Recently, I've been catching up on a lot of gay history/culture that I never bothered to look into much before. Last night I finally got around to watching Cruising.
I have SO many questions about this film and need to do a bit more research around it. Questions like: after the film was released, were the people that were protesting this still unhappy with it? What exactly were the protests about? (The worry that straight people would view this as being representative of the community?). Also, what happened at the end? I couldn't work out if they caught the killer or not. They said they had Stuart's fingerprint on the coin, yet it finishes on an ambiguous note. Was Ted's boyfriend the real killer? Or was there another killer? I was kinda confused.
BUT, I actually enjoyed this movie a lot for what it was. I have watched a number of these late 70s/early 80s New York movies that feel exceptionally gritty and leave you wanting a bath afterwards (Don't Go In The House, Maniac, Basket Case, The New York Ripper). I think I enjoyed this one the most. I find the aesthetic really interesting, and this time and place really interesting, though it's so grubby at the same time.
From those who were around then - how accurate was the depiction of these gay places? I really appreciated how divey the whole thing looked. Even after I came of age in the early 00s, a lot of gay places had a kind of divey, "poor man's version" feel, so I did find that gave a feeling a believability to something set in 1980. Although not a funny movie, I did laugh when Pacino goes to