QUEER CINEMA

Started by modage, June 02, 2003, 05:33:46 PM

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AlguienEstolamiPantalones

im not saying that i am against the emotions behind it

but you cant compare it to heterosexuality, heterosexuality is a product of nature lets not  drag god into this lets just talk science here

the penis and the vagina were both created to come together , thats why one has one thing and the other has another thing

you combine them and boom, you got life

all forms of life are created this way, thats the only way you can re prouduce , if you take sperm from a man and eggs from a woman and thats how life is created, you can talk about doners and labs, but that is all a variataion on the same thing. Nature had a plan lets not talk about god, just science

thats what bugs me about p.c freaks they want to talk science when the subject of god is brought up, yet when this topic comes up they keep there fucking yaps shut

(edited)

now do i think that some people are born gay ???

yes i do , and for that reason alone i think its not cool to hate someone based on the fact that they are gay

however i am not going to let the p.c police tell me that its not funny or gross which it is


but this i will say i was kind of bummed out during the end of american idol, because i thought to myself " if the world knew that this clay guy was gay, he would not have gotten the support he has gotten"

so i felt very sad for this guy, he could not thank his boyfriend on tv, and that was a very important moment in his life, if he had a boyfriend wouldnt it have been nice to thank him then.

so yeah i felt bad, so i am far from a gay basher

and i thought it was un cool for kissing jessica stein to exploit this subject for its own shallow reasons

but come on the truth is the truth, basic common sense and science tell us this

(edited)

but telling a gay person not to be gay is like telling a person with parkinsons not to shake

its not fair , and its not cool

but my point stands

prove to me that gay sex is a legit sex act

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

to clear up my thing about american idol, i am glad he made it that far because he was judged for the only thing that mattered on that show is talent, but i think if america knew he was gay he would not have went that far because it would of clouded their judgement

so i was happy that he was able to make it that far based on talent, but bummed out that it is a issue in the first place

because it wouldnt be with me, i can careless who he fucks as long as he is a great singer

and well if he does have a guy at home that he could not share that moment with, well that does make me feel bad for him

but the facts are the facts

and well i dont see myself tying someone to the back of my car just because they are gay any time soon

in fact i wanted that jenny jones guy to get the death penalty for killing that gay guy, i mean what the fuck just because the guy has a crush on you , you fucking shoot him

fuck you


i dunno if cute harmless jokes feed this hostility, maybe i should stop

but my scorn is more so at uptight super liberal assholes

and well nothing piss's them off more then a few cute jokes

but this i will say my opinion on sceince and its relation to sexual intercourse will always be this way

Ghostboy

Quote from: SantaClauseWasA BlackMan
prove to me that gay sex is a legit sex act
By those standards, it certainly isn't a legit sex act. I wouldn't deny that. But also by those standards, heterosexual sex for any reason other than procreation is also a non-legit sex act.

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

Quote from: Ghostboy
Quote from: SantaClauseWasA BlackMan
prove to me that gay sex is a legit sex act
By those standards, it certainly isn't a legit sex act. I wouldn't deny that. But also by those standards, heterosexual sex for any reason other than procreation is also a non-legit sex act.

well it is because man and woman sex was meant to feel good because that is natures way of getting us together, nature needed men and woman to fuck so it created organs that give pleasure when they are combined

and since it feels good we do it a lot and well at one point most of us will procreate at some point

but not george cloony, ohh no he will just keep on fucking hot chicks well into his 90's

what a man

now ok sure you can say man on man love also offers pleasure

but so does sticking your dick in a bowl of soup for some people

and for some people its other peoples soup

so ya know differnt strokes for differnt folks, but the quote un quote sex act itself is that of a man and a woman

Cecil

who says that homosexual sex isnt "natural" anyway? how can you be sure what "nature" is or what its (her, whatever) intentions are anyway?

keep in mind that this whole procreation stuff is just your interpretation of what sex is supposed to be, or meant to be by nature.

MacGuffin

Here we go again. Keep this shit here. Some of us just want to talk about movies.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

godardian

Quote from: Ghostboy
By those standards, it certainly isn't a legit sex act. I wouldn't deny that. But also by those standards, heterosexual sex for any reason other than procreation is also a non-legit sex act.

