100 years ago, Germany's 'Este of Sex' began the gay rights movement | The Tim of Israel

Contents:

• GREENAWAY OFFENDS RSIA WH FILM ABOUT SOVIET DIRECTOR'S GAY LOVE AFFAIR
• FILM CLAIMG DIRECTOR SERGEI EISENSTE HAD GAY LOVE AFFAIR SHUNNED RSIA
• CELEBRATG THE GAY RSIAN CELEBRI HISTORY BOOKS TRIED TO ERASE
• PUT’S PRI? SIX FAMO GAY SONS OF RSIA
• WAS ESTE GAY
• 100 YEARS AGO, GERMANY’S ‘ESTE OF SEX’ BEGAN THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

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

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. “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 CLAIMG DIRECTOR SERGEI EISENSTE HAD GAY LOVE AFFAIR SHUNNED RSIA

”Film historians have often poted out that homosexual imagery is rife Eisenste’s films.

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.

CELEBRATG THE GAY RSIAN CELEBRI HISTORY BOOKS TRIED TO ERASE

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. 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.

PUT’S PRI? SIX FAMO GAY SONS OF RSIA

")Still om Battlhip PotemkEisenste's homosexualy (discsed even ls by film scholars than the German master F.

WAS ESTE GAY

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.

100 YEARS AGO, GERMANY’S ‘ESTE OF SEX’ BEGAN THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

) 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.