Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 04/14/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980)

Al Pacino in Cruising

Cast: Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Don Scardino, Joe Spinell, Jay Acovone. Screenplay: William Friedkin, based on a novel by Gerald Walker. Cinematography: James A. Contner. Production design: Bruce Weintraub. Editing: Bud S. Smith. Music: Jack Nitzsche.

Is Cruising deliberately or only accidentally inchoate? It could hardly be anything else, having been attacked before, during, and after its production by the queer community. Its star, Al Pacino, has never been comfortable discussing it, while its creator, William Friedkin, remained on the defensive. At its best, it overturns any expectations we may have about detective thriller movies. When we see cops harassing gay men in the opening of the film, we probably expect those cops to get their comeuppance in the end. When we learn that it's about a serial killer preying on the leather community, we expect the killer to be found and disposed of, probably violently, at the end. When we see a straight cop (Pacino) chosen to go undercover in that community, we expect him to solve the case but stay straight. That would be the course of the conventional movie. But none of that quite happens. Instead, we are left with ambiguities, inspiring a small industry of commentary that persists today. It's probably best to regard Cruising as a period piece: a document of attitudes, from outrage to ambivalence to acceptance, toward gay men in America just before the outbreak of AIDS.