This has always been my take on the matter, as well. Very astute, Ghostboy.

So, how does the second week in July (the one after the U.S. holiday) work for everyone as far as doing a Fox and his Friends round-up?? I figure that's over a month from now, so it gives everyone plenty of time.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

pookiethecat

This post contains Spoilers....

I finally saw My Own Private Idaho.  The majority of it was really beautiful (the campfire scene was just wonderful...the portions in Italy too were riveting).  Some parts just didn't work for me...The homeless hustlers' existence just didn't connect...(What was up wtih Bob's Shakespearean monologues?)  I also thought the performance art-sex scenes were unnecessary.

The ending was perfect- extremely sad but true...if it had ended any other way, it would have been sappy and sentimental... and I loved the flicker of hope it gave when the second truck picks him up.  River Phoenix's performance was so understated and tender...  Keanu Reeves' was the perfect object of desire...And I liked that his character never pretended to be anything than what he was.  He knew he'd reform, he knew that he liked women, and that he'd be the "good son" and he stuck to that goal.  

Gus Van Sant's sensibilities were so weird and warped and...intelligent.  The perfect style to accompany the story he was trying to tell.  I had just never seen something that offbeat before...maybe that's why certain parts didn't click. Still, wonderful directing...and this is the guy who made Goodwill fucking Hunting?  

My favorite scene: the part where the Italian girl is sitting against the tree, crying and Mike goes and comforts her and she says, "I think I'm in love" Just the juxtaposition of Phoenix's hurt but kind reaction and the fact that she'd be crying because she wasin love...It just had a lot of heart.

Beautiful film.

oh yeah...godardian, fox and his friends isn't available at my bb.   :cry:   i'll keep on scrounging around for it though.
i wanna lick 'em.

bonanzataz

santa, i agree you with you on many points, but anybody who didn't know clay aiken was gay is a fucking retard. period, end of story.

and why are you talking about this now, did it just come out or something?
The corpses all hang headless and limp bodies with no surprises and the blood drains down like devil's rain we'll bathe tonight I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls Demon I am and face I peel to see your skin turned inside out, 'cause gotta have you on my wall gotta have you on my wall, 'cause I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls collect the heads of little girls and put 'em on my wall hack the heads off little girls and put 'em on my wall I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls

godardian

Quote from: pookiethecatThis post contains Spoilers....

I finally saw My Own Private Idaho.  The majority of it was really beautiful (the campfire scene was just wonderful...the portions in Italy too were riveting).  Some parts just didn't work for me...The homeless hustlers' existence just didn't connect...(What was up wtih Bob's Shakespearean monologues?)  I also thought the performance art-sex scenes were unnecessary.

The ending was perfect- extremely sad but true...if it had ended any other way, it would have been sappy and sentimental... and I loved the flicker of hope it gave when the second truck picks him up.  River Phoenix's performance was so understated and tender...  Keanu Reeves' was the perfect object of desire...And I liked that his character never pretended to be anything than what he was.  He knew he'd reform, he knew that he liked women, and that he'd be the "good son" and he stuck to that goal.  
.

That campfire scene made me cry (when the film came out. I was 15... not that I need to make excuses. Magnolia makes me cry, too). If the bulk of your erotic inclinations are towards your own sex, and that puts you in the minority, you're bound to experience something like the River Phoenix character experienced at some point. I like to think that scene resonates with anyone who's been rejected by someone they think they're in love with for whatever reason, but it probably does have an extra level of significance for those of us who've had the rejection come for that specific reason.

Have you seen The Hours, Pookie? What did you make of it?
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

children with angels

"In the final scene of the film we see that, despite his apparent yearnings for a 'normal' life, Mike has found a home - it is nowhere and everywhere. It is the road that 'probably goes right around the world'. It is a home... on the range."

-Extract from my exam answer I wrote on My Own Private Idaho yesterday.

