This movie was on our main station Sunday evening movie a few weeks ago. I rarely watch movies on TV but fortunately looked at the guide and saw the gay reference. Even so I set my DVD, thinking I would not last the full time but did stay the course. So I can watch it again sometime. Generally advertisements have me turning the TV off and going to bed. I prefer to watch a movie in the theatre.
Apparently it was in 2 parts in the UK but it was shown as a continuous movie here. I was very emotional at the end almost as much as BBM.
I guess I fall between the 2 times. Growing up, gay sex was illegal and there were arrests but generally it was just a fine. However, as a state school teacher, it would have meant instant dismissal for me. I remember arriving in the UK in 1974 and thinking "I am legal". It was not legal in NSW, Australia until 1982.
So, I have some understanding of Michael and Thomas, although there was no way I would have risked propositioning a man other than in the clubs which we knew were paying the police bribes. I never went to a cottage or beat. Magazine adverts were the only other way to meet.
On the advice of psychiatrists I became engaged but fortunately broke it off. I have met a number of men who married in those times as the respectable thing to do, with varying results.
However I also understand the grandson. When I did accept there was no cure and met other gay men for the first time (in my late 20's early 30's in the 1970's). I went mad. No cell phones in those days but there were back rooms and sometimes I went home with or brought a guy home. My only long time relationship (all of 18 months) I met in a back room and had sex before I brought him home.
Another movie I saw a week or so ago at the NZ International Film festival was called "100 Men" Having been made in NZ, it may not get much airing elsewhere although the producer lived and worked most of his life in London. It was a great movie as it was a history of gay life by going through 100 men (unlike me he must have written names in his diary) with whom he had sex. He interviews some of them. He is now partnered but their relationship is not exclusive My brief relationship was not so lucky as, while at first my partner said he did not mind, in the end he broke the relationship because I could not give up anonymous back room sex.
HIV/AIDS cured me of that obsession but I have never found anther way to meet gay men socially.
I plan to see "God's Own Country" this afternoon. It started in the theatres last Thursday but I am afraid it will not stay long. As I wrote, I was very disappointed in "Call me by my name" so I hope I am not disappointed this afternoon.
