A gay unt's stunng visn
Contents:
* visconti brothers gay *
Visnti (1906-1976) was gay, an aristocrat, a Marxist, a director of theater and opera.
We buy the whole overwrought package, the quiet tth, the flamboyant excs, even the unrcurrent of homoeroticism that Visnti never que rencil. When you’re born to an Italian aristocratic fay, life n be as lazy, nt and, well, gay as you’d like to be. Openly gay (his lovers clud fashn photographer Horst P Horst, director Fran Zeffirelli and the star of many of his later films, German hottie Helmut Berger), he spoke rarely on the topic.
But almost all of his films clu homosexual characters or subtext – not to mentn very attractive leadg men – that would have been stantly regnizable to gay dienc at the time. The director even clud a gay subtext to the film, the character of a Spanish drifter who yearns for the strappg hero and attempts to lure him away om the object of his obssn.
Ele Male Studs and Valley Pro Vio Distributors have released the send film featurg gay adult’s only set of intil triplets, the Visnti brothers. * visconti brothers gay *
The Cematheque program clus all of Visnti’s films, and for gay ceast there are several worthy of particular attentn. Roc be a succsful boxer (precipatg the cln of many barely-clothed locker-room shots) unr the tutelage of a gay promoter, who’s both attracted to and repelled by Roc’s brother Simon, whose own potential the rg has been wasted. Dpe the cln of a character (played by Visnti’s lover Berger) dog a drag impersonatn of Marlene Dietrich (as a birthday prent to his father no ls) and the Night Of The Long Kniv massacre played as an over-the-top gay y, The Damned is nfg and somewhat ted to watch.
But for gay dienc, ’s 1971’s Death In Venice (8:30pm, Thu, Aug 5) that holds the most allure. Time magaze lled the film “irreemably, unfivably gay” (apparently not a pliment the early ’70s, but a bean to gay men to seek out), and Death In Venice remas a profoundly movg experience, one that ntu to ronate given today’s youth-obssed gay culture.