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Review: Making
Love (1982, 20th
Century Fox, dir. Arthur Hiller, 113 min, R) is the classic “fairy tale”
movie about gay men—especially a married gay man who comes to terms with his
homosexuality, comes out to his wife and then has to deal with the
consequences. Michael Ontkean (best known for his
role in David Lynch’s series The film frames the story with a very effective device: It opens with soliloquies with three of the major characters in close-up (the film is standard aspect); this leads to a level of audience engagement with what is otherwise looking to be a quiet, if controversial film. Mulligans (2008, Wolfe/Warner Independent Pictures/TLA/Border2Border, dir. Chip Hale, 85 min, R, Canada) sets up a college roommate who falls in love with the father of his host, challenging the father’s marriage, a kinds of MLII. Blogger,. Parting Glances (1986, Cinecom,
dir. Bill Sherwood) was an important indie gay festival film for AIDS
benefits in the 1980s. I saw it at the Inwood in The Birdcage (1996, United Artists, dir. Mike
Nichols, wr. Jean Poiret
(play) and Francis Verber (previous)) tells a
well-trodden story about a gay cabaret owner Armand Goldman (Robin Williams),
this time in As Good As It Gets (1997, Columbia, dir. James
Brooks), a romantic comedy, presents Jack Nicholson as his often misanthropic
self (remember his performance in “A Few Good Men”),
here an introverted author, who gets involved with taking care of a gay
neighbor’s dog (artist Simon Bishop, played by Greg Kinnear,
who handles the part with authority) and the only waitress, Carol (Helen
Hunt), who will serve him breakfast. Adaptations force him to become a
better, and “more involved” person. The Object of My Affection (1998, 20th Century Fox, dir. Nicholas Hytner) presents Jennifer Anniston as playing Nina, a young woman who falls in love with a gay man George Hanson (Paul Rudd), and wants him to become a surrogate dad after she gets pregnant. There is that scene where she depants him. But the most interesting line comes out during a comic scene where George outs himself to everyone, and where Sidney (Alan Alda) proclaims that gayness “is a very natural choice.” That does go against being p.c. these days (check Chandler Burr’s 1996 book, A Separate Creation.) Forces of Nature (1999, Dreamworks, dir. Bronwen Hughes) seems like a straight story—a super handsome guy Ben Holmes (Ben Affleck) is supposed to get married, is seated by Sarah Lewis (Sandra Bullock) on a plane, when a bird flies into the engine. Soon they are on the road together, unable to pay the motel bill when they get kicked out, and needing money, they wind up in a gay bar with a dance floor. (The bartender says to Ben, “they would want to see you dance, not her.”) Sarah will strip Beautiful Ben Affleck (they mount a pool table) on camera, first yanking away his pants, then tugging his shirt, to reach his hairy chest. Yeah, they get tips. Funny, ha ha, this is a romantic comedy. There are some pretty interesting lines: Ben is a writer, and Sarah says he is failing because he has no emotion. Ben accuses Sarah of arranging relationships with intellectually inferior men, deliberately engineered to fail. The Crying Game (1992, Miramax, dir. Neil
Jordan) puts together sexual politics (homosexuality and transgender) with
political rebellion and terrorism, specifically, the Irish Republican Army
(IRA). A gay British soldier Jody
(Forest Whitaker) is kidnapped by terrorists. He makes friends with Fergus
(Stephen Rea). Things go wrong, and Fergus runs to Jeffrey (1995, Orion Classics, dir. Christopher
Ashley) features Steven Weber as Jeffrey, who debates whether to remain
celibate after meeting the man of his dreams. What made this film interesting
was the live footage from the 1994 Priest (1995, Miramax, dir. Antonia Bird) provoked a lot of attempted boycotts against the parent company Disney in 1995). A young homosexual priest Father Greg (Linus Roache) picks up Graham (Robert Carlyle) and will be caught up in police action. The older priest (Tom Wilkinson) thinks he has his comeuppance. The story gets complicated when Father Greg learns in a confessional that a young girl is getting sexually abused by her father. All of this seems pre-timely, to the days when the celibate priesthood would be debated, as well as the scandal of all of the old molestations. At the time, this seemed like an important film. Apartment Zero (1988, Skouras, dir. Martin Donovan)
