622 Weekend (2011)

[Michael]

Now that's post gay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE5qgFUx ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[puxzkkx]

My objection to it is that I don't believe the battle for acceptance has been won. When I see the ugly rhetoric of those who oppose same-sex marriage, rising numbers of hate crimes, and this kind of bullshit, I feel the battle is as pitched as ever. If anything, the battlefield is being increasingly abandoned by the gay mainstream who, fatigued by decades of constant vigilance and activism, just want to watch Glee, listen to Lady Gaga, get married, collect antiques, and have babies.

I think rejecting 'identity politics' can be important in the 'battle for acceptance' especially when dealing with close-minded folks whose major problem stems from their mediated conception of the gay 'identity'.

As I've said I'm highly political but I feel that I'm fighting for my own civil rights rather than the rights of a community, esp. a community that I don't feel the obligation to join solely on the qualification of my sexual orientation.

David was asking my definition of 'assimilation' and I'd say that, for me, it means being able to kiss my boyfriend/husband in public, marry and start a family, basically live my life in security as millions and millions of others do - without feeling pressure to define myself with rainbow flags, 'community' movements and the social, sexual & political values that I see in a 'gay scene'. Call it old-fashioned but what I find a lot of modern gay activists call 'straight values' are, to me, simply 'human values' and I've always considered the root cause of the rights movement here to be building a society where gay men and women can live within that value system and - to use a term that David will hate - 'be just like everyone else' without ghettoising themselves in gay bars and other 'exclusive' environments. These aspects of 'community' can (and certainly did in the past) act as a support structure but I don't believe that they should function as a sole support structure because I don't feel that there needs to be this kind of social support... and I feel like we are edging towards a time where, yeah, that support isn't needed.

[knives]

A 1998 article in the New York Times defined post-gay as "a fledgling, somewhat murky idea that describes a homosexual identity in which sexual behavior no longer defines one's life. It's not bisexuality. It's not retreating to the closet. It is a way of saying, 'We've come a long way, so calm down.' In a post-gay world, homosexuals have won their battle for acceptance and are now free to move beyond identity politics."

My objection to it is that I don't believe the battle for acceptance has been won. When I see the ugly rhetoric of those who oppose same-sex marriage, rising numbers of hate crimes, and this kind of bullshit, I feel the battle is as pitched as ever. If anything, the battlefield is being increasingly abandoned by the gay mainstream who, fatigued by decades of constant vigilance and activism, just want to watch Glee, listen to Lady Gaga, get married, collect antiques, and have babies.

I agree with you, but consideration of medium should be taken also. Reality may be the mess you make it out to be (and on some days it seems even worse), but art has advanced to the point where post-gay or something similar. I feel that something similar went down in American cinema with the representation of blacks where if you had a black protagonist the story had to be about racism and all of those ponies where even the best movies of the '50s and a little beyond treated things with this neurotic existentialism. Reality hasn't gone post-racial in much the same way it hasn't gone post-black, but largely the arts have where even the crap cinema featuring black protagonists don't have to make that aspect of the characters the story even if it in ways maybe unconscious to the film makers utilizes that aspect of the character(s) to build something interesting. As far as the representations of homosexuals in the cinema I see it as where we've largely been able to go there since the '90s (with a fair share of examples from before such as Mala Noche). Also at this point largely speaking homosexuality isn't in reality treated as a disease so much as an other allowing for the situation to be much closer to the racial one than ever before and for that to bring about real world social change to allow for a post-gay reality a normalized post-gay showing in the arts is necessary. I hate to bring this up because I think the show is terrible, but whatever faults it had in representation something like Will and Grace did step toward a post-gay representation that brought about good change that something Kramerish like Brokeback Mountain simply can't. We haven't had that Do the Right Thing film which makes utterly impossible for the traditional gay film to no longer be taken seriously, but that doesn't mean that the Driving Miss Daisy's are doing any good.

