Midtown— “It was chaos, absolute chaos,” Indie Memphis Film Festival volunteer Ginger Grant said, breathlessly describing an altercation that took place after she called in a complaint about Dorf Ungolf, a Norwegian performance artist known for making loud phone calls during movies and live theatrical productions. Ungolf, who has been banned from all area cinemas, was attempting to purchase an all-access pass to the popular festival.
“I asked him to leave but he wouldn’t,” Grant further explained. “I called the police but the team they sent looked more like a military unit. They had body armor, and all kinds of weapons, and they just started pounding him. It was awful. It was amazing.”
Regional cinemas had been on high alert since Ungolf posted a message on Facebook explaining how he had been “inspired and empowered” by the “rich white people” in a new series of online advertisements for the Motorola Droid Ultra. He said he applauded the telecommunications company for encouraging “sexy rich people” to flirt electronically at “shitty fat people operas.”
“Once these deviant phone behaviors were ascribed only to the poor and powerless — to the gang bangers, and the Norwegians like me,” Ungolf wrote. “Now that we see that hot wealthy American white people in tuxedos are also enjoying these same wicked pleasures there is no turning back.”
In various interviews Ungolf has claimed that the people of Norway didn’t appreciate his art either and that he moved to Tennessee after the opening of a 22 screen Muvico megaplex in Downtown Memphis. He has been annoying the shit out of regional cinema and live theater fans since. In fact, he has often been blamed for the now-shuttered Muvico’s ultimate demise.
“People always fear the new,” Ungolf was quoted as saying in August, 2007 after being dragged from the Muvico-22 by the MPD’s Gang Unit.
“If only these stupid cow-faced audiences would listen they would know I am not talking to friends. I am not hooking up to say ‘Yo-yo man, whazzup’ like you see on TV. I am responding in the moment to what is actually happening on the screen. If it is an asshole up there I may say, ‘Look at that asshole up there, who does he think he is?’ And sometimes I am then responding to people who are responding to me. And it is beautiful.”
According to police reports Ungolf was removed from the theater when two Muvico customers who were trying to watch Transformers complained that there was a man behind them who was even louder than a Michael Bay movie, taking selfies and making frequent attempts to contact his drug dealer to obtain marijuana.
Eyewitnesses to Ungolf’s recent arrest say the crowd that assembled at Playhouse on the Square to watch police officers mercilessly brutalize the artist was both large and enthusiastic.
“They were all chanting, ‘Kill him, kill him,” Grant remembered. “I can’t remember who started it,” she added, conspicuously crossing her fingers.
“Best show I’ve seen all year,” community actor Giles Hamm said, after expressing some concerns about the use of excessive force. “That guy who talks through movies was just screaming and asking, ‘where is your freedom of speech now fat opera people? Where is it now?’ And that’s when somebody would hit him in the face again or shoot him with a TASER. You can’t script this stuff.
“I’ve got to admit, I have been concerned about what looks like an epidemic of police brutality in America,” Hamm added. “But this time they were going after somebody who deserved it. They were just kicking the absolute crap out of somebody who I personally hate, and who everybody hates. That kind of thing always brings people together.”
