Zone of Totality: Films about Gays

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Films about Gays

Today's thread from Alfred Corn provides some thoughtful comments.

Image may contain: one or more people, people sitting, people standing, hat and ocean

Gregory Woods, Christopher Thomas Schmitz and 20 others

Comments

Alfred Corn Still from Luchino Visconti's =La morte a Venezia= (=Death in Venice=), 1971.

Mark Olival-Bartley Timely: A tale that opens at Alter Nordfriedhof, where Hermann von Lingg is buried (and a block from our place on Schellingstraße), and ends on Lido, just one vaporetto stop from San Servolo, the setting for Shelley's "Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation" (where I now write).

Alfred Corn Film based on Mann's novella and, as with all narratives involving gay experience, it has to end badly.

Donna Fleischer So true, Alfred. At the end of “Carol” I cried because it was my first time experience of a gay film ending in a well-won joy and I felt gratitude.

Patrick Donnelly There is at least one other happy ending: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_TexasManage

North Sea Texas - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Alfred Corn Patrick Donnelly In fact, there are quite a few gay films that end well, but they are never given major releases and remain confined to gay film festivals and a few art cinemas in various big cities.

Jack Miller Donna Fleischer Carol is indeed a lovely film. I've seen it in the theater and again on TV. Great performances as well as a great story.

Patrick Donnelly Alfred, I wonder if wide-release is as important as it used to be, since streaming is now the primary way people watch films, often influenced, for better or worse, by corporate understanding of individual tastes. This film was suggested to me by Netflix.

Robbi Nester Did you like Disobedience?

Christopher Thomas Schmitz Alfred Corn --
Gay Male Narratives that End Upliftingly:...See More

Mitchell H. Geller The first time I saw "Death in Venice" l was 21 and my then boyfriend and l saw it on a double bill with "Boys in the Band" at the old Paris Cinema in Boston. As a young gay activist both films filled me with rage; my generation did not necessarily feel doomed to lives of loneliness, alcoholism, or suicide. Nine short years later we were presented with REAL tragedy, and with devastation that brought out gallantry, fortitude, and amazing esprit de corps. To this day -- and now l am older than Aschenbach -- l find Visconti's film painful to watch.

Bertha Rogers Wonderful image!

Boria Sax Thomas Mann was the consummate literary politician, and he practically dominates German high literature. In surveys, he is mentioned far more than Goethe, Schiller or anybody else. In Das Grosse Lesen, where readers were asked to pick their favorites,.Fontane, Hesse and Goethe has one book each in the top 25, while Schiller, Lessing, Kleist and Kafka were shut out. But Mann had five books, mostly in the top ten. He carefully hid his sexual orientation during his life by having a wife and several children, He could have come out, and lots of other writers did. The poet and conservative cultural critic Stefan George was very openly gay, but, whether despite this or because of it, he had an immense influence. But Mann felt that would interfere with his standing in the eyes of the sort of readers that he was trying to reach. He did consider homosexuality a disease, but he had a theory that illness was tied to creativity (very evident in Death in Venice), so he thought that was not necessarily a bad thing. Only after his death did people realize that Mann was gay and that the novella was autobiographical. The boy from the Polish aristocracy was an actual person, and he did not die young as in the novella, but lived to almost 90. In old age, he still remembered Mann staring at him, and he told of it in a good-humored but rather neutral way, with neither anger nor fondness.

Jack Miller The work by Mann ends with death. I can't imagine that particular story ending well. As I keep suggesting, there are now quite a few films available on Netflix, Amazon and other places that have wonderful stories and endings. Two were nominated for best picture at the Academy awards and one of them won. Here is a film I saw in a crowded theater in Atlanta; and again on Netflix.https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gods_own_country_2017/Manage

God's Own Country

ROTTENTOMATOES.COM

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David Steven Rappoport A lovely film. As to Mann, I vastly prefer The Magic Mountain.

Alfred Corn David Steven Rappoport No contagious strawberries consumed in the Magic M.

Alfred Corn Had not heard of these, Jack. You'd think as a gay dude I would have, but, nope.

Jack Miller Alfred Corn That's what I'm here for. LOL.

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Jack Miller This new film I highly recommend: https://www.netflix.com/title/80170875Manage

God's Own Country | Netflix

NETFLIX.COM

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Jack Miller As you know, I take film as art very seriously. I think the best films are like other major art forms in influencing the way we see and understand ourselves and our world. I too recall all the films in the past that dealt with homosexuality as something to pity. I watched all the characters I identified with get killed, or worse, watched them suffer lonely miserable lives. I can still see the big tree falling on poor Sandy Dennis in the pathetic rendition of DHL's The Fox. Hollywood was the worst. European films sometimes gave us characters to love even if they themselves found no successful relationship. I don't always want happy endings now either. Film has the ability to show us the negative effects of our society and culture. The key difference is between showing gay life as intrinsically unhappy and a life of suffering and showing how, to the contrary, gay life can be wonderful but for the bigotry and social judgment of our society. Big difference, I think. Moonlight deserved its Oscar and it had a happy ending as well, following a difficult period of growing up. It was believable. Call Me by Your Name was also a fine film whether you want to go along with the bisexuality or not (see my letter in the current Gay and Lesbian Review). The best film like good art of all kinds touches us deeply, even changes our life.

Jack Miller BTW, I thought Death in Venice a beautiful film, though less philosophical than the novella. At the time I thought, That's how my life will end, dying on a beach looking at someone beautiful who doesn't know I exist. I even went to the Lido and stayed on the beach when I was 23. Again, Eros and Thanatos. Overly melodramatic and excessively pathetic in the film; and yet sublime.

Norman Green Wow. Very moving.

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