Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Other gay-themed movies
Arad-3:
Thanks Lynne, Ill check them out! :)
ekeby:
--- Quote from: Arad-3 on September 27, 2006, 12:26:51 pm ---I am wondering if they are on DVD to rent. Here's the link to the page:
http://www.qcinema.org/awards.html
--- End quote ---
Both of the feature films, Cowboys & Angels and Laughing Matters, are available on Netflix. I haven't seen them yet but have them on my list. The short subjects might be on some compilations or even separately--sometimes Netflix does offer short subjects. I didn't check those . . .
Casey Cornelius:
I wrote on the old IMDb Brokeback board a reply to someone who had started a favorite gay-themed films list similar to this one and stated in all seriousness, Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia as two of my choices. I think others took it as a joke.
Don't know if this belongs in a separate thread, but what about mention of films which are straight subject matter on the surface, but have a subversive gay undercurrent or motivation?
I remember as a teenager at the age of 13 first viewing the 1969 re-release of Ben-Hur[1959] and realizing at a sub-conscious level that the compelling and to me fascinating conflict between Ben-Hur [Charlton Heston] and Messala [Stephen Boyd] had to do with more than a Jewish/Roman ideological battle. Even as a young gay kid, not even knowing what it meant to be that in my own life, I could sense that Messala was somehow in love with Ben-Hur and spent the rest of the film subverting him at every turn because of the latter's personal rejection of him, though it was not overtly stated. That Messala had a young centurion as an obvious 'partner' in later scenes just confirmed it for me upon later viewings.
How satisfying it was to read more than thirty years later, Gore Vidal's account of ghost-writing the rejection scene between Ben-Hur and Messala and explaining to director William Wyler, who was frustrated at not being able to justify some believable motivation for the conflict, proposing Vidal's solution that the main motivation for the hatred between the two of them was to be unrequited love -- the misunderstanding between the hopeful, homosexual Messala and the straight-as-a-die Ben-Hur. That Stephen Boyd was told the motivation and acted the rejection scene based on it, but Heston was not [ Wyler knowing that he would not be able to take it], makes the scene even more stunning as the tense emotional confusion is heightened by Heston's authentically oblivious reactions.
Ben-Hur is not considered a 'gay' film, but the conflict which William Wyler felt he needed to justify the hatred between the two main characters which drives the remainder of the film's 3 and 3/4 hour running time IS motivated by a covert gay sub-text of frustrated love.
I feel the same way about the character of Lawrence in Lean's 'Lawrence of Arabia' [1962]. One could argue that so much of the motivation and searching for authenticity by the main character is driven by his alienation as a latent homosexual, a historically substantiated reality.
Impish:
Interesting stuff.
I knew about the Lawrence of Arabia thing, and believe that his "gaeity" is now accepted by historians. The problem with the movie is that, instead of presenting it as an underlying theme or subplot, the script tried to remove it altogether (that they were not entirely successful is another matter). The script was therefore dishonest in a certain sense.
I haven't seen Ben Hur for ages, and was unaware of the subtext regarding Messala. It's now on my "must-see-soon" list! ;)
ekeby:
--- Quote from: Casey Cornelius on October 02, 2006, 11:31:31 pm ---How satisfying it was to read more than thirty years later, Gore Vidal's account of ghost-writing the rejection scene
--- End quote ---
Vidal talks about it in the film version of The Celluloid Closet . . . that movie/book deals extensively with the theme of subverted same-sexuality in film . . . it clarifies a lot of these things. For example, they include the scene in Rebecca where the housekeeper (Judith Anderson) is showing the late Mrs. DeWinter's underwear to the current Mrs. DeWinter (Joan Fontaine) . . . as a gay man it always struck me as wierd and a little incompehensible, so it was illuminating to see a lesbian critic in Celluloid Closet comment on the creepy sexuality of that scene . . . I think Celluloid Closet is a must-see and/or must-read for all gay people . . . especially younger gay people who may be unaware of how gays were presented in film before Stonewall . . . .
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