Movies
Unpopular poetry
New docudrama ‘Howl’ explores Ginsberg obscenity trial
‘Howl”
Opens today in D.C.
West End Cinema
2301 M St., N.W.
It’s San Francisco in 1957. An American masterpiece is on trial. And a world not busy being born is busy dying.
Smack dab in the middle of a decade known for conformity and complacency came a howl of pain and rage, and also a cry of ecstasy. On Ā Oct. 7, 1955, the young poet Allen Ginsberg finally summoned the nerve to go public with the poem he had been writing ā graphic and subversive in its openness about same-sex desire ā known as “Howl,” a story dramatized in the new film of the same name.
“Howl” is about the young Ginsberg, before he had become the bearded Pied Piper of the counter-culture and gay activism, famous not only as a poet but also for his lifestyle (gay) and his politics (anti-capitalist and anti-war). The film dramatizes in semi-documentary style how Ginsberg, portrayed brilliantly by James Franco as a middle-class intellectual still uncertain of his gayness, struggled with whether to publish the poem and the obscenity trial that followed.
Ginsberg later said he nearly refused to see the poem printed for fear of what his father would think of its honesty about gay sex: “I assumed it wouldn’t be published so I could write what I wanted to.”
“Really, I wrote ‘Howl’ for Jack,” said Ginsberg, referring to the novelist, the very straight Jack Kerouac, author of the novel “On The Road,” and with whom Ginsberg had a sexually unrequited romance. Ā Kerouac was, according to Ginsberg, “the first person I really ever opened up to that I was a homosexual.” For a time, Ginsberg had sex with women, and when committed for eight months to what he called “the looney bin” (Rockland State Hospital), he managed to avoid electro-shock treatment because, he says, “I promised the doctor I would be heterosexual, and that’s how I got out.”
His mother Naomi was also hospitalized for schizophrenia, and was lobotomized (her son signed the order approving it) and she died still hospitalized. He later claimed that at the core of “Howl” were his unresolved emotions about his mother, though his later poem “Kaddish” (1961), written after her death, more explicitly addresses these feelings.
The film is a genre-bending hybrid, shot in just 14 days, mixing archival footage and re-enactments, framed by a reading of the poem and a recreation of the trial. Written and co-directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, it is a tapestry composed of three interwoven threads ā the life of the young Ginsberg, seeking and finding his true voice as a poet and also coming to terms with being gay; society’s reaction to the poem (the obscenity trial); and sequences of psychedelic animation riffing on the startling originality of the poem itself, which was published by fellow beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who was actually the defendant on trial, not Ginsberg.
Ginsberg admittedly pulled no punches in describing gay sex, writing in “Howl” of unnamed protagonists who “let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,” though no gay sex is depicted in the film.
The co-directors know gay issues ā witness their earlier documentaries: the Academy-Award-winning “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” (1989) and “The Trial of Harvey Milk” (1984), in many ways the precursor to gay director Gus Van Sant’s 2008 bio-pic “Milk.” They considered producing the Ginsberg film as pure documentary but later decided to use actors to portray all the characters, first signing Franco (known to most audiences for his role in the three “Spiderman” movies as Harry Osborne), who also played Milk’s lover Scott Smith in the Van Sant film. They met Franco at a dinner party at Van Sant’s house.
The directors picked actors to play all the roles, including two (mostly) straight men Ginsberg fell for ā Kerouac, Neal Cassady (inspiration for the Dean Moriarity character in “On The Road”) and the younger man, Peter Orlovsky, who became Ginsberg’s partner. These three never speak at all in the film, but their audition nevertheless included what the directors say was “a very fun two days when the actors were told to go about seducing each other.”
Crucial to the film’s success in bringing the poem to life on the screen are the animated segments designed by Eric Drooker, who also collaborated with Ginsberg himself for the illustrations in the book “Illuminated Poems.” Drooker, working with a team of Thai animators, creates sweeping, soaring anime to echo images from the poem – robot-like armies of marching men in suits, seraphic naked bodies entwined and whirling through the sky, smokestack phalluses in hellish industrial settings and a huge demon depicting the poem’s evil force of capitalist technology “Moloch.”
