Chronicle PRIDE GUIDE 2005

On the cutting edge

Gays and lesbians, once ignored in movies, are now everywhere

by Anthony Glassman

Over the last 110 years, motion pictures have become a major part of everyday life, although everyday life is not necessarily reflected by motion pictures.

In fact, for a good portion of that century-plus, lesbians and gay men were all but banned from the screens of theaters in the United States.

Some images did filter through: predatory lesbians like Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, "sensitive" boys like Plato in Rebel Without a Cause.

However, one thing was certain any time a "lesbian" or "gay man" appeared

on the screen as anything other than comic relief.

They would be dead by the time the credits rolled.

As the United States came into the Swinging Sixties, not only were attitudes changing, but the openness found on European film screens was being imported more and more. Soon, the queers were surviving to the end credits.

Gay and lesbian cinema was born, although the films were seldom life-affirming. In The Boys in the Band, there is a whole lotta selfloathing going on, and while Beryl Reid's titular character in The Killing of Sister George spends much of the movie partying, she is far from happy.

However, just as French film experienced a nouvelle vague (new wave) beginning in the mid-fifties, queer film came into its own starting in the mid-eighties.

One of the first films to really step up to the plate was Donna Deitch's 1985 love story Desert Hearts.

In it, Prof. Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) goes to Nevada in the 1950s to get out of her unsatisfying marriage. There she meets Cay Rivers (Patrice Charbonneau), the lesbian daughter of the owner of the ranch where the professor is staying. While the two find love in each other's arms, they also find a potent adversary in Frances Parker (Audra Lindley Mrs. Roper from Three's Com-

pany!), who does not approve of such goings-

on.

Two years later, the Canadian import I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, directed by Patrice Rozema, made a splash with the tale of Walter Mitty-esque Polly, who gets a job as a secretary in the stunning Gabrielle's gallery. Gabrielle is seeing Mary, a painter, but Polly fantasizes about being the object of the gallery owner's affections.

Things go awry, as things are wont to do, leading viewers on one of the most interesting and unsung voyages in queer films.

In Rose Troche's 1994 film Go Fish, hot younger lesbian Max is set up with Ely, an older, frumpier woman. They enjoy each other's company, but Max is as infected with ageism and looksism as the rest of the world, so the question remains can she get over her hang-ups and just enjoy life, or will she doom herself to loneliness because she can't let go of the thought that young and pretty are the ultimate goals?

Rose Troche

Troche went on to direct Bedrooms & Hallways, about a group of predominantly gay men. After that, she really established herself as a Hollywood force by creating The L Word for Showtime, presenting a group of completely unrealistic but utterly fascinating lesbians to cable viewers.

In 1995, Maria Maggenti's The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love finally made the filmic connection between lesbians and softball while presenting a romance between an affluent woman with a boyfriend and a working-class lesbian living in an all-womyn environment. Randy, the work ing-class woman, was played by Laurel Holloman, most recently seen in the midst of childbirth on The L Word, while director Maggenti seems to have disappeared.

Then something strange happened: Lesbian films moved overseas. At least the really notable ones did

Deepa Mehta's 1996 film Fire was eventually banned in both Pakistan and Mehta's native India. In fact, some theaters were attacked by Hindu extremists on opening day.

The Canadian-Indian co-production centers around Sita and her sister-in-law Radha. Sita's husband is a lech with a wandering eye, while Radha's husband has taken a vow of celibacy because Radha cannot conceive a child.

While the extended family lives together, Sita and Radha's friendship becomes deeper and more intimate until the duo get the film banned in Pakistan, an Islamic country.

Over in jolly old England, the BBC dramatization of Sarah Waters' debut novel, Tipping the Velvet, made big waves with its tale of Victorian-era love at an-on love it a seaside resort.

Nancy is a waitress at her father's music hall, living an ordinary life until she meets Kitty Butler, a male impersonator who has just breezed into town to perform at the hall. Their romance starts Nancy on a journey of discovery that leads her into true adulthood.

Lately, much of the United States' lesbian film output has centered around assisted fertilization and having kids. Chutney Popcorn is an enjoyable example of the phenomenon, but there are so many dramas and documentaries.coming out that it seems everyone is having kids,

While there are some gay male films about adopting kids, or having children through surrogates, or plenty of other ways to wind up with kids, the nouvelle vague of boy films tends to skew a little more punk, a little more in-your-face. Gus Van Sant's 1991 opus My Own Private Idaho, for instance, was a dirty, dirty film. Not necessarily smutty the sex scenes were often stylized, shot as a series of still pictures with the actors trying their best not to move. No, the film was grimy, grungy. In the heyday of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, a film about hustlers in the Pacific Northwest should be dirty, though.

