Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant, 2008)

[Cold Bishop]

(Bishop - Um, actually, I AM Allan MacInnis, so, uhm, yes, I think I would!)

Hmm.. I thought it was from a review posted.... oh well, if I don't pay attention, I'll look like an idiot. I'll slowly walk away now.

[David Ehrenstein]

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.

Pickpocket is an orgy. Gerard and his pals in Au Hasard Balthazar were likewise cast by Bresson with Van Santian attention to detail.

[Michael]

Well, Gerard's pants are absolutely tight, shaping his fat dick really nicely.. kind of distracted me from the donkey.

[pemmican]

Okay, I'll 'fess up my ignorance, reveal my soft white underbelly: was Bresson, in fact, gay? Was he out? It doesn't seem to be made much of (unlike his Catholicism, say)...

Oh, and Bishop: it was from a review posted. The review was by me, and was posted by me. I am shameless.

P.

[David Ehrenstein]

Okay, I'll 'fess up my ignorance, reveal my soft white underbelly: was Bresson, in fact, gay?

Yes

Was he out?

No.

It doesn't seem to be made much of (unlike his Catholicism, say)

You do the math.

[pemmican]

Hm! I mean, it's a bit odd - when mentioning PICKPOCKET, I surfed around trying to find out if Bresson were gay - I'd assumed it, but didn't know. The Senses of Cinema bio, Wikipedia, IMDB... none of them make mention of it. It's rather an odd omission.

P.

[franco]

[...] 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's an incredible observation. It completely explains the protagonist's attitude towards women and many of his seemingly random decisions. Perhaps even society's preconceived judgments towards skateboarders can be interpreted as a similar metaphor. It certainly shows in the police investigation scenes, where the skateboarders sneer at the policeman's uncertainty towards them (as though they were a whole different breed of mankind) and his use of the word "community."

Crap, that means this is no longer one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Quite on the contrary.

Michael will love this movie.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

Hm! I mean, it's a bit odd - when mentioning PICKPOCKET, I surfed around trying to find out if Bresson were gay - I'd assumed it, but didn't know. The Senses of Cinema bio, Wikipedia, IMDB... none of them make mention of it. It's rather an odd omission.

I presume (and hope) that he was being sarcastic... Bresson was most certainly not gay, nor as far as I am aware did he have gay inclinations/adventures. Even if he did it is of absolutely no interest to me.

D.E. you are coming across as a bit militant... Can we get this thread back on track?

[David Ehrenstein]

"Bresson was most certainly not gay, nor as far as I am aware did he have gay inclinations/adventures. Even if he did it is of absolutely no interest to me."

You're "awareness" doesn't go very "far."

Nobody talks about Ozu either -- though they certainly do in Japan

"D.E. you are coming across as a bit militant... Can we get this thread back on track?"

You mean you just found out that I'm a militant?

And I wasn't the one who started this discussion of Gus Van Sant's casting practices.
.

[Don Lope de Aguirre]

And I wasn't the one who started this discussion of Gus Van Sant's casting practices.

David, even if Gus does come from the Visconti school of casting, we can still discuss this in a more informed (should I say informative) manner minus the hair pulling, scratching etc.

[pemmican]

Actually, people DO talk about Ozu - I've encountered the argument in a couple of places, that his antipathy towards social strictures and the expectation to marry came from the perspective of being gay: which others take to be controversial, hinging almost entirely on a love note he once wrote to a school friend...

David - to get a little closer to this thread - I'd be curious about your view on van Sant's PSYCHO. It bugged the hell out of me, given what I take to be Hitchcock's homophobia (obvious in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, but I think present in the character of Norman Bates, too), that van Sant did (that I saw) NOTHING to query or problematize it, just served Hitch back to us straight up. I know he's said it was a sort of prank, but still, it confuses me. It's one of the other things I want to ask van Sant about, if that interview ever happens.

P.

[Michael]

pemmican, regarding to Psycho, check out this thread.

[David Ehrenstein]

Psycho comes out of Gus' Warhol side. It's a kind of "impossible object."

