written and directed by Merhige.Template:Sfn

Members of Merhige's theater company Theatreofmaterial – which included Adolpho Vargas, Arthur Streeter, Daniel Harkins, Erik Slavin, James Gandia, Michael Phillips, and Terry Andersen Template:Endash provided additional credits for other characters in the film such as the Nomads and Robed Figures.Template:Sfn

Themes

Critics have identified several major themes in Begotten. In interviews, Merhige himself has acknowledged that he intentionally incorporated these themes into the film, while also inviting viewers to form their own interpretations of the film.Template:Sfn