(Bishop - Um, actually, I AM Allan MacInnis, so, uhm, yes, I think I would!)
There's actually
an interesting thread about all this on IMDB, wrought with the usual level of inarticulate buffoonery one finds there. The title is "Gus van Sant's Gay Agenda"
What we see there is actually straight-out homophobia. There are scenes of men kissing in ELEPHANT and LAST DAYS. The writer doesn't want to see such things, finds it distasteful, wonders why Gus has them in there. In neither case does his objection amount to anything: in the first case, it's clearly thematically relevant; in the second - a film I haven't actually viewed in completion - it's likely either an incidental detail, or a provocation. What comes clear reading the thread is that the original poster is just disturbed by seeing men kiss, and assumes that any director who would insert such stuff has an "agenda" that needs to be justified.
These are deeply problematic assumptions, and offensive and marginalizing to gays. I don't THINK I'm guilty of the same thing. As Franco says elsewhere, I found the film objectified its male lead in an at-times jarring and irrelevant way, given my presumptions about what the film is/was/should be about.
Maybe these presumptions are the problem. MAYBE there is some thematic relevance to the homoerotic elements van Sant introduces into the text that I didn't take in on first viewing. I was under the influence of the novel when I saw the film, and was likely expecting some degree of faithfulness to the source material. In the novel, there is NO overt suggestion of attraction between the characters of Scratch and Alex, who ride off on a train together to get beer, prefacing the horrible railway death that takes place that Alex can't talk about for the rest of the film. Van Sant inserts a slow-motion charged glance into the conversation between Scratch and Alex in the film - and while at the time my mind was reeling into "What the fuck is he doing here" territory, I gotta admit that (on reflection) MAYBE he's meaning to figure the trauma that Alex can't talk about as being in some way a metaphor for being gay in a straight society. That would, obviously be interesting and relevant, and might force me to completely re-evaluate the film; it would mean that I've done van Sant an injustice.
I think I would still find the misty-eyed lust shots of Nevins problematic, though. I mean, he's pretty enough, but this really doesn't seem to have much to do with anything.
David: eroticism in Bresson is complex, and I can't do justice to it. I will say this: PICKPOCKET is probably the sexiest movie I've seen - all those hands slipping secretly into pockets, the bond between transgressing men, covert meetings, glances... It makes me horny as a dog.
P.
