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’s Sexual Offenc Act of 1967, which crimalized “homosexual acts private between nsentg adults, ” two landmark Brish films centralizg the experienc of gay male characters celebrate signifint anniversari this year. Part of s director’s valuable n of “social problem” pictur, Victim is a tt, clenched thriller which criqu the then-current law that ma gay men easy targets for blackmail.

You and I are both gay male films crics, simultaneoly of highly varied cultural backgrounds and of unnny affy of taste. To my young, pre-g-out self, this was the most strikg film how sually and matter-of-factly prented a gay male relatnship. Alex Ramon: Growg up and realizg my sexualy, I was attuned to disverg work focg on gay characters, and certa early and mid-Neti films, whether firmly mastream like Jonathan Demme’s Philalphia (1993) or fiantly not like Gregg Araki’s The Livg End (1992) (the latter taped om TV and watched secret), were important to me.

It would have been around that same perd of the mid-Neti that I first heard about Sunday Bloody Sunday, and for sure I was immediately trigued by the ia of this queer pneer—an early Seventi Brish film prentg gay and bisexual characters.

In The Sat and the Artist, his book about Iris Murdoch’s fictn, Peter Conradi wr that “part of Murdoch’s unsung urage [is] that she als always wh homosexualy as an unremarkable, general feature of the human scene. The prentatn of Peter Fch’s Daniel as an telligent, profsnal, fully human protagonist, neher lghable nor piable, seems a world away om the gay reprentatns domatg Brish screens (and beyond) then, and enpsulated ic stereotyp like the ever-mcg Mr. However, whereas Rsell’s film set my teenage gay self on fire wh the famo nu wrtlg sequence (I wish to go on rerd as sayg that I fd Oliver Reed and Alan Bat the sexit pairg the history of film), the Schlger film took me by surprise.

Still, many ways, Sunday Bloody Sunday was the film that not only helped shape my notn of what a gay life may have store for me—more profoundly, also formed my ia of adulthood self, as a state of nstant flux, imperfect cisns, and pursu of elive satisfactn. Sunday Bloody Sunday matter-of-factly prents a gay relatnship opposn to Brish opn of the time.

In his jt-published book Shootg Midnight Cowboy [see review the Summer 2021 prt issue of Ceaste], which offers a lot of pellg sight to Schlger’s posn as a gay director, Glenn Frankel not that Midnight Cowboy out of the “brief but fertile terregnum between the eclipse of the old stud system and the rise of a new one, a time when origal, risk-takg movi flourished, old l were shattered and a new breed of film-makers took on adult them and characters that had never been seen mastream movi before.

It’s que clear that if hadn’t been for the Amy Awards and the box-office succs of Midnight Cowboy—sentially a gay-tted buddy movie explog the geo squalor of late-1960s Tim Square— Schlger wouldn’t have worked on Sunday wh the amount of eedom that he enjoyed. ’s Sexual Offenc Act of 1967, and the Gay Rights Movement, then movg to high gear post-Stonewall. We n e back to the qutn of the film’s polics later, but how do you feel Sunday Bloody Sunday stands up next to other gay-themed films of that pivotal perd, such as Stairse (1969) that also attempts a prentatn of the domtic life of a male uple, or The Boys the Band (1970), which Schlger apparently hated “for s perpetuatn of self-loathg stereotyp, ” which he viewed as “the exceptn, not the le”?

I happen to like The Boys the Band for s sheer boldns of immersg an dience an exclively gay world for two hours—a feat that Stairse attempted, but turned to an abrasive vville of Rex Harrison and Richard Burton thrashg about offensive posturg. Stairse and Sunday are light years apart treatg their gay characters.

On the other hand, n be argued that Schlger oms any real engagement wh the gay culture of his day Sunday—there are no clubs, no gay iends of Daniel, no gtur of fiance towards straight culture at all.

How would the character of Daniel react to a flamboyant homosexual man if he met one? For sure, I n’t image Daniel out on a Gay Lib march, and viewers who see a certa kd of activism as a prerequise for gay cema are ed likely to be dissatisfied wh the picture.

” However, beyond the Amerin ronanc, for me ’s also very important to place Sunday Bloody Sunday a ntuum of gay Brish cema which, om Dearn’s Victim onward, often seemed far ahead of s U. ) There’s such a signifint, diverse history of gay work Bra om A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Leather Boys (1964) to Derek Jarman’s cema to My Betiful Lndrette (1985), Betiful Thg (1996), the llected work of Terence Davi, or Nigel Fch’s wonrful, sadly “lost” The Lost Language of Cran (1991) which Schlger himself appears a small but signifint role as a gay thor, adoptive parent and mentor figure: his stg there nstut a lovely, affectnate nod to a forebear.

On one hand, the extraordary Bar Mzvah sequence, which pots to Daniel’s awe towards the majty of relign (and his possible Jewish guilt over beg gay), almost fetishiz the glory of tradn.

Yet, I dislike Raphael’s remark, which, at least the ntext of Far om the Maddg Crowd, seems to reveal a prejudice s implitn that a gay director would evably want to “sabotage” a potentially “happy” hetero unn. I do thk that, for Schlger, there was a special appeal showg relatnships that lk straight women and gay men a variety of unexpected ways.

Incintally, that film Schlger showed a near-perfect gay relatnship that’s only cemented by the fact that the two men don’t speak a mon language (one is Brish, the other Rsian) and bond over the pure joy of playg Gilbert & Sullivan tun the middle of Soviet-era Mosw. Coral Browne, playg herself, is a more serene versn of Glenda Jackson this film—she’s baskg the warmth of mature gay affectn stead of rentg .