was a shocking thriller from Argentina where financially strapped Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth) takes in a charismatic roommate Jack
Carney (Hart Bochner). They will become “lovers” of
sorts, before Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971, United Artists, dir. John Schlessinger) presents a love triangle among a divorcee Alex (Glenda Jackson), a doctor Daniel Hirsh (Peter Finch) and Bob Elkin (Murray Head), and this includes a gay liaison between the two male leads. I took a female date to this film in 1971, during the three month period when I tried to date girls and “go straight” before my second coming. I even recall a conversation after the movie about the man walking on the curbside of the street to protect the woman—that was the expectation of the time. (No, we did not go Dutch.) Breaking the
Surface: The Greg Louganis Story (1997, Cruising
(1980, United Artists, dir. William Friedkin, based
on a novel by Gerald Walker, NC-17 changed to R, 106 min), was a notorious
film about a serial killer stalking gay men in the leather bars, and has some
particularly brutal scenes. I remember seeing this in Victim (1961,
Allied/J. Arthur Rank, dir. Basil Dearden, bw, 100 min, PG-13, UK) is a groundbreaking British film
that faces frankly the way sodomy laws, still in effect then in Britain in
1961 (they were lifted there in 1967) simply provide a “blackmailer’s
charter.” Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde), apparently
happily married (they always are!) is a successful One wonders if blackmail was really as easy as it looks in the film. Even
with sodomy laws on the books, why did the police believe an unprovable accusation about something that happened in
private between consenting adults? I can see this for arrests in public
places, like parks. Maybe it would happen if the police give one party immunity to testify against the other. But the
film certainly shows the chilling climate against homosexuals in that period.
This is set in the same time period as my 1961 William and Mary expulsion for
saying that I was a (latent) homosexual. In the early 1980s, I would see problems
with police making false arrests for public lewdness in gay bars in There is also discussion about why there are sodomy laws, with the usual circular “logic.” One reason given is to protect youth from bad examples. It seems like an admission that the male role as provider, protector, and initiator – lifelong – is so precarious that it needs to be “protected” by collectivist moral standards, even in “private life.” That is what people of this generation believed. The The Servant (1963, Warner Bros/Pathe/Studio Canal/Anchor Bay, dir. Joseph Losey, novel by Robert Maugham, 114 min, sug PG-13) is a battle between two British closeted gayish men in different classes: the house master Tony
(James Fox) and manservant Hugh Barrett (Dirk Bogarde),
who, as conventional wisdom has it, gradually takes over the house. There is
a bit of a love rectangle (Vera Miles and Wendy Craig) but toward the end we
start to see what is happening, as the housemaster keeps nude male pictures
around (like in an Iris Murdoch novel). It never quite comes to fruition. The
music is French jazz, the indoor sets with all the table settings are
spectacular in black and white, and outdoors we see In & Out (aka In and Out, 1997, As for Beaches (1988, Touchstone, dir. Garry Marshall, novel by Iris Rainer Dart), it has always been a “gay” favorite film about two “straight” female friends, dancer CC Carol Bloom (Bette Midler, of course) and lawyer Hillary (Barbara Hershey). There is a great conversation about the commitment it takes to have kids. Hillary gets viral cardiomyopathy when she has her baby, and then comes to resent her friend who will outlive her. John Heard plays “the man in between.” The Producers (1968, There is a remake (2005,
Universal/Columbia/Brooklyn Navy Yard, dir. Susan Stroman,
music and lyric by Mel Brooks, 135 min) that carries the social and political
satire even further. Early one, a boyish and fattish Leo Bloom (Matthew
Broderick) explains creative accounting, how to make money on a flop with
creative accounting. This sounds like an obvious
takeoff on the Enron and WorldCom (“cook the books”). The musical numbers
build up, introducing foppish gay characters, some in drag, some in other