Movies
A writer finds his voice through sex work in āSebastianā
An engaging, sexy, and thought-provoking ride
When Finnish-British filmmaker Mikko MƤkelƤās film āSebastianā premiered at the 2024 Sundance Festival, he told Variety he wanted his movie to provide a āfrank and honest portrayal of queer sexuality.ā Thatās surely enough to lure queer audiences ā particularly gay male audiences, thanks to its gay male protagonist ā with the promise of steamy onscreen sex, and his movie, now available on VOD platforms after a limited theatrical release, certainly delivers on it.Ā
That, however, is only half (perhaps less) of what itās all about, because, like its title character, it lives in two worlds at once.
In fact, āSebastianā isnāt even his real name. Heās actually Max (Ruaridh Mollica), an aspiring writer who works a āsurvival jobā at a literary magazine while working on his first novel ā a āpseudo-memoirā chronicling a gay sex workerās encounters with various clients. Itās not exactly āpseudo,ā though; the experiences he writes about are real, gained by advertising himself on a website for gay escorts to obtain āresearchā for his book. The results are getting him noticed, and a publisher (Leanne Best) is interested in the completed manuscript ā but he finds his focus being pulled away from his ārealā life and deeper into the anonymous thrill of exploring his own sexuality in the safety of an assumed identity.
Itās not just his work thatās affected; among the other things that begin to suffer from his growing obsession are his relationships: with his co-worker and bestie, fellow aspiring writer Amna (Hiftu Quasem); with his conservative mother back in Edinburgh, who already disapproves of his lifestyle in faraway, hedonistic London; and to a much older client (Jonathan Hyde) with whom āSebastianā has developed an unexpected emotional attachment. Most of all, itās his own sense of identity that is caught in the conflict, as he tries to keep both sides of his double life together while preventing his whole world from falling apart.
Itās a story with a lot of irons on the fire ā a quality it seems to share with the novel its protagonist is writing, much to the irritation of his would-be publisher. What begins as the saga of a fledgling male escort ā we first meet Max during his first booking as āSebastian,ā after all, suggesting almost from the start that it is this persona that is our true protagonist ā soon shifts into that of an ambitious-but-frustrated young author attempting to fuel his creativity through lived experience, laced with the ongoing thread of his own sexual awakening and self-acceptance. It even makes overtures toward an unexpected (and unorthodox) love story, before venturing down a darker path to become something of a cautionary tale, a warning against the dangers of leading a compartmentalized existence and allowing the gratification of oneās personal appetites to overshadow all the other facets of our lives. Along the way, it throws in some commentary about the tense dynamic between creative expression and commercialism in the arts, not to mention the reinforcement of stigma and negative attitudes around sex workers ā and sex in general ā through the perceptions and representations created by social traditions and popular culture.
This latter perspective might be the key to what is really at the heart of āSebastianā all along, toward which MƤkelƤās screenplay hints with a description of Maxās work-in-progress as being about āthe shame of being ashamed.ā From the beginning, it is his own fear of being found out that becomes his greatest obstacle; far more than his reluctance to cross lines heās been raised to respect, itās the dread of having his reputation and his prospects shattered that causes him to waver in his path ā and that feeling is not unfounded, which is in itself a telling indicator that the power of social judgment is a very real force when it comes to living our authentic lives. Indeed, his personal taboos are quick to fall away as he pursues his undercover āresearchā, but the guilt he feels about being caught in a social position perceived as ābeneathā his own is something he cannot shrug off so easily. With so many generations of religious and societal dogma behind them, such imperatives are hard to ignore.
Yet, thereās yet another aspect of āSebastianā to discuss, that, while it is self-evident in the very premise of MƤkelƤās movie, might be easy to overlook in the midst of all these other themes. A story about someone pretending to be someone else is inherently about deception, and Max, regardless of his motives, is a deceiver. He deceives his clients to obtain the material for his writing, and he deceives his employers and his publisher about where he gets it; he deceives the people closest to him, he deceives potential romantic partners ā but more than anyone else, he deceives himself.
Itās only by becoming honest with oneself, of course, that one can truly find a way to reconcile the opposing sides of our own nature, and that is the challenge āSebastianā sets up for its protagonist, no matter which name he is going by in the moment. Whether or not he meets it is something we wonāt spoil, but weāll go as far as saying that a breakthrough comes only when Max is forced by circumstance to follow his instincts and āget honestā with someone ā though we wonāt tell you who.
In the end, āSebastianā satisfies as a character study, and as a journey of self-acceptance, largely thanks to a charismatic, layered, thoroughly authentic performance from Mollica, a Scots-Italian actor of tremendous range who convincingly captures both sides of Maxās persona and transcends them to create a character that incorporates each into a relatable ā if not always entirely likable ā whole. MƤkelƤās steady, clear-eyed direction helps, as does the equally dignified and vulnerable performance from veteran character actor Hyde, whose chemistry with Mollica is as surprising as the relationship they portray in the film.