:lol:  How ridiculously film-student does that sound...?! I had to chuckle as I wrote it...!  :lol:

Interesting point: apparently Van Sant always thought it was Scott (Reeves) who picks up Mike at the end.
"Should I bring my own chains?"
"We always do..."

http://www.alternatetakes.co.uk/
http://thelesserfeat.blogspot.com/

pookiethecat

Quote from: godardian

If the bulk of your erotic inclinations are towards your own sex, and that puts you in the minority, you're bound to experience something like the River Phoenix character experienced at some point. I like to think that scene resonates with anyone who's been rejected by someone they think they're in love with for whatever reason, but it probably does have an extra level of significance for those of us who've had the rejection come for that specific reason.

Have you seen The Hours, Pookie? What did you make of it?

First of all, I don't find it odd at all that you would cry at the campfire scene.  The part where Mike says "I think I could love without being paid..." or something to that effect definitely had a bare, passionate quality that I nearly cried at.  That said, I'm 15 myself, so it could also partially be a 15 year old thing...  hehe, we need some objectivitiy here.  

I have been in many many situations where I've thought I wasin love with someonel but she turned out to be straight.  In fact that IS my only  situation thus far in life. but that's a different thread altogether, hehe So yeah, I related to that specific aspect of the campfire scene (other than just how effective it was executed by van sant) but I think it might have held a larger emotional weight if a) River Phoenix's tendencies toward the same sex were fleshed out more...not just in relation to his love for Scott b) I were a gay male and more deeply felt the attraction that Mike had towards Scott, hte latter of which is a more personal thing that doesn't have much to do with the film itself. Like I said...I still found it be extremely powerful stuff.

Childrenwithangels--. your assessment definitely taps into the optimism of the ending.  though i view it more as a tragedy with a teensy amount of hope.  Interesting nonetheless

I haven't seen The Hours.  But I love Julianne Moore (as most of us PTA fans do) and the thought of her with a girl is, well, at the risk of sounding lascivious, enticing...hehe.What'd you think of the film, godardian?
i wanna lick 'em.

godardian

Quote from: pookiethecat
Quote from: godardian

If the bulk of your erotic inclinations are towards your own sex, and that puts you in the minority, you're bound to experience something like the River Phoenix character experienced at some point. I like to think that scene resonates with anyone who's been rejected by someone they think they're in love with for whatever reason, but it probably does have an extra level of significance for those of us who've had the rejection come for that specific reason.

Have you seen The Hours, Pookie? What did you make of it?

First of all, I don't find it odd at all that you would cry at the campfire scene.  The part where Mike says "I think I could love without being paid..." or something to that effect definitely had a bare, passionate quality that I nearly cried at.  That said, I'm 15 myself, so it could also partially be a 15 year old thing...  hehe, we need some objectivitiy here.  

I have been in many many situations where I've thought I wasin love with someonel but she turned out to be straight.  In fact that IS my only  situation thus far in life. but that's a different thread altogether, hehe So yeah, I related to that specific aspect of the campfire scene (other than just how effective it was executed by van sant) but I think it might have held a larger emotional weight if a) River Phoenix's tendencies toward the same sex were fleshed out more...not just in relation to his love for Scott b) I were a gay male and more deeply felt the attraction that Mike had towards Scott, hte latter of which is a more personal thing that doesn't have much to do with the film itself. Like I said...I still found it be extremely powerful stuff.

Childrenwithangels--. your assessment definitely taps into the optimism of the ending.  though i view it more as a tragedy with a teensy amount of hope.  Interesting nonetheless

I haven't seen The Hours.  But I love Julianne Moore (as most of us PTA fans do) and the thought of her with a girl is, well, at the risk of sounding lascivious, enticing...hehe.What'd you think of the film, godardian?

I liked it, and I think it's well worth seeing for the performances, but as a whole, something seems to be missing. Maybe it's just what you're talking about- the lascivious part, or the part that has some erotic spark or some kind of energy. It does have energy, but it may be a little too detached for its own good. I mean, what made the book wonderful was that it was extremely intelligent but also a good old-fashioned love-sex-death-fest that keeps you turning the pages. And I think maybe the movie tried to be a little too "classy" for its own good, and skimped on the vibrancy of the book. And it could've used a little more vibrancy. Still, though, it's well worth seeing, particularly if you're interested in what makes things tick when it comes to sex/love/domestic roles/identity, etc. The girls are definitely the reason to see it, though; the one really consistently weak part, I thought, was the handling of the Ed Harris character. Tom Hanks made a better grandiose martyr to AIDS in Philadelphia; the one Ed Harris plays in The Hours comes dangerously close to feeling like a sort of concession or one-dimensional caricature, more something filmmakers trying too hard to be classy might come up with, rather than something interesting.