[ethel]

Getting back to Brief Encounter ... Howard and Celia should have been tearing each others' clothes off and I would have switched Horowitz for Moura Lympany's deathly dull rendition of the Rachmaninov 2. The whole thing reeks of "good taste".

Moura Lympany? That's Eileen Joyce at the ivories. Nothing post-gay about our Eileen.

... and hey I'd like to share the wear for the drawbacks of the Coward films with their little-acknowledged director David Lean. Have you seen Blithe Spirit? Brr. Coward may have been a closet by necessity, but Lean's Aspergersy touch rendered him incapable of presenting human relations in depth on the screen in the manner of the superb Weekend. If he dimly sensed some exploration of sensuality was called for, he instead buried himself in pyrotechnics, dissolves, cross fades, montages etc. If he hadn't had actors of the calibre of Claude Rains, Judy Davis, Celia Johnson and Peter O'Toole (to say nothing of such writers as Coward and Bolt) I think he'd be way down the pantheon with Lewis Milestone, John Sturges and other well-funded and limited craftsmen of the golden age. (When times were tough and money was tight, he featured the icy Ann Todd (Mrs Lean), an efficient blank for him to light and cut around. Those films are among his least interesting in terms of performance, and emotional import.)

Anyway, Weekend is a small miracle. The best recent British film for ages. Nothing happens. No guns. No car chases. No cars. Two blokes in a few rooms. Has something so minimal yet so entertaining been done since Bergman?

[Matt]

knives, you're correct that art is typically ahead of society in general. But then post-gay in art is generally going to be in the eye of the beholder. Even on this open-minded board, I expect many people will avoid Weekend because they see it as a "gay" film first and foremost and think it will have nothing to offer them. To those of us who have sat through decades of narrow, constraining pablum like Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Broken Hearts Club, and The Birdcage (to name but a few), Weekend is a relief: a beautifully crafted film that just so happens to be about two guys who like guys, free of gay angst. However, there are scenes that show how being gay can be very isolating in a room full of straights, so it's still just this side of being completely "post-gay."

And here is where I want to put in a shameless plug for my friend Travis' film, I Want Your Love, that has its US premiere coming up at the Frameline Film Festival on June 17 in San Francisco (and playing plenty of festivals thereafter). If you liked Weekend and don't mind explicit sex in your movies, you'll like this.

[knives]

It seems like we're on the same page with this actually then (though I would hope nobody on this forum is as closed minded as to not watch a film just because of gayness). I hope also that you friend's film becomes successful.

[criterionsnob]

Blu-ray.com

[knives]

Its working for me so perhaps it is not accessible through Australia.

[Matt]

I changed the link. It was a link to the Frameline Film Festival listing for the film, but I updated it to the film's site, which has a complete list of festival screenings.

For those that care, Travis' project with James Franco has wrapped. I think it will turn out to be of interest to a lot of people on this forum.

[Michael]

So thrilled to find Weekend at my doorstop when I got home from work yesterday. I watched it right away – my second time. When it ended, I was wiping tears from my face and feeling desperate for a hug. Still a beautiful beautiful film, a perfect film to me. What Finch said on the first page, I couldn't agree more.

Spoiler

Through the history of cinema, there are many examples of the tearful, romantic goodbye at train station scenes – all straight lovers but finally gay men have one they can call their own, thanks to this film.

[mfunk9786]

Just so y'all know, this is not streaming on Hulu Plus, but it is streaming on Netflix, if you want to watch before you buy or whathaveyou.

[Michael]

Interview with actor Chris New:

http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainm ... end-update" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and actor Tom Cullen:

http://anthemmagazine.com/q-a-with-tom-cullen/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some interesting insights on their working with the film and director.

[wigwam]

This was great. As equally reverential to its ideas as its moments, where it could easily get by on one or the other. Simultaneously heartbreaking and inspirational in terms of how any relationship is finite and can be either mourned and wasted or realized as an opportunity to be a better person and make the other person you're with be the better person they want to be too. I totally cried at the platform scene. Loved it.