Even so, āSebastianā suffers from the many balls it attempts to keep in the air. Though it aims for sex-positive messaging and an empathetic view of sex work, it often devolves into the kind of dramatic tropes that perpetuate an opposite view, sending mixed messages about whether itās trying to diffuse old stereotypes or simply reinvent them for a modern age of ādigital hustlers.ā Further, in its effort to offer an unfiltered presentation of queer sexuality, it spends perhaps a bit more screen time than necessary showing it to us as explicitly as possible while omitting all but a glimpse of full-frontal nudity, but just enough to conjure the word āgratuitous.ā
Donāt get us wrong, though; MƤkelƤās movie ā only his second feature film effort to date ā is an engaging, sexy, and ultimately thought-provoking ride, even if its tangled ambitions sometimes get the better of its narrative thrust, and it comes with our recommendation.
Itās just that, one of these days, weād really like to see a movie where sex work is honestly portrayed as a job, just like any other ā but I guess weāll have to wait until society is ready for it before we get that one.
Movies
A rising filmmaker triumphs with sassy and sublime āAnoraā
Itās the best film of the year so far
When filmmaker Sean Baker chose to shoot an entire feature film ā āTangerineā (2015) ā using only iPhones, he caught the attention of film enthusiasts and turned it into his breakthrough. For LGBTQ audiences, however, what felt much more groundbreaking was that Baker had made a film about trans sex workers on the āmean streetsā of Hollywood, cast real trans women to play them, and depicted them with as much humanity as the cis/het protagonists in any mainstream movie.
It really wasnāt much of a bold leap for Baker, who had from the beginning centered his movies around people from marginalized, largely stigmatized or disregarded communities. A story about transgender sex workers was a logical next step, and the years since have seen him continue in the same vein; he has publicly advocated for decriminalization and respect for sex workers and repeatedly offered up compassionate treatment of their stories in his work ā such as 2017ās āThe Florida Project,ā arguably his most visible success so far.
In his latest film ā āAnora,ā now in limited release after a premiere at Cannes 2024 and a win of the festivalās prestigious Palm dāOr prize ā that undercurrent in his creative identity may have manifested its most fully realized bloom.
The title character, who goes by the more American-sounding āAniā (Mikey Madison), is an in-demand erotic dancer at a popular Brooklyn club, and sheās the walking definition of a seasoned āpro.ā Even so, when Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) ā a wealthy Russian oligarchās son in America on a student visa ā shows up at the club, she finds herself in uncharted territory. Smitten, he whisks her into a world of endless parties and unthinkable wealth ā and when he impetuously proposes to her during an impromptu trip to Las Vegas, she embraces the chance for a āCinderella storyā and accepts.
Their wedded bliss proves short-lived when the tabloid gossip reaches Ivanās parents in Russia. No sooner has the couple returned to Brooklyn than a trio of family āoperativesā (Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Yura Borisov) stages a clumsy home invasion to take control of the situation, with orders from the top to have the marriage annulled immediately. The young groom, fearing his father will pull the plug on his free-wheeling American lifestyle and force him to return to Russia, flees the scene ā leaving Ani to fend for herself, and ultimately leading her into an unlikely (and volatile) alliance with her supposed ākidnappersā as they attempt to track him down in the wilds of Brooklyn.
According to press notes, āAnoraā began as an effort by Baker to produce a vehicle for Karagulian, a respected indie actor of Russian-Armenian heritage who has appeared in every one of his movies to date. He developed the story with the idea of the āhome invasionā sequence as a centerpiece that transforms the narrative from edgy romance to character-driven āchaseā adventure ā and after casting Madison (previously best known for her regular role in TVās āBetter Thingsā) as Ani, decided to craft the story around her emotional journey.
It was a fortuitous choice, supplemented by the filmmakerās talent for making all his characters ā even the antagonists ā into relatable figures with whom we cannot help but empathize. No one is presented as a one-dimensional menace, but rather just another struggling human caught up in thankless circumstances and trying to rise to the occasion; this is hardly a surprising approach from Baker, oft-praised for the humanism reflected in his work, but in āAnora,ā that egalitarian perspective makes for a dynamic that both heightens and undercuts the inherent tension. While the threat of violence may hover over the filmās second half like a patiently circling vulture, we recognize that none of the involved players desires such an outcome, and their resultant ineffectiveness adds a winning layer of comedic irony. It also helps his movie to deepen as it goes, and by the time he brings āAnoraā home, it has transcended the genres from which it samples to leave us with a bittersweet satisfaction that feels infinitely more authentic than the āPretty Womanā fantasy toward which it hints in the beginning.
