"Queer" Films

[miless]

But I disagree with him about I Don't Want to Sleep Alone not being queer.

I don't think that I Don't Want to Sleep Alone is a "queer" film. Sure, it does have gay themes, but that's just one aspect to the narrative... it's as much a straight film as it is a queer one... I would go as far as to say that the film is about human longing than any sexual identity.

[David Ehrenstein]

I don't think that I Don't Want to Sleep Alone is a "queer" film. Sure, it does have gay themes, but that's just one aspect to the narrative...

That sounds like it's one of those "but I'm really bisexual"(s)

it's as much a straight film as it is a queer one... I would go as far as to say that the film is about human longing than any sexual identity

So as far as you're concerned it's not a gay film unless it's a "coming out" narrative in which the leading character is wracked by a sexual identity" crisis. Let's see now -- Making Love, Doing Time on Maple Drive, Edge of Seventeen.

Yep that's it. There are only three gay films.

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone is entirely about the care and tending of the body of Tsai's boyfriend -- the most romantically obsessed-over presence in cinema since Anna Karina.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

[miless]

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone is entirely about the care and tending of the body of Tsai's boyfriend -- the most romantically obsessed-over presence in cinema since Anna Karina.

I would say that Hsaio Kang is straight but is the object of affection for both Rawang and Chyi and Rawang is jealous of the fact that his longings for Hsaio are (unlike those with Chyi) unreciprocated. Hsaio's kindness and understanding towards Rawang, in my opinion, spring from the fact that Rawang saved his life. And, Hsaio seduced Chyi pretty intensely which proves, to some extent, of how his character is straight. Although he may be a major character, the focus of the film is not Rawang, but Hsaio. Had the focus been on Rawang and his nearly violent jealousy I would definitely consider this a "queer" film.
It just shows how good this film is that we each have our own steadfast views as to its meaning.

two films that I would consider "queer" cinema are Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche and My Own Private Idaho which deal with similar issues but from the gay character's point of view.

[David Ehrenstein]

Unreciprocated love is hot.

two films that I would consider "queer" cinema are Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche and My Own Private Idaho which deal with similar issues but from the gay character's point of view.

A rather short list. Off the top of my head -- Swoon, The Living End, Totally Fucked Up, Mysterious Skin, Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven, Un Chant d'amour, Scorpio Rising, My Hustler, The Chelsea Girls, ****(Four Stars), Rocco and His Brothers, Testament of Orpheus, Caravaggio, The Last of England, The Garden, Edward II, Wittgenstein, L'Homme Blesse, Son Frere and above all, Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train.

[Michael]

Excellent choices, David. Pink Narcissus, Happy Together, and Tropical Malady are some of my top favorite queer films. Haynes' Safe is queer to some folks, I read.

But Rocco and His Brothers? How is it queer? Who's queer?

[David Ehrenstein]

"Morini" the boxing promoter played by Roger Hanin is keeping "Simone" (the great an vastly underappreciated Renato Salvatore.) There's a very important scene in which "Morini" tells "Simone" he should be glad he still wants to sleep with him being that he's out of shape, past his prime and his boxing career is over.

I have no idea why this scene isn't commented upon more often in gay film histories not to mention analyses of Visconti's career.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

I think, DE, you are being over zealous in what you are claiming is 'queer'. If you feel that a film like,say, the sublime I Don't Want to Sleep Alone can be labeled 'queer' (it did after all play at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival) then so be it but I think what miless is -correctly- getting at is is that in labelling a film 'queer' (at least the implication is) you are being exclusive. Whereas you should recognize the inclusiveness of the category. Rocco, for example, has a some homoerotic elements and a scene in which Simone sells his ass (if I read it correctly) but is this enough to make it a 'gay film'??

And you reading of the Tsai film is way off...

[David Ehrenstein]

Rocco, for example, has a some homoerotic elements and a scene in which Simone sells his ass (if I read it correctly) but is this enough to make it a 'gay film'?