[knives]

I really wish the disc had a larger interview with Ula Pontikos as I was just bowled away by the use of lighting in this film. I'm sure it was super low budget, but the lighting and Pontikos' use of it really adds to Haigh's phenomenal sensitivity in a way that seems almost intangible on first viewing. It's almost shocking how rare it has become for such a plainly shot film to be so beautiful. As much as the script and performances make this film basically reality I think it still could have been squash without such a good technical team. The editing too for instance is kind of beautiful in knowing just when to cut. Honestly this may be the best discovery from Criterion I've had this year and one of the absolute best films in general from the last few. I am so glad for this forum's response in convincing me to get this.

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 29th

Members have a two week period in which to discuss the film before it's moved to its dedicated thread in The Criterion Collection subforum. Please read the Rules and Procedures.

This thread is not spoiler free. This is a discussion thread; you should expect plot points of the individual films under discussion to be discussed openly. See: spoiler rules.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

I encourage members to submit questions, either those designed to elicit discussion and point out interesting things to keep an eye on, or just something you want answered. This will be extremely helpful in getting discussion started. Starting is always the hardest part, all the more so if it's unguided. Questions can be submitted to me via PM.

[zedz]

I want to rewatch this, but at the moment I'll just say that this is a lovely, beautifully observed film. Its virtues are of the modest but crucial kind (great character work from the script, actors and direction, mainly) that all too often get overlooked, so it was very nice to see this get the Criterion nod. And John Grant's 'Marz' is perfectly deployed.

[Drucker]

Weekend is a lovely film, that manages to cover ground that's been done time and again, and still delivers something fresh, timeless, and interesting. It goes right to the edge of cliche and manages to either avoid it, or deliver well enough that it's no bother.

Let me get the cliches out of the way. It's hard not to look at this film as a simple portrait of the day-to-day drama of totally regular people. To a degree, I think this is present on a lot of TV shows at the moment, such as what I've seen of Girls and Master Of None. Would I also be insane to see a little of the "manic pixie dream girl" type trope in Glen's character? That classic relationship dynamic is here: one person uptight, bound to rules, unsure of themselves, and here comes the free-spirit to shake his world up. Later on, the free spirit has to come down to earth a little bit, and in the end they've both learned something.

But rather than have both of our character learn something and be done with it, the film continues. The film's climax come later. By the middle of the film, our two fantastic leads have been devastatingly earnest and honest with each other already. They've been clear about who they are, their hangups, and shortcomings. Russell's already made clear he's sort of stuck in inertia, and Glen hammers the point home when he goes on about friends boxing you in to a personality type. When Russell calls to bail on a get-together, as his friend had expected he would do earlier in the film, he is reinforcing his friend's beliefs about him, and allowing them to further box them in. Russell needs to learn to let go and try new things, and at the end of the film, it truly feels like we have learned that with him.

The film does a 180 and gives both characters equal ability and time to change and grow. Glen's character is treated with serious complexity, and one is left to wonder if he isn't spending a deal of time perhaps telling a tall tale or two. He may be "freer" but he is just as guarded as Russell is, just in different ways.

Once Russell starts being aggressive with Glen, pointing out his shortcomings and flaws, the character's switch places, in a way, and it becomes Russell who is helping Glen learn. After the first night, Russell brings Glen coffee. On their last morning together, Glen brings it to Russell. If we presume it was Glen who came on to Russell their first night, it's Russell who runs to Glen at the train station to bid adieu.

The film is rather simple. Boy meets boy. They take turns prying and learning about each other, and at the end of they've both grown and it's time to say good bye. But the film doesn't rest on it's laurels as a gay film, either, and makes sure we care about the characters. It has its cliche moments, but they are well done. The film paints itself as modern, but not in an annoying way (the same couldn't be said for Looking, the TV show by Haigh, whose characters have an annoying conversation about Facebook within 10 minutes of the show's first episode).

One other thing I'll say: my god it must be exhausting to be gay. Their discussion of not being allowed to discus politics with their straight friends and the difficulties they have with those friendships was excellently done.