Greenaway offends Rsia wh film about Soviet director's gay love affair | Rsia | The Guardian

Contents:

• FILM CLAIMG DIRECTOR SERGEI EISENSTE HAD GAY LOVE AFFAIR SHUNNED RSIA
• GREENAWAY OFFENDS RSIA WH FILM ABOUT SOVIET DIRECTOR'S GAY LOVE AFFAIR
• IS DANIEL EISENSTE GAY?
• FILM REVIEW; MEET EISENSTE: PUNKER, MISF AND GAY RENEGA
• IS ALEXA EISENSTE GAY?
• IS JSI EISENSTE GAY?
• SERGEI/SIR GAY
• SPECIAL EPISO OM RIGA. ARCHECT EISENSTE, GAY OM CHECHNYA, ARTDOCFT FARM
• THE GAYT OLYMPICS EVER
• IS ALEXA EISENSTE GAY?

FILM CLAIMG DIRECTOR SERGEI EISENSTE HAD GAY LOVE AFFAIR SHUNNED RSIA

Get our ee weekly email for all the latt cematic news om our film cric Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cematic email for eeThe legendary film director Sergei Eisenste is nsired one of the proust figur Rsia’s cultural history, but whether a new movie about his life – and an alleged gay love affair particular – will ever be screened his home untry is grave doubt. Femke Woltg, the producer of Eisenste Guanajuato, nfirmed that Rsian distributors and producers refed to back the film bee of s open pictn of the director’s homosexualy. We tried to get Rsian distributors aboard and a Rsian producer possibly to accs fance om Rsia but all were impossible bee of the fact that film showed that Eisenste was gay.

Eisenste's 1925 'Battlhip Potemk' is perhaps his most revered film“In Rsia, there is a very, very aggrsive attu toward gay people which is a disgrace. “On the other si, I don’t re if Eisenste was gay.

“To the image of Eisenste, this [Eisenste’s homosexualy] don’t add anythg. The A-list opposg Rsia's anti-gay lawsShow all 15Others disagree, potg to homoerotic drawgs and patgs that Eisenste ma and makg the argument that Eisenste’s work changed dramatilly tone after his experienc Mexi. So ’s no surprise that Rsia – s crackdown on ee exprsn and s reprsive stance on homosexualy – has been touchy about Peter Greenaway’s pictn of the figure his new feature Eisenste Guanajuato, which premiered at the Berl Internatnal Film Ftival last Brish tr director displays his typilly transgrsive irreverence pictg the natnal hero’s 10-day love affair wh a male gui Mexi, offendg a Rsia that prevly celebrated him for cimatg palist vulgary his 1989 masterpiece The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her the ftival, Greenaway was cheerful, unapologetic form.

GREENAWAY OFFENDS RSIA WH FILM ABOUT SOVIET DIRECTOR'S GAY LOVE AFFAIR

“Put has enuraged this homophobia, ” Greenaway said. “I have lots of iends St Petersburg and Mosw and they don’t feel [homophobic] at all.

“When they retrospectively learned that we’d picted a homosexual relatnship the first one they got sred, ” he said. The director argu that any pictn of a historil figure is a subjective terpretatn, and that Eisenste’s stggl wh his sexualy are well suggts the director’s marriage to his secretary Pera Atasheva was strictly one of nvenience: “There was a new Stal law which crimalised homosexualy, and there is a lot of evince that he was very sceptible, and anx about his sexualy. ”Film historians have often poted out that homosexual imagery is rife Eisenste’s films.

Sergei Eisenste (1898-1948), history's greatt gay filmmaker, was also among s most important along wh Griffh, Godard, Lubsch, Antonni, Dreyer, and Sternberg. There's the ual Greenaway spl screens, projectns, dramas and terspersed background material (visual footnot) that help tell the story of a gay artist exile but whose imagatn and artistic and sexual drive never make him a stranger a foreign land, Eisenste exposed himself, body, tellect, soul--even the unfished film is yet a masterpiece.! The radiant inography is sensual--even spirual-- a style siar to what ma the sailors Battlhip Potemk still some of the most homoerotic portraure cema history.

IS DANIEL EISENSTE GAY?

")Still om Battlhip PotemkEisenste's homosexualy (discsed even ls by film scholars than the German master F. For Greenaway, the artist's gayns is an extensn of that "same passn" (homo-sensivy? They first experience sita then timacy--'s one of the most ft and ep gay male relatnships ever put on screen.

) In a surreal pl, Greenaway animat Eisenste personal notebook of Pisso-like om Eisenste GuanajuatoEisenste's eccentricy beme the butt of smart-ass parody Ghostbters II (actor Peter McNichols' mad-geni wh a red Ao), but tellectual Greenaway don't nscend to mastream anti-tellectualism or unnsc homophobia. The revealg, adult timacy here mak this a breakthrough film-- b sexual and emotnal ankns Sergei and Canejo's terurse ("I have reached my acctomed pot and this is where I stop") that surpass most gay-intifyg, polilly rrect moviemakers.