It would be an affront to reveal much about how things play out, except to say that its final scene delivers a profoundly resonant impact which we understand without having to hear a word of dialogue; itās the payoff earned by two hours of flawless performances from a cast palpably attuned to each other, guided by a cinematic master whose gift for bringing out the best in his collaborators has helped to make him one of the most unequivocally acclaimed American filmmakers of our era.
As seamless a group effort as it is, Madisonās Ani ā fierce, determined, and unwilling to give up any agency over her life ā is the lynch-pin, so much a force to be reckoned with that we somehow never doubt she will come out on top of this harrowing crisis, yet at the same time navigates around a layer of vulnerability that reminds us just how much like the rest of us she is. While neither she nor any of the filmās characters is queer, there is something about her ā her refusal to be defined or stigmatized for who she is, perhaps, or her outsider status in a culture where conformity to traditional rules and class hierarchies is the prime directive ā which makes her feel like āone of us,ā an outcast thumbing her nose at those who would dismiss or decry her over how she lives her life. Itās a tour-de-force performance, and āAnoraā hinges on its power.
Sheās supported by a universally superb ensemble. Special mention goes to Eydelshteyn, whose Ivan has an irresistible charm that helps us believe Aniās decision to trust him and keeps us from judging him too harshly for his inevitable callowness; Karagulian and Tovmasyan, as the chief and second banana (respectively) of the hapless henchmen who attempt to intimidate the young newlyweds into submission, both embody decidedly ordinary men trying to stay in control despite being hopelessly out of their depth, a source for both much-needed humor and unexpected empathy; but itās Borisovās Igor who becomes the filmā most compelling figure ā the āmuscleā of the home invasion crew whose outward thuggishness hides a much more thoughtful approach to life than anyone around him might be capable of seeing, and who establishes himself in the third act as the filmās grounding emotional force.
Of course, Bakerās knack for creating a āwild rideā of a film (populated by people we probably wouldnāt want to hang out with in real life) plays a big part in making this one a sexy (often explicitly) and entertaining movie as well as a deeply engaging, challenging piece of cinema, and the gritty, ā70s-evocative cinematography from Drew Daniels only heightens the experience. Itās one of those rare films that, even though it is crafted with excellence from every contributor, somehow manages still to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Itās our pick for the best film of the year so far, and while it might be too soon for us to proclaim āAnoraā as Sean Bakerās masterpiece, itās certainly tempting to do so.
Movies
āBeauty, beauty, look at you!ā: 50 years of āFemale Troubleā
Celebrating John Watersās lovably grotesque black comedy
Itās funny ā and by funny, we mean ironic ā how things that were once on the fringes of our culture, experienced by few and appreciated by even fewer, become respectable after theyāve been around for half a century or more. The Blade herself can probably attest to that.
Cheap, self-deprecating one-liners aside, thereās something to celebrate about the ability to survive and thrive for decades despite being mostly ignored by the mainstream ātastemakersā of our society ā which is why, in honor of the 50th anniversary of its release, we canāt help but take an appreciative look back at John Watersās arguable masterpiece, āFemale Trouble,ā which debuted in movie theaters on Oct. 11, 1974 and was promptly dismissed and forgotten by most of American society.
Waters had already made his breakthrough with 1972ās āPink Flamingos,ā which more or less helped the āMidnight Movieā become a counterculture touchstone of the seventies and eighties while making his star (and muse) Glenn Milstead ā aka Divine ā into an underground sensation. Naturally, expectations for this follow-up were high among his already growing cult following, who were hungry for more of his gleefully transgressive anarchy. But while it certainly delivered what they craved, it would have been hard for any movie to surpass the sensation caused by the latter, which had already broken perhaps the ultimate onscreen taboo by ending with a scene of Divineās character eating a freshly deposited dollop of dog feces. Though āFemale Troubleā offered plenty of its own hilariously shocking (and occasionally revolting) thrills, it had no standout āWTFā moment of its own to ātopā that one. Subsequently, the curious mainstream, who were never going to be Waters fans anyway, lost interest.