Well if you'll note the director is Luchino Visconti and his star is Alain Delon -- he of absolute heart-stopping beauty.

And Nino Castelnuovo isn't exactly chopped liver either.

Visconti made Visconti films -- which is to say to a considerable degree gay by definition.

Rocco was an enormously influential on Fassbinder. And the spell it cast can be seen today in Gael Morel's REALLY Gay Le Clan (aka Three Dancing Slaves), in which tragedy evolves from the fact that the "Simone" character has fallen in love the film's "Rocco" and destroys himself as a result.

[David Ehrenstein]

BTW, should be immediately added to the role call of honor - absolutely superb, totally unappreciated movie by Julian Hernandez from last year, Broken Sky/El Cielo Dividido. You can do the narrative in three sentences but this is so formally powerful I fell off the seat and had to be brought back to reality. Absolutely gorgeous integration of form and performances and mise en scene. And it very much belongs in the class of "unrequited love" (or partially unrequited) a la Mala Noche and Chant d'Amour. But it's in something of a class of its own.

I agree. Add also his earlier A Thousand Clouds of Peace

If you feel that a film like,say, the sublime I Don't Want to Sleep Alone can be labeled 'queer' (it did after all play at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival) then so be it but I think what miless is -correctly- getting at is is that in labelling a film 'queer' (at least the implication is) you are being exclusive.

As opposed to straight films which are universal.

Right?

[Michael]

davidhare, thanks for the wonderful insights. You've always been and still are a guru to me. I'm truly blessed to have the treasure of reading your words, thoughts, etc. everyday for years. Thanks for sharing and I really wish I have a friend like you around here.

I absolutely agree with you about the masterful Broken Sky. Thankfully it's available on DVD and I just saw it last weekend. I loved it. More on that later.

And lets not forget Lifshitz. I find it hard reducing his films to "queer" because they're so beyond - much larger and universal than that.

[David Ehrenstein]

Araki (when he decides he's gay again)

Oh he decided that some time back. He's gayer than Anderson Cooper's sock drawer.

[LeeB.Sims]

While on the topic of unrequited gay love (are we still on that topic or is it just me?) how do you guys feel about Chuck and Buck? I found that film to be subtly effecting and poignant, if not somewhat unsettling…

[GringoTex]

Pink Narcissus, Happy Together, and Tropical Malady are some of my top favorite queer films.

Someone feel free to correct me if you think I'm off-base, but I've always defined "queer" films as those with an ideological agenda, in which case Happy Together doesn't fit.

For me, Rebel Without a Cause is far more queer than Happy Together, even if it's all sub-surface.

[Michael]

Happy Together chronicles the ups and downs of a gay relationship. Isn't that enough to make the film "queer"? To be honest, I hate the word "queer" even though I understand its artistic and political importance in the 1980s and 1990s - it was a movement. I'm just saying "queer" lazily to follow the others here.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

I strongly disagree with you when you say that Happy Together's "entire mood and raison d'etre is queer sexuality and taste". It seems to me that precisely the reason why Happy Together is a great film is because the sexuality of the protagonists is -to a very large extent- an irrelevance (I have talked about this film elsewhere in this forum so I wont bore you...).

If we were talking about The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant or Fox and His Friends then I would agree with you...but even then we are disputing degrees of perceived queerness versus more universal 'content' and themes...

[GringoTex]

Tex I don't buy the "ideological" tag for "queer" films - even if others might. A film is queer it it's sensibility is queer.

I prefer your definition, if only because it means gay films no longer have to be political by necessity (as was the case in the 80s and 90s festival circuits, when "queer cinema" became an official designation.)

Prick up Your Ears isn't an ideologically grounded movie, despite having an anarchic, subversive character as the subject, but its entire mood and raison d'etre is queer sexuality and taste. Same for Happy Together and in both cases the directors and stars are straight. (Although I'd love to think Tony Leung was gay!) Querelle doesn't carry an ideological agenda but is an exercise in relentless stylization, a la Sternberg.