Mike (River Phoenix) is in love with Scott (Keanu Reeves). Mike is gay, Scott claims to be straight. They both sleep with men (and women) for money. Throw in some Shakespeare and a halfway decent performance by Reeves, and the openly gay Van Sant had himself a winner.

SECTION B

Gregg Araki's latest film, Mysterious Skin, should be hitting theaters soon, but fans of any of his first five films probably know that already.

Araki's first widely-released movie was the art-house favorite The Living End. It is often described as a gay, HIV-positive Thelma and Louise so, yes, it involves two gay men, one big gun and a road trip to someplace resembling Hell. Araki followed The Living End with his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy, which, interestingly enough, became less mature as they went on.

The first film, Totally F***ed Up, was a relatively mature look at a group of gay and lesbian teenagers in Los Angeles. Yeah, their lives sucked, but it was pretty realistic, and at least they had each other-most of the time.

The next film, The Doom Generation, was filled with pseudo-Christian references to heaven and hell, lines taken from the lyrics of songs Araki liked, and a handful of gay porn stars playing neo-Nazis. Jordan and Amy, a boyfriend/girlfriend duo, rescue Xavier Red from a probably muchdeserved ass-whupping, but then are stuck with him on a road trip that spirals out of control, perhaps out of reality as well. Oh, and Xavier might be the devil.

Takashi Miike

Araki's final Teen Apocalypse Trilogy film was Nowhere, which was almost indescribably bizarre. Aliens figure into it somewhere, as well as a boy turning into a giant cockroach.

Of course, it could have been the drugs.

The trio of films all star James Duval, who has become a regular feature in "cool" independent films like Donnie Darko, Go and SLC Punk. Imagine Keanu Reeves with acting ability and you've pretty much got James Duval. Duval's presence in the three films creates a sense of continuity, although it would have been nice to see him have a happy ending in at least one of them.

Araki went on to direct Splendor, which had the tag line "A heterosexual film from Gregg Araki." Of course, heterosexual by Araki's standards is not exactly Love Story. From California the guiding lights of crazy queer cinema go to Canada, home of Noam Gonick and Bruce LaBruce.

Gonick's Hey Happy! is a fascinating, rave-influenced piece of cinema. DJ Sabu is trying to bed his 2,000th man before an unexplained watery doom befalls Winnipeg, Manitoba. Apparently, if Sabu can chalk up that final notch on his bedpost, he will become ascendant.

Deepa Mehta

He sets his sights on vaguely retarded tinkerer Happy. However, the evil hairdresser Spanky wants Happy for himself, as much to ruin Sabu's plans as because of any real desire for Happy-

Gonick's new film, Stryker, deals with Asian gang members in Winnipeg-transsexual prostitutes, a lesbian leader of the Indian Posse, buff exotic dancers-turnedgang members in the Asian Bomb Posse, and one indigenous Canadian caught in between.

Of course, Bruce LaBruce makes Noam Gonick seem like a normal, welladjusted kind of guy.

LaBruce burst onto the scene with No Skin Off My Ass in 1991, the first of his projects to get real attention outside of just the homocore, queer punk community.

The film deals with a hairdresser with a taste for skinheads. He meets and takes home what he believes is a heterosexual skinhead, locking him in the bathroom. Later, the audience learns that the skinhead is also gay, and his sister has been trying to fix him up with the stylist.

Two constants throughout LaBruce's films (which also include Super 8/2, Hustler White and the recent Raspberry Reich) are hot skinheads and actual, graphic sex. The sex originally appeared only when needed to further the plot, but when critics accused him of making pornography he responded with 1999's Skin Gang, an actual porn flick. Reich was a little heavy on sex and light on plot, but it made for amusing satire.

Of course, if they ever give an Academy Award for most messed-up gay director, that honor would go to the incredibly prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike.

Miike makes a few films a year, usually at least half just to make money and one or two because it's a project he believes in.

He is perhaps the most subversive gay director around today. In a society where homosexuality is not discussed, he will direct a gangster film where one team of hit men is sent to kill another team of hit men.

Only, the "bad guy" hit men are gay lovers. And the "good guy" hit men are gay lovers.

At times, it seems everyone in Miike's films are gay, or at least willing. The really frightening thing is, the man's films are insanely popular, not only in Japan but among cult film enthusiasts here.

It will be interesting to see what will happen when women in the entertainment industry overtake the men. There seem to be so many more risk-takers among the male directors than the female directors, who tend to have more coherent, traditional narratives. Of course, for the last 110 years, the vast majority of directors have been men.

Perhaps the new wave of queer film can sweep aside some of the traditions and conventions of the film industry, and perhaps wash ashore some more interesting

voices.