I do recommend seeing it, but I'd recommend the book more strongly. It's an astoundingly brief/fun/gratifying/smart read, too.
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

Quote from: bonanzatazsanta, i agree you with you on many points, but anybody who didn't know clay aiken was gay is a fucking retard. period, end of story.

and why are you talking about this now, did it just come out or something?

damnit taz i told you to keep quiet about what we did last night, i turn fag one night and the guy has to go and monica lewinsky on me

and about lcay , dude your right but lots of people do not know he is gay , would he have went that far if they knew he was

and now because of you i will never become the next reuban

godardian

For just a moment, I'm going to turn this item into "where has godardian been?" I apologize in advance for hijacking it for just this one post.

I have actually missed most of you, but I was finding Xixax to be too draining of my time and emotional/mental energy. I had to ask myself if spending so much time writing and arguing here was affecting my life or the world in any meaningful way, and my answer to that caused me to take a long sabbatical. Some of the kinds of conversations I was finding myself getting into here were a total waste and only fed into a very inaccurate take on reality, sort of like calling in to the Rush Limbaugh show. I needed to take a step back, hit the streets, become more politically active and active in my community (there is a Depression on, as we all know, so there is no lack of volunteer opportunities, etc.), and after meeting quite a few people from all walks of life, I decided that the sort of infrequent but vehement nastiness I've experienced here from time to time is much less likely to occur in a face to face setting, that people feel more comfortable expressing ignorance, hate, and vitriol towards you when you're "virtual" than in actual life. In that context, focusing on actual life has been extremely refreshing.

Anyway, I'll be in and out of here irregularly. I will retrieve and respond to any sincere PM, and would love to be in touch with the many friendly folks I've (virtually) gotten to know here.

Back to the business at hand: I wrote a Fassinber-comes-to-DVD piece for the LGBT paper I occasionally contribute to, which I thought I'd post here in its superior (untouched by the grubby fingers of copy editors) form:

It's difficult to think of a more unique queer cinematic voice than that of the late, great German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder directed 41 films before his untimely death (related to drugs and stress) in 1982 at the age of 37, during post-production on his adaptation of Jean Genet's "unfilmable," novel, Querelle. He was a notorious personality; demanding of himself and others, prone to excess in all areas of his life, and a sexual radical who galvanized and offended. He was a very publicly self-described gay man; he married women (his boyfriend was best man at his second wedding).

Fassbinder's reputation and influence are far-reaching. In the seventies, canonical feminist film critic Laura Mulvey wrote many an ecstatic word on Fassbinder's juicy narrative style and astute social observation (in a Fassbinder film, class, race, gender, age and sexuality are omnipresent factors affecting every relationship and interaction), and the profound influence upon both of fifties melodrama-meister Douglas Sirk. Mulvey and her academic ilk fused their admiration of Fassbinder and revisionist appreciation of Sirk, joining the two names forever in the annals of film history. More recently, from a very different point on the cinematic spectrum, well-respected mainstream filmmaker Michael Mann (The Insider, Heat) has said, "Fassbinder was everything."

Fassbinder has also, of course, been a perennial touchstone for our best queer filmmakers. John Waters declared him "the most talented director of his time," and both Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool) and Todd Haynes(Far from Heaven)- two of the most interesting gay directors working today- are clearly Fassbinder devotees. Ozon's Water Drops on Burning Rocks was from an unfilmed Fassbinder script, and Haynes's exposure to Fassbinder as a college student had a profound and recurrent impact upon his work. In 1976, queer film scholar Thomas Waugh wrote, "It's clear that the gay activist community must extend its solidarity to all oppressed groups within society... Fassbinder's films, with their perspective of a whole range of society's outcasts, victims, and exploited classes, are an inspiring affirmation of this principle."

