Fassbr’s Mirror: How the Gay Filmmaker Examed Self & Society

INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD

Al LaValley, The Gay Liberatn of Raer Werner Fassbr: Male Subjectivy, Male Bodi, Male Lovers, New German Crique, No. 63, Special Issue on Raer Werner Fassbr (Autumn, 1994), pp. 108-137 * fassbinder gay *

Although we praise his films today, crics at the time gave Fassbr’s reprentatn of homosexualy mixed reviews. In Sight & Sound, cric Monika Trt wrote: “Cos of malens, straight or gay, are all too often rced to how heavily one’s hands are held or as a stggle to bee the alpha male. Dpe s outrageoly downbeat endg, “Fox” was promoted at the 1975 New York Film Ftival as a darg display of “homosexualy whout tears” — prumably bee the movie is so matter-of-fact reprentg s gay i.

Four s ago, “Fox” was somethg of a novelty, as was Fassbr, perhaps the first openly gay or bisexual filmmaker of note sce Jean New York Tim cric Vcent Canby, an important supporter of Fassbr’s work, chose not to review “Fox, ” first shown as “Fist-Right of Freedom”; the movie was dismissed The Tim by Richard Er as “a ‘Blue Angel’ done drag. ” When “Fox” opened mercially New York was at the Waverly (the same Greenwich Village theater where, two months later, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” appeared), wh the word “homosexual” promently ed s ads. Some crics and activists took offense at Fassbr’s pictn of gay life or, more precisely, his e of a gay i to make h a faiar story of sexual exploatn.

From Fassbr to Pasoli and Sciamma, here are some of the bt gay movi om the global arthoe. * fassbinder gay *

” When “Fox” had s premiere at the Cann Film Ftival, he mataed that “homosexualy is shown as pletely normal, ” addg that the “problem” is social equaly and ’s “somethg que different. Raer Werner Fassbr, the most prolific major gay director of the past half-century--44 films om 1965 to 1982--ma only three wh gay protagonists.

* fassbinder gay *

" It's a succct explanatn of what set Fassbr apart om most gay filmmakers, and 's why he remas important and radil today. That's bee as early as his first full-length feature, Love Is Colr Than Death (1969), Fassbr hontly exprsed the tenor of the gay experience.

He had the urage to dramatize gays alongsi the rt of humany whout separatg queer sensibily (nveyg same-sex sire even among heterosexual characters) om his unrstandg of the larger world.

His filmmakg was the mory, but he never showed gays as a andHisFriends ntas Fassbr's most poted social observatn. It is a movie which he criqu class--the enomic, ethnic, and cultural differenc that divi even gay people om each other.

A lottery w leads not to fancial and emotnal eedom but to social ptivy, this wildly cynil classic about love and exploatn by Raer Werner Fassbr. Castg himself agast type, the director plays a suggtible workg-class nocent who lets himself be taken advantage of by his bourgeois new boyiend and his circle of materialistic iends, leadg to the kd of ronant misery that only Fassbr uld create. Fox and His Friends is unsparg social mentary, an amgly pils and groundbreakg if ntroversial pictn of a gay muny 1970s Wt Germany. * fassbinder gay *

" It qutns the nventnal social thory that often opprs those who, like gay, naive Fox, go through life unaware that they lack social power. In Fassbr's selfls mirror, the tensn between affluent, cultured gays and poor, unuth gays reflects an humany that queers ought to be able to regnize and ntemporary filmmakers follow Fassbr's bold example. Before and after Stonewall, Hollywood often over-sensized s closeted gay characters, portrayg them primarily as victims.

Fassbr's mirror revealed other tough tths, cludg gay men's sensivy to each other. The Gay Liberatn of Raer Werner Fassbr: Male Subjectivy, Male Bodi, Male Lovers on JSTOR. 2 Fassbr followed but also challenged his source material, genre and other film nventns, the polics and preferred reprentatn of Gay Liberatn, and the expectatns of his dience.

6 In the early 1990s, New Queer Cema filmmakers such as Gregg Araki, Tom Kal, and Todd Hayn7 embraced and policised the elements of transgrsn, perversn, and associatn between crimaly and homosexualy that Fassbr had more ambivalently or ironilly begun to appropriate om Ge 1982. Fassbr’s ambivalent reprentatns of homosexualy were ntroversial at the time, for stance, Jam Roy MacBean saw Querelle as offerg “ltle, if anythg, that uld be nstctive, eher toward harmon unrstandg between gays and straights or toward a vibrant and viable thetics of gay cema. 9 Lookg back at Fassbr’s gay films, Al LaValley wrote 1994 that “they pay no attentn to the tes of Gay Liberatn yet somehow e out of them, [which] seems to me a mark of their power and ntug excement.

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INTERNATNAL GAY CEMA: 33 LGBTQ MOVI TO SEE OM AROUND THE WORLD

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