Quick data point on The Party, seconding your take:
I saw The Party as a 10-ish year old in India around 1989-90. And I thought it was uproariously funny. And no one (or at best almost no one) in my lefty-radical and culturally savvy family in India thought it was all that problematically racist. It was only later, after coming to the US that I realized it was (not incorrectly) considered a racist portrayal. But I still think it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the humor in it (which is genuinely great) as long as one isn’t blind to its problematic aspects.
Meanwhile, I still haven’t seen Cruising and need to rectify that.
Oh wow, this is a pretty great writeup. A few more thoughts on this one:
- some of it is honestly probably just era and ADR, but this movie really often feels like it's Friedkin kinda doing a giallo, yeah? The lighting, the ambiguousness, the general chopped up editing, the way the kill scenes are shot...not sure how much of that is intentional, but I have to think some of it is.
- Noble's thought about this being "more exploitation than exploration" is really well put, and I think it gets at the heart of how it's easier to be ok with this movie now than it was back when it was released (before I was born). To our eyes now, it's easier to appreciate the good stuff (and there is a lot of good stuff!) without feeling what folks at the time would have (quite justly) felt.
- Not much on Pacino's performance here, but boy is he great in this? I feel like he really does do a wonderful job of playing ambiguous way beyond what's in the script - it's so easy to forget what a subtle actor he could be and how much he could do with just his face and body.
I think this film is something of a spiritual godfather to the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s; like the other main influence on that later movement, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this is not about “positive images” of homosexuality; rather, it is exploring what queer desire looks like within a homophobic and repressive culture. For a sympathetic reading of the film from a gay scholar, check out the chapter in David Greven’s book PSYCHO-SEXUAL: MALE DESIRE IN HITCHCOCK, DEPALMA, SCORSESE AND FRIEDKIN (2013)
Very well considered and said, Keith.
Quick data point on The Party, seconding your take:
I saw The Party as a 10-ish year old in India around 1989-90. And I thought it was uproariously funny. And no one (or at best almost no one) in my lefty-radical and culturally savvy family in India thought it was all that problematically racist. It was only later, after coming to the US that I realized it was (not incorrectly) considered a racist portrayal. But I still think it’s perfectly fine to enjoy the humor in it (which is genuinely great) as long as one isn’t blind to its problematic aspects.
Meanwhile, I still haven’t seen Cruising and need to rectify that.
Oh wow, this is a pretty great writeup. A few more thoughts on this one:
- some of it is honestly probably just era and ADR, but this movie really often feels like it's Friedkin kinda doing a giallo, yeah? The lighting, the ambiguousness, the general chopped up editing, the way the kill scenes are shot...not sure how much of that is intentional, but I have to think some of it is.
- Noble's thought about this being "more exploitation than exploration" is really well put, and I think it gets at the heart of how it's easier to be ok with this movie now than it was back when it was released (before I was born). To our eyes now, it's easier to appreciate the good stuff (and there is a lot of good stuff!) without feeling what folks at the time would have (quite justly) felt.
- Not much on Pacino's performance here, but boy is he great in this? I feel like he really does do a wonderful job of playing ambiguous way beyond what's in the script - it's so easy to forget what a subtle actor he could be and how much he could do with just his face and body.
I think this film is something of a spiritual godfather to the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s; like the other main influence on that later movement, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this is not about “positive images” of homosexuality; rather, it is exploring what queer desire looks like within a homophobic and repressive culture. For a sympathetic reading of the film from a gay scholar, check out the chapter in David Greven’s book PSYCHO-SEXUAL: MALE DESIRE IN HITCHCOCK, DEPALMA, SCORSESE AND FRIEDKIN (2013)