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On the surface, this sounds like another
biographical movie about an artist, but even the disclaimer at the
beginning of the movie warns us otherwise.
I had a boyfriend in New York City (where this film
is shot, set in 1958) in the late 70s who would say, “You know how I am
about hair.” Well, this film must have something like that in mind.
Shainberg builds up to the fetish thing with fashion shows about fur
coats (ignoring the animal rights crowd today), and then photographer
Diane Arbus finds her apartment plumbing getting stopped up with fur
from the walkup apartment above. She thinks her neighbor has many show
dogs.
Not quite. A man, Lionel Sweeney (Robert Downey,
Jr.) with a mask lives there, and the movie builds up some suspense to
his revelation. The man exhibits lycanthropy or hypertrichosis. He looks
like a werewolf. He is quite tender, and he introduces her to a world of
circus “freaks” for her to photograph.
I digress here with a bit of biology. Humans have
lost most of their body hair, compared to other primates, and what they
do have occurs in somewhat different patterns. We don’t know exactly
why. Among some Caucasian populations, in the male a moderate amount of
limb and chest hair came to be perceived as sexually attractive by some
women and conferred reproductive advantage. Probably the distributions
in some other mammals (like the mane on a lion) is related to attracting
mates, too. You could even say that about the bright colors in the
plumage of some male birds. Among gay men, the subject is variable and
controversial; you are never sure who at a circuit party has really
shaved his chest. An issue of The Advocate in 1984 raised the
question of whether “hairy men” are more masculine and even had a short
story “The Body Shave.” I can recall a Sunday School lesson around
1956 or so where we read the Genesis story of Jacob and Esau, and the
(female) teacher went out of the way to say that Jacob was every bit as
much "man" as Esau.
In this movie, Diane builds up some fetishism as
she learns that Lionel is dying of his genetic disease; eventually his
lungs will fill up with cystic tissue and he will drown alive. The poor
breathing is odd with this, as in many men, poor circulation and
breathing (as from cigarette smoking) is associated with hair loss, as
from the legs. In fact, there is a lot of cigarette smoking in this
film. Finally, he says to her, “I need you to help me out” and gives
here a shaving brush, cream, and lather. He then wants to swim out to
his death off the Hamptons. Arduously, she completes all that body
shaving. There must have been an enormous makeup job on Downey to paste
on the animal hide. But the actor’s own original 40-year-old body
obviously gets shaved (but not torn apart like Steve Carel in “The 40
Year Old Virgin”), with bloody nicks, before they have sex. Now,
something that might be a sadomasochistic ritual or hazing rite of
passage in some communities here comes across as sterile, unerotic, and
artificial, because you know the whole thing is a mechination. (She does
shave him for a long time, rather like he was Robin Williams getting
repeated prepped for “Mrs. Doubtfire” or even “Hook”).
There is no real sense of violation, as there is an a notorious scene in
“The Andromeda Strain” when a researcher’s body is blasted
hairless by a photoflash in order to sterilize him to work.
The movie is framed as a flashback when she visits
a nudist camp to photo it, and you guessed it, has to go nude herself.
The music score by Carter Burwell sounds a little
like Phillip Glass, with a lot of triple time repeating phrases, giving
a haunting effect.
Absolute
Wilson (2006, New Yorker/HBO, dir. Katharina Otto, USA, 105
min, NR but would be R because of brief total nudity,p-5,r-1,a-5) is a
documentary and biography of playwright-choreographer Robert Wilson
(1941- ). Wilson appears frequently, getting to
talk about himself, and his life certainly presents interesting
parallels for me to consider, on some basic points. He grew up up in
Waco, TX in a segregated southern Baptist environment, where people
reported others whom they saw sinning in "prayer buckets." He had early
learning and speaking difficulties, but he overcame the stuttering when
a teacher encouraged him to speak more slowly. He was not a good
student, but seemed to find himself when he moved away to New York and
went to Pratt. Nevertheless, when he came back to Texas, he fell into
depression, attempted suicide and wound up in a mental hospital for a
while. At this point, he had to deal more openly with his homosexuality,
which is mentioned a few times; yet his personal adult relationships are
not presented in the film. He went back to New York and got his career
as a playwright going. His style emphasized visual choreography and
expressionistic lines and shapes, with relatively few words. Gradually,
he gained recognition and formed the Byrd school. He adopted an
African-American disabled youth, who acted in his plays but was able to
go on to college and live on his own. He also encouraged an autistic
teenager to act in his plays. The film presents his role as a parent or
father figure in a positive way (without mentioning the political
controversy in some states over gay adoption; New York is obviously much
more progressive on this matter than many other places). What is
interesting is that his fathering role grew out of his chosen work and
career; he did not, as many gay men of his time, marry and father
children and try to have a conventional "competitive" career in ordinary
business or politics. So, in a sense, he was able to "pay his dues" in
helping raise the next generation because he did follow his artistic
calling first. That sets an important example.
His opuses include The Life and Times of Sigmund
Freud, Death and Destruction in Detroit, and Einstein on
the Beach. His enormous project Civil War, for the Los Angeles 1984
olympics, got cancelled. The film mentions that fame does not always
bring wealth, which may or may not follow. But he got the good graces of
his previously homophobic father when he bragged that he lost $150000 in
producing the Einstein play "independently" at the Metropolitan Opera
(Philip Glass composed a lot of his music).
The film is shot in 4:3, without even the normal
aspect ratio, but there are a lot of black-and-white originals from the
1950s.
The title of the film is humorous. Does anyone
remember that "Wilson" was the name of the tennis ball in "Castaway"?
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