The recent spate of Fassbinder DVD releases affords the home viewer an excellent opportunity to be so inspired. The most deluxe of these is The Criterion Collection's 2-disc release of 1974's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, which concerns the marriage of Emmi, a sexagenarian German cleaning woman, to Ali, a much younger Moroccan immigrant, and its consequences at the hands of xenophobic and ageist neighbors, children, coworkers, and "friends." This romance of the frowned-upon variety, revealing the hypocrisy and prejudices of an apparently benign milieu, mirrors Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows, a film mirrored in turn by Todd Haynes in last year's Far from Heaven. In fact, one of the best supplementary features of the Ali set is From Fassbinder to Sirk and Back, a 20-minute video introduction by the always erudite Haynes himself, which, along with a BBC documentary on German cinema and other extras, makes this extensive, meticulous release something of a film school course in a box.

Of the many less deluxe (but still very nicely restored) Fassbinder DVDs released by the Wellspring company, two are of particular interest for their probing explorations of queer lives: 1972's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and 1975's Fox and his Friends.

Fox is probably Fassbinder's "gayest" film. The director himself stars as the title character, a poor, carefree carnival worker who, when the carnival is shut down and his boyfriend is jailed, falls in with a group of upper-class gay men. When Fox realizes his dream of winning the lottery, his new boyfriend, Eugen, proceeds to teach him how to emulate his superiors by shopping for antiques and wearing tailored clothes; he also allows Fox to purchase them a posh apartment and financially bail out Eugen's family's bankrupt business. Fox is trapped in the mutable, status-dependent acceptance of his lover and his community, but Fassbinder doesn't paint Fox as an entirely passive victim or the bourgeois gays as mustache-twirling villains; they're merely participating in a power structure that encompasses everyone. Fassbinder knew that the oppressed are, sadly, quite capable of oppressing others; there's always a hierarchy, and his illustration of that inevitability through Fox's experiences is riveting, provocative (particularly in the understandably defensive post-Stonewall climate of 1975, when his complex worldview was often mistaken for muckraking by queer viewers and press), and heartbreaking.

InThe Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, it's the love between two women- Petra, a brittle, vulnerable, ultra-successful fashion designer and Karin, her beautiful runway-model protégé- that's shattered by underlying social structures. Petra seduces Karin by offering her career opportunities and the trappings of wealth; Karin conceals, with cruelty and infidelity, her disgust with herself over using Petra. Elsewhere on the class food chain, Marlene, Petra's personal secretary, is obviously in love with her but, as a servant, is persona non grata. Marlene is treated badly by both Petra and Karin and suffers all literally without a word (the dialogue-free Marlene becomes a spectral Greek chorus figure in Petra and Karin's tragedy). Petra is highly stylized, one of Fassbinder's most visually stunning films (Michael Ballhaus, cinematographer on both Petra and Fox, now frequently works for Martin Scorsese on films like Age of Innocence and last year's Gangs of New York), and has a liberating, entirely unexpected happy ending.

Fassbinder espoused the idea that a film itself cannot change the world, it can only, in a spirit of hope, present the audience with a recognizable world in need of changing. His need to show us, through consummately entertaining stories, the mechanisms of society as they affect individuals is best summed up in something he wrote in an essay on All That Heaven Allows, saying of its unhappy lovers: "You can understand both of them, and both of them are right, but no-one will ever be able to help either of them unless, of course, we change the world. We all cried over the movie, because it's so hard to change the world."
""Money doesn't come into it. It never has. I do what I do because it's all that I am." - Morrissey

"Lacan stressed more and more in his work the power and organizing principle of the symbolic, understood as the networks, social, cultural, and linguistic, into which a child is born. These precede the birth of a child, which is why Lacan can say that language is there from before the actual moment of birth. It is there in the social structures which are at play in the family and, of course, in the ideals, goals, and histories of the parents. This world of language can hardly be grasped by the newborn and yet it will act on the whole of the child's existence."

Stay informed on protecting your freedom of speech and civil rights.