HOMOSEXUALITY IN experimental FILM: THE 1970s
Pink Narcissus (1971)
Dir. James Bidgood
Perf. Bobby Kendall, Don Brooks and Charles Ludlam
Strand Releasing, 2003. DVD
runtime: 64 minutes
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Pink Narcissus was originally released with director James Bidgood’s name taken off of the credits after he was upset with the film being taken away from him and edited without his approval. Taking seven years to film the content that would make it into the present cut of the film, Bidgood crafted the film almost single handedly, shooting the footage in personally built sets erected in his apartment in New York. The film that resulted of all this work is a dreamlike phantasmagoria, an erotic fever dream of a young man played by Bobby Kendall, who enacts various erotic fantasies throughout the running time. Without a narrative, the film jumps from vignette to vignette connected only by the stream of consciousness of the daydreaming boy. The erotic subconscious, that was so important to Freud and later the surrealists, takes center stage here. The look of the film is deliberately artificial, it is never once questioned that what you are watching is a construct. The film is of an erotic nature, and there is some frontal male nudity, but there are few, if any, explicit physical sex scenes. The fantasy and cognitive aspect of the film, as well as the stylized visual splendor, is where much of the arousal is created. However, the way that the film eroticizes the male body and casts the typically heterosexual male gaze over the physicality of young men can be reflected in later erotic art films and the movie’s fiercely independent nature is in touch with the idea of both the amateur and auteur theories.
Bijou (1972)
Dir. Wakefield Poole
Perf. Bill Harrison, Lydia Black, Tom Bradford and Peter Schneckenburger
runtime: 77 minutes
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Wakefield Poole’s first film, the hardcore gay pornography Boys in the Sand, was a milestone film is many respects, being one of the first films of the 70s art-porn boom and one of the first artistic gay hardcore films. But it is Poole’s follow-up to Boys in the Sand, Bijou, which shows the most avant-garde leanings. In Bijou a young construction worker steals a ticket from a young woman that allows him entry to a mysterious establishment where he encounters a variety of sexual experiences with other men. Just like Pink Narcissus, there is no narrative to the film and it instead flows like a dream through an eroticized netherworld. The film’s self-reflexivity can be observed in a scene where Poole shows up on camera behind the camera, pointing the lens directly at the viewer as he gradually becomes nude in a series of artistic cuts. The main character even lies down to enjoy a projection of a four-way split screen pornography within which the frame rate slows to a steady flicker as several anonymous men undress and perform for the camera. The medium of film is utilized to arouse the sense of the viewers and connect to them on a subconscious level. The surrealist idea of film inspiring various sensory experiences can be seen in this movie, where a barrage of psychedelic techniques and camera tricks send the viewer into a trance-like state. Though this is pornography and includes scenes of hardcore gay intercourse, it is most definitely an art film and can be seen as lending legitimate artistic qualities to scenes of explicit gay sex.
NOTABLE FILMS:
1970 - Sticks and Stones (Stan Lopresto )
1971 - Encounter (Peter De Rome)
1972 - Confessions (Curt McDowell)
1972 - LA Plays Itself (Fred Halsted )
1974 - Dyketactics (Barbara Hammer)
1976 - tu, il, elle (Chantal Ackerman)
1976 - Johan (Philippe Vallois)
1977 - Madame X (Ulrike Ottinger)
Mainstream:
1970 - The Boys in the Band
1972 - Cabaret
1975 - Rocky Horror Picture Show
1976 - Sebastiane
1979 - La Cage Aux Folle
1970 - Sticks and Stones (Stan Lopresto )
1971 - Encounter (Peter De Rome)
1972 - Confessions (Curt McDowell)
1972 - LA Plays Itself (Fred Halsted )
1974 - Dyketactics (Barbara Hammer)
1976 - tu, il, elle (Chantal Ackerman)
1976 - Johan (Philippe Vallois)
1977 - Madame X (Ulrike Ottinger)
Mainstream:
1970 - The Boys in the Band
1972 - Cabaret
1975 - Rocky Horror Picture Show
1976 - Sebastiane
1979 - La Cage Aux Folle