stereotypes (including the Village People). The musical numbers are drawn out
and add to the length of the film, but among the best are “We Can Do It,”
“Keep It Gay,” and “Springtime for Hitler,” the layered musical that they
finally pull off. That is full of swastikas and takeoffs on Aryan
stereotypes, “Deutschland is happy and gay.” That rings for someone who
visited Prick Up Your Ears (1987, The Times of Harvey Milk (1984, New
Yorker, dir. Rob Epstein, 90 min, PG-13) is a moving documentary about the
life and career of Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians to be
elected to office, in this case the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco in
the 1970s. His political nemesis would be Dan White, from the conservative
southeast side of the city. Milk pushed through an ordinance protecting
people in the city from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,
and in the 1970s this was still a big deal for a lot of people. During the 1970s the country saw the Anita
Bryant orange juice backlash in A Very Natural Thing (1974, New Line, dir. Christopher Larkin, 80 min, R) was a famous film in its post-Stonewall days, about an ex-priest David (Robert McLane), becoming a teacher and desiring caution and commitment, falls in love with Mark (Curt Gareth), who has much more opulent and exploratory ideas about life. The title of the film reflects the Aquinas “natural law” flavor of the moral debate of those days. Maurice (1987, Cinecom/Film
Four/Merchant Ivory, dir. James Ivory, novel by E. M. Forster, 140 min, R) is
a famous and visually provocative period film about gay men coming to terms
and covering up to follow the norms of Edwardian society. The novel is said
to be autobiographical. Clive Durham (Hugh Grant) and Maurice Hall (James Wilby) have been boyfriends, and Clive marries Anne
(Phoebe Nicholls) to fit in with family expectations. But he will find a new
love with the gamekeeper Alec (Rupert Graves). Ben Kingsley also appears in
this large indie Merchant/Ivory offering from the Mikhael (aka
“Michael”, 1924, Kino, dir. Carl Theodor Dryer, novel by Herman Bang, 86 min,
BW, silent, Germany) gives us an ambiguous chapter in the early history of
cinema with gay themes. Michael (Walter Slezak) is
a handsome young artist and model in Paris Is Burning (1991, Miramax/Off White, dir. Jennie Livingston, 71 min, R) is a documentary exploring the break dancing and “voguing” styles (later adopted by Madonna) in the African American gay community (with particular attention to the drag queens) in New York City in the late 1980s. This film, because it was first rejected from Oscar contention despite its festival success, caused relooking within the Hollywood Oscar community at documentary. Toward the end of the film some of the characters discuss the extent to which they express trans-genderism, and one of them says, “I don’t know what it feels like to be a woman; I know what it feels like to be a man dressed as a woman. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.” The dancing style does not resemble that closely what happens in large city gay discos today, however. (Do not confuse with the famous 1966 Rene Clement film “Is Paris Burning?” about the departure of German occupiers in 1994). Ode to Billy Joe
(1976, Warner Bros, dir. Max Baer, Jr., wr. Herman Raucher, 105 min, PG-13) is a story set in the south of
sexually insecure Billy Joe McAlister (Robby Benson) who confesses his love
to sweetheart Bobbie Lee Hartley (Glynnis O’Connor)
and then, when drunk, has intimacy with a man. Then he runs away and has to
come out to Bobbie Lee. The film ends tragically as he throws himself off the
Two early lesbian films: The Fox (1967, Claridge, dir. Mark Rydell,
novel D.H. Lawrence 110 min), where two lesbians (played by Sandy Dennis and
Anne Heywood) deal with the disruption of a boyfriend (Keir