And speaking Les Boys, Gus took Viggo Mortensen's clothes off before David Cronenberg did -- even digitally affixing a butterfly tattoo right above Viggo's butt crack.

(A very good reason to see this color Xerox of Psycho)

[Michael]

Another very good reason: Gus' framing of Vince's hot ass as he climbs the stairs. Hitchcock would never done that.
Just thinking about Bresson tonight, I must add that in my whole life of watching films, no man was photographed more sensually, luxuriously than Bresson of Claude Laydu. I saw Diary of a Country Priest before I knew anything about Bresson, without being familiar with Bresson and his works. From this film, I got the powerful sense of a director being in love with his actor.

Michael will love this movie.

Hope so. Paranoid Park is the only Van Sant film unseen by me. But in my world, Mala Noche remains his best film.

[s.j. bagley]

oh the things i learn on this forum! i had no idea that bresson and ozu were gay, whatsoever. (the thought of which makes me want to reappraise bresson's work, actually.) as to the subject at hand, a lot of the talk here has made me really want to see this, although i doubt it will come anywhere near rhode island.

[pemmican]

I would take the claim that Ozu was gay as controversial, and I have no idea what sort of support there is for the idea that Bresson was gay.

It would be nice if someone could verify that, actually.

P.

[Dylan]

So, do the kids skateboard to Nino Rota?

[Via_Chicago]

I have no idea what sort of support there is for the idea that Bresson was gay.

It would be nice if someone could verify that, actually.

Whether or not Bresson was gay (and again, debatable), Pickpocket and, to a lesser extent, A Man Escaped, are very gay films. That's an important distinction, if indeed one must make a distinction.

[Barmy]

Bresson was NOT "gay". If I can be arsed (unlikely), I will post the recent article in the Guardian (I think) where Anna Wiazemsky confirms that he tried to molest her. I'm surprised no one else posted it.

I've seen "Punishment" and can confirm that it is a very silly picture.

[pemmican]

Barmy - "Punishment?" Are you getting Punishment Park and Paranoid Park confused? (Or is there some other film called Punishment that someone is referring to here?).

Dylan: That I recall, no, the kids skateboard to moody, glitchy electronica. Gabe Nevins meanders around in a funk to Nino Rota.

P.

[HerrSchreck]

Oh jesus. Tonight is magical. Stars must be aligned in some kinda awful way fucking cc brains into the outhouse.

Punishment. Freudian slip?

Now I hafta blow my nose.

[pemmican]

I forgot the reason I stopped posting for awhile: I get sucked into these arguments and end up feeling compelled to revisit films I'd completely dismissed as tripe.

Last time it was Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Re-watched it, listened to whatsisname's commentary - and, after some thought, decided it's exactly the macho misogynist cryptofascist piece of crap that I'd thought beforehand.

I am now rushing off to pick up a copy of van Sant's Psycho, so I can consider just how far Viggo's ass goes to queering the text. Not far enough, I'm suspecting. (No one seems to really be responding to my objection to that film as replicating Hitch's homophobia). I suspect I'm going to enjoy myself more than I did with the Peckinpah, at least.

P.

[zedz]

(No one seems to really be responding to my objection to that film as replicating Hitch's homophobia)

I can't promise to rise to the bait, but how does "Hitch's homophobia" manifest itself in Psycho? I see Norman being coded as heterosexual (sexual murderers seldom kill outside their proclivity/ies), with an incestuous twist. In some Hollywood products being a "mommy's boy" is code for queer, but this film goes so far beyond conventional characterisations of this kind that it's hard to carry the implication over.

Sure, Perkins was gay, and Hitch probably knew that, but I don't see that translate so simply to the character (same with Cary Grant in his many roles for Hitch).

(I just know I'm going to regret posting in yet another inning / outing of Bresson / Ozu thread.)

[Cold Bishop]

Oh jesus. Tonight is magical. Stars must be aligned in some kinda awful way fucking cc brains into the outhouse.

Punishment. Freudian slip?

Now I hafta blow my nose.

My guess was he meant to call it "Punishment Park" as an allusion to Watkins film, and in reference as how he felt watching this film.

[HerrSchreck]

I fully understood that, but thanks for the concern.