RJM: So what drew you together to do this project now?īB: For me it had to with a full circle. Lydia Lunch (LL): Longer than you’ve been alive, my friend. You two have known each other quite awhile at this point and have been collaborating… As I was saying to you, Beth, before Lydia joined us, I’ve been a fan of both of you and your work since I was teenager getting into more, for lack of better terms, alternative or non-mainstream art. Raphael Jose Martinez (RJM): So I watched the film, and I really, really loved it. To say I was a bit intimidated would be an understatement. I had the opportunity to speak with both Lydia Lunch and Beth B., not only about the new documentary, but about their decades of collaboration, the fluidity of art, the strange and often ugly economics of independent cinema, and why Barack Obama was a cocksucker. But at the same time there’s no denying that she’s got a razor sharp mind behind it and even sharper tongue saying it. Never answering to anyone but herself, you might not agree with everything Lydia Lunch has to say-and there’s never a doubt that she’ll say something you won’t. And more importantly, why she’s still doing it why her words and art are just as relevant now than ever. It’s not just about what Lunch did-it’s about why she did it.

Less a biography and more an exploration of the motivations and politics of Lunch’s art, THE WAR IS NEVER OVER doesn’t just give a retrospective-style look-back, it provides a modern contextualization. Now, some 40 years on, they’ve collaborated again with the documentary LYDIA LUNCH: THE WAR IS NEVER OVER, which was completed in 2019 and is finally being released post-pandemic via Kino Lorber. Together they made such underground classic films as BLACK BOX and VORTEX. You wouldn’t be wrong, but you also wouldn’t be painting the whole picture.Ī gadfly of virulent proportions, Lunch has been a creative force since the 1970s when she moved to New York City and became a fixture of what eventually became known as the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression movements.Īlongside her in those times was Beth B., a filmmaker just as intertwined with those movements as Lunch. Calling her a musician, or an artist, or a writer, is like calling the January 6th storming of the U.S.

Lydia lunch willing victim