Dullea); set in rural maritime The Killing of Sister George (1968, Cinerama Releasing, dir. Robert Aldrich, R, play by Frank Marcus, 138 min) has a love triangle of lesbians with one playing a character who has to be killed off. Beryl Reid is Sister George (and she is always spoken to as such); also Susannah York and Coral Browne. There is a climatic explicit lesbian bedroom scene that was shocking in its day (outside of Andy Warhol), but it seemed to make female homosexuality real to many viewers. Schlesinger’s An anemic, stereotyped-queer comedy about male homosexuality was Staircase (1969, 20th Century Fox, dir. Stanley Donen, with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison), although it presents a 20-year gay couple and could fit lightly into today’s debate on gay marriage. William Friedkin’s The Boys in the Band (1970, written by Mart Crowley from his play) presented a homosexual birthday party with some killer lines (about “a gay corpse,”--- “you will always be homosexual…”) and some stereotypical anti-butch behavior among gay men. I saw this at a drive-in in Morrisville, PA then, one of the few movies I ever saw at a drive in. But the most important of all of the early gay films is perhaps The Children’s Hour (1961, United Artists/Mirisch, dir. William Wyler, based on the play by Lillian Hellman, 107 min, PG-13) in which a spiteful student Mary Tilford (Karen Balkin) at a private girl’s school accuses the two headmistresses (played by Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine) of having a lesbian relationship, when there was really no factual evidence of that. The bw film captures the anti-homosexual paranoia and scorn of the times, when homosexuality was seen as potentially subversive to middle class culture. La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life), (American International, 1960, Italian, 173 min, R, b-w Cinemascope, dir. Federico Fellini). Remember American International, the studio that gave us the motorcycle flicks of the late 60s like Born Losers? Well, their imprint is on the reprint of Fellini’s masterpiece, that literally started the 60s. It is credited with inventing the “paparazzi” that hounded Princess Di to her death in the Paris tunnel in 1997. On the surface, this is a satire about the lives of upper class Europeans who turn to suicide when things get rough, as journalist Marcello Mastroanni travels around Rome. His sarcasm comes out when he remarks that a president or Soviet premier can end all civilization with one phone call. But what fascinates here is how the film buries the you in its world of abstraction to pull you toward its conclusions. This is one of those movies that MUST be in black-and-white, and must be widescreen. The images are endless: a helicopter carries a statute of Christ past Roman aqueducts toward the modern City and the Vatican, then past cookie cutter apartment buildings under construction; the girl friend whose basement apartment is always flooded, the girl with a kitty cat in her hair, the doctor who ties his shoes, a modern triangular shapes of nurses’ uniforms in a Catholic hospital. The black and white forces the viewer to pay attention to textures and details, all the more so in the indoor scenes populating the wide screen with characters and objects. There is no much use of closups here; instead it is the entire vision, of a Rome that always seems a bit cloudy in the black and white. Only in this kind of a world could an orgy follow a tragic multiple family murder and suicide. And in the last thirty minutes, Fellini’s nature comes out of the closet. The orgy goes gay, a bit like modern dirty dancing though with the pop music of the time. The gay men seem more “masculine” than the straight male characters, who are already going down hill a bit, in comparison to the well build gays with hairy bodies (even those in drag). One of the drag queens says, “we will all be homosexual.” At the end, there is a seaside scene with all of those textures that again fill in the colors, and even an amorphous (and perhaps androgynous) sea monster washed onto the beach. This film predates my expulsion from William and Mary for homosexuality by one year, because this was a film, for all its awards, that “normal” people didn’t see in those days. Yet Fellini clearly understood how quickly things would change. But he had to use black-and-white; in Technicolor the real world objections to his fantasy would have been too much to overcome in that era. This film is involved in a trademark dispute (since a porn producer has tried to use this name); view this blogger explanation. |
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Related reviews: Major current GLBT films The Celluloid Closet Advise and Consent Suddenly, Last Summer (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Tea and Sympathy on that same file); Paragraph 175 |
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