FILM REVIEW; MEET EISENSTE: PUNKER, MISF AND GAY RENEGA

The exuberance, eroticism, sight and valuable troductn to a giant of cematic and gay history make this extravaganza 2016's queer movie moviegoers are creasgly subject to mory-group marketg and often fall for beg stereotyped and segmented by Hollywood. Several Petrograd publitns put his works prt, though he signed them unr the assumed name “Sir Gay. He was found posssn of a number of que homoerotic artworks at one pot.

Ctoms officials disvered homoerotic drawgs and photographs, some of which clud relig imagery, a bed shipment of his and Sclair’s belonggs.

Though Eisenste’s sexual clatns were never nfirmed, he had long been spected of beg homosexual, a theory rroborated by the materials nearly 300, 000 feet (91, 440 metr) of footage shot for Que viva Mexi!

IS ALEXA EISENSTE GAY?

Was Albert Este gay? As wh many other celebri, has long been speculated the qutn - Daniel Eisenste is gay?

IS JSI EISENSTE GAY?

Neverthels, speculatns over whether Daniel Eisenste is gay or not are still prent certa rners of the tabloids and on var webs, once aga whout any solid foundatn. The g out of Daniel Eisenste would greatly benef untls homosexuals all over the world who are still the closet. In any se, celebri too often refe to discs their private liv, so we never know if they are gay or straight.

Vooxpopuli manag thoands of famo celebri and 's possible we missed some tails about the qutn - Is Daniel Eisenste gay? Christiane Northup, a matriarch of women’s alternative health, who rose to fame on the strength of several “Oprah” appearanc and btsellg books, published by the New Age self-help platform Hay Hoe, whose founr, Louise Hay, was famo for tellg gay men dyg of AIDS that they jt didn’t love themselv enough. Homosexually cled (although married), he f the prototype of the artist as social misf and pulsive dazzlgly played by the Brish actor Simon McBurney the film, he bears remblanc to everyone om the punk rocker Johnny Rotten to the ntemporary director Peter Sellars.

SERGEI/SIR GAY

''Eisenste'' imag a gay relatnship between Eisenste and his protégé that tak a nasty turn when Grisha be Eisenste's unofficial we first meet the director, is 1921, and Mosw is giddy wh revolutnary fervor. A versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn E, Page 5 of the Natnal edn wh the headle: FILM REVIEW; Meet Eisenste: Punker, Misf and Gay Renega.

Herbert Marshall (not to be nfed wh the actor of that name), a Brish ex-disciple of Eisenste at the Mosw Film School, pared his profsor to a Rsian matrihka woon doll: a doll hidg wh another doll, hidg another doll, hidg another doll… “Outsi [Eisenste] was a Soviet Rsian[;] si, acrdg to some, he was a Christian, to others he was a Jew, to yet others a homosexual….

SPECIAL EPISO OM RIGA. ARCHECT EISENSTE, GAY OM CHECHNYA, ARTDOCFT FARM

And addn, there are reasons to believe that Eisenste’s creative drive homosexualy played a very important role. Or should I say, homosexual.

” Eisenste mataed his strong, lifelong homosexual clatns “ the closet, ” hidn om the official homophobia of the Soviet Unn that would, some s later, rult a five-year imprisonment for a ls pnt filmmaker, Sergei Paradjanov. He was ught a much publicized sndal when homoerotic drawgs and male nu photos found his luggage were seized by U. Jt like many other celebri, has always been speculated the qutn - Alexa Eisenste is gay?

Yet, as often happens wh artists of this field, the mors that Alexa Eisenste is gay are persistent, which is surely annoyg. The g out of Alexa Eisenste would greatly benef an credible number of homosexuals around the world who are still the closet.

THE GAYT OLYMPICS EVER

Although Alexa Eisenste has refed on numero ocsns to beg homosexual, mors are nstantly found on-le.

We'll be more than happy if you share wh any h news about the qutn - Is Alexa Eisenste gay? As much as some voic the field of munitn and ter have speculated if Jsi Eisenste is gay, there is no kd of evince that n rroborate this. However, there are people that say Jsi Eisenste is gay, but their ments have no nsistency or accuracy of any sort.

In any se, celebri too often refe to talk about their private liv, so we never know if one is gay or straight. ” Filled wh the baroque sign sensibili and chatty tellectual dialogue that’s been the hallmark of his work sce his 1982 feature but “The Drghtsman’s Contract, ” also boldly tak on the Soviet hero’s homosexualy, fashng a story of erotic awakeng that reprents rehg new emotnal terra for the notorly arch-and-arty Greenaway. As gay sex scen go, ’s s own movie benchmark of sorts: sctive, ser, absurd, funny, and for Greenaway, somethg of a graphic triumph.

IS ALEXA EISENSTE GAY?

By the end, as a disuraged Eisenste parts Guanajuato — “heaven” he lls — wearg a skeleton mask and cryg, while Greenaway narrat a few further digni the filmmaker’s life (the fate of “Que Viva Mexi, ” Soviet homosexualy laws, how Eisenste died), the melancholic simplicy feels right. As a teenager, Sergei Eisenste signed his drawgs wh "Sir Gay". Numero asis illtrate how Hollywood productns likewise equently played wh nods and wks and typil motifs om gay culture.