I don't discern any gay sensibility in Happy Together (insert hetero disclaimer here!), because I see no difference in the sexuality in this film as opposed to Chungking Express or Fallen Angels. The Leslie Cheung character could just as well have been a woman and I'm not sure it would have changed the movie at all for me. (although there's no way in hell I could imagine the Tony Leung character as a woman!)

[robotjox]

While on the topic of unrequited gay love ... how do you guys feel about Chuck and Buck? I found that film to be subtly effecting and poignant, if not somewhat unsettling…

I love Chuck and Buck!!! I remember Priest being good too - the first time I personally witnessed "real" male loving on the big screen and it kinda freaked me out. A brave movie that one...

[Michael]

DL we can happily disagree, but the problem with what you say here - at least by implication and perhaps unintended - is that the Wong is a "great" film" only because the gayness of the characters is an irrelevance! This is like saying - as so many people with a genuinely homophobic agenda do - that, simply, gay can't be great but Universal can be. To quote Kay Thompson, "Banish the Beige" - I mean gay. It all comes down to the specifics of the characters and screenplay, certainly in the Wong, the on again off again theme (which is devastatingly portrayed in Broken Sky) has a very particular emotional tone in movies with two gay protagonists where the two characters are never "in synch". This may be a universal experience but in these two gay films for instance (the Wong and Broken Sky) the struggles of these characters expresses - in my view anyway - a particularly powerful reality of gay sexuality. Gay life among other things encompasses many MANY different options and choices and limitations and liberations for people, as well as the usual commonalities. But the point of a truly gay/queer movie is to let people in on the dope, if they don't already know.

You can say that again, davidhare.

I've pointed out at least a couple of times before that Lifshitz's films are universal - unrequited love, caring for dying parents, family duties, hereditary illnesses, and so forth however they still pulsate with tons of things that make gay people unique, something that they can completely identify and share in experiences and emotions - such as oppression, self-hatred, liberation, and many others foreign to straight people.

[David Ehrenstein]

Chuck and Buck is quite creepy. It's auteur Mike White (son of Fundie speechwriter Mel White -- who came out quite late in life) has come out since the release of Chuck and Buck. He chiefly scripts Jack Black comedies.

[LeeB.Sims]

Is it just me or is Mike White slightly underrated? The mainstream accessibility of his scripts is what I think makes people dismiss him as a fluff writer, but hidden just below the surface is often something a little more poignant and affecting. This is probably something he learned working on the excellent Freaks and Geeks. Orange County is a perfect example of how his deceptively low-brow scripts can really contain something substantial if you look closer. I'm also quite a fan of White's friend and the director of Chuck and Buck, Miguel Arteta. His second film The Good Girl is one of my favorites. Sorry, back to the topic at hand…

[David Ehrenstein]

Mike White is indeed promising. Just not sure at this point what that promise may entail.

[Antoine Doinel]

Didn't quite know where to put this, but I figured this thread might be appropriate. Mark Christopher's maligned 54 screened recently at Outfest in a director's cut assembled by the director himself. It restores 45 minutes that was cut for the theatrical release, and apparently redefines Ryan Phillipe's character as much more overtly bisexual. The director's cut is scheduled for a couple more screenings, though there are no current plans to restore the film for DVD.

[sevenarts]

Since there doesn't seem to be any dedicated Todd Haynes thread, I'll mention my review of Poison here. Supposedly coming out on DVD from Zeitgeist soon, which is welcome since the old OOP Winstar DVD I have is really dark and muddy and lacking. Still a great, disturbing, fascinating film though.

[mmacklem]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned some of my favorite queer films (which I'm not sure what the term means within the frame of the current discussion anymore), namely Lan Yu, Blue Gate Crossing, Show Me Love, Far Side of the Moon, and Love In Thoughts.

[Antoine Doinel]

Mike White is indeed promising. Just not sure at this point what that promise may entail.

It appears that promise entails competing in The Amazing Race.