Archive for Homosexuality

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

{ May 13, 2007 @ 2:14 pm } · { Cannibalism, Homosexuality, Movies }
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What can I say about this movie?  It was shocking to say the least.  The commentator warned us viewers that it included such taboo subjects (at the time) as homosexuality, incest, and cannibalism, but I didn’t think that the three would be interwoven in such a dramatic and bizarre manner.  Perhaps I should have known since it was based on a play written by Tennessee Williams but there you go.

To tell you more of what happened would spoil the ending.  Granted there is a lot of foreshadowing that gives one a pretty good idea of what is to come, but the ending is so horrific that even if one feels certain they know they will still be surprized by the sheer violence of it all.

It is the strangest and most compelling movie of that era I have ever seen.  The fact that it stars Katherine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, and Elizabeth Taylor doesn’t hurt.  Both Katherine and Elizabeth were nominated for an Oscar for their roles (neither won).  At the end of filming Katherine spat on the the director, and never spoke to him again.  Apparently she objected to his treatment of Monty whose homosexuality he apparently had issue with.  One can almost understand why the director would want to direct this movie, harboring such sentiments.  In some ways it can be seen as a morality play, ie look what happens to homosexuals when they let their desires get the best of them.

The movie is too complex for such a simple explanation however.  You must see it in order to know what I mean. 

God save the sea turtles.

Brokeback Mountain

{ March 18, 2007 @ 8:57 pm } · { Homosexuality, Love, Movies }
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If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to learn any of the plot points etc. before viewing it, don’t read any further.

Yes, I finally saw it.  But it wasn’t an easy thing.  My friend lent me his DVD player so I could watch some movies but he didn’t want to see Brokeback so I watched it alone.  Unfortunately, my friend forgot to bring the remote.  As most of you know, there is very little one can do without the remote except for ‘play’ and ‘pause’ and ‘open/close’. 

Anyways, I started to watch the movie and it seemed awfully dark, literally, but I didn’t think much of it because a lot of the scenes were at night or dusk (or so I thought).  By the time I got to the tent scene I knew something was wrong.  It was completely black and I couldn’t see a thing of what was going on.  For a moment I entertained the idea that the filmaker made the love scene dark so as to accommodate more sensitive viewers or to receive a lower guidance rating. 

It piqued my curiosity as to what was going on because it sounded like they were fighting and that seemed a little odd (try just listening to that scene and you’ll know what I mean).  So when it was over I turned up the brightness on my tv.  Well what do you know?  It was literally like the difference between night and day.  But of course, I had no way to rewind so I could find out what happened in the tent. 

It seemed something important had happened especially since the characters seemed angry and confused the next morning.  So I started the movie over.  And that’s when I found out what happened and the whole movie started to make sense again.  Anyways, it was a nice love story but in the end quite sad. 

I will say there was one thing I didn’t like about it – the incessant and over-powering music.  It was ringing in my ears for an hour afterwards.  I would recommend seeing it though, as it’s a nice commentary on how things used to be and how far they’ve come. 

Obviously, the world isn’t out of the woods yet in terms of accepting homosexuality (I mean they can’t even get married in most places!) but I haven’t heard any stories lately in which a man was dragged to his death by a rope tied around his penis simply because he loved other men.