For his true audience, however, it was anything but a let-down. After all, it featured most of the same outrageous cast members and doubled down on the ferociously radical camp that had made āFlamingosā notorious even among the āstraightā (as in āsquareā) crowd; and while it maintained the bargain basement āguerillaā style the director had perfected throughout his early years of DIY filmmaking in Baltimore, it nevertheless displayed a savvy for cinematic craft that allowed Waters to both subvert and pay homage to the old-school Hollywood movies his (mostly) queer fans had grown up loving ā and making fun of ā just like him. It was quickly embraced, joining āFlamingosā on art house double bills across the U.S. and helping the Waters cult to grow until he finally won the favor of the masses with his more socially palatable āHairsprayā in 1988.
Fifty years later, there is little doubt that āFemale Troubleā has displaced āFlamingosā as Watersās quintessential work. Riding high on the heels of the latter, the director had both a bolstered self-confidence and an assured audience awaiting his next movie, and he outdid himself by creating an ambitious and breathtakingly grotesque black comedy that frequently feels like weāre watching an actual crime being committed on film. Ostensibly framed as a ācautionary taleā of ājuvenile delinquency,ā it follows the life story of Dawn Davenport (Divine), who abandons social conformity once and for all when her parents fail to give her the black cha-cha heeled shoes she wanted for Christmas. Running away from home, she quickly becomes an unwed mother, leading her to a life of crime as she tries to support her unruly and ungrateful daughter Taffy (Hilary Taylor, later Waters stalwart Mink Stole). Things seem to turn around when she is accepted as a client at the exclusive āLe Lipstiqueā beauty salon, where owners Donald and Donna Dasher (David Lochery and Mary Vivian Pearce) take a particular interest in her, and she marries star hairdresser Gater (Michael Potter) despite the objections of his doting Aunt Ida (Edith Massey), who wants him to āturn Nellyā and avoid the āsick and boring lifeā of a heterosexual.
From there, Watersās absurdly melodramatic saga enters the realm of pure lunacy. Dawnās marriage inevitably fails, and she falls under the influence of the Dashers, who use her as an experiment to prove their theory that āCrime equals Beautyā and get her hooked on shooting up liquid eyeliner; Gater leaves for Detroit to pursue a career in the āauto in-DUS-tryā, and his doting Aunt Ida (Edith Massey) disfigures Dawnās face by dousing it with acid; Taffy goes on a quest to find her deadbeat dad and ends up stabbing him to death before joining the Hare Krishna movement; and things culminate in a murderous nightclub performance by the now-thoroughly deranged Dawn, which earns her a date with the electric chair for the filmās literally āshockingā finale.
It would be easy to rhapsodize over the many now-iconic highlights of āFemale Troubleā ā some of our favorites are its hilarious early scenes of Dawnās life as a high school delinquent, the Christmas morning rampage in which she destroys her parentsā living room like Godzilla on a bender in Tokyo, āBad Seedā-ish Taffyās torment of her mother via jump rope rhymes and car crash re-enactments on the living room furniture, Aunt Idaās persistent attempts to set up Gater on a āboy date,ā and the master stroke of double-casting Divine as the low-life mechanic who fathers Taffy and thereby allows him to literally fuck himself onscreen ā but every Waters fan has a list of their own.
Likewise, we could take a scholarly approach, and point out the āmethodā in the madness by highlighting themes or cultural commentaries that might be observed, such as the filmās way of ridiculing the straight worldās view of queer existence by presenting it to them in an over-the-top caricature of their own narrative tropes, or its seeming prescience in spoofing pop cultureās obsession with glamour, beauty, and toxic-behavior-as-entertainment decades before the advent and domination of ārealityā TV ā but those things have been said many times already, and none of them really have anything to do with why we love it so much.
What we love is the freakishness of it. Waters revealed years after the fact that Divineās ālookā as Dawn Davenport was inspired by a photo from Diane Arbus, whose work served as a testament to the anonymous fringe figures of American culture, but it could be said that all of his characters, in this and in all his early films, might also be drawn from one of her images. Itās that, perhaps, that is the key to its appeal: itās a movie about āfreaks,ā made for freaks by someone who is a freak themself. It makes us laugh at all of its excesses simply because they are funny ā and the fact that the NON-freaks donāt āget itā just makes them all the funnier.
As Aunt Ida says, āQueers are just betterā ā and in this case, we mean āqueerā as in ādifferent than the boring norm.ā
In any case, queer or otherwise, celebrate your freakishness by watching āFemale Troubleā in honor of its anniversary this weekend. Whether itās your umpteenth time or your first, it will be 97 minutes you wonāt regret.
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