“One of the most original, thrilling and mammoth novelties to emerge from a movie studio. A great show! But don't take nervous children to see it.” Mae Tinee, Chicago Tribune
“Gosh! What a film!” - Ernest Betts, London Evening Standard
“It might seem that any creature answering the description of Kong would be despicable and terrifying. Such is not the case. Kong is an exaggeration and absurdum, too vast to be plausible. This makes his actions wholly enjoyable.” - Time
Saturday, June 14, 8:30 p.m. & Sunday, June 29, 12:00 p.m. | In “Notes on Camp,” Sontag provides examples of canonical camp: The National Enquirer, Swan Lake, Flash Gordon comics, and KING KONG. When it was released, there wasn’t a whiff of camp to KING KONG, and audiences marveled at and took seriously its originality. While Sontag writes that time can make the banal fantastic, with KONG, the opposite occurs: Kong’s T-Rex fight on Skull Island, Fay Wray squirming in his massive paw, the ape beating his chest on the top of the Empire State Building—it all reads quite campy now. Still, the final line of the film, which we won’t dare spoil here, is one of the best of the last century.
Summer Camp | June 2025 Specialty Series
In 1964, the essayist Susan Sontag wrote “Notes on Camp,” where she endeavored to define “camp,” an artistic and cultural sensibility. The essence of camp, Sontag wrote, is “its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” In the 60 years since that publication (a brisk, 14-page read), camp has evolved and flourished: in drag culture, the queer community, and the fashion and music industries. In cinema, camp can be found in the extravagance of a sweeping melodrama or the movie that’s so-bad-it's-actually-brilliant, a film may read as “campy” because of its opulence or extreme performances, or we might call a movie a camp classic because its earnest seriousness makes us laugh all the way to the credits. For Summer Camp, we abide by one of Sontag’s most salient points: “Camp is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation—not judgement.” Pack your bags, we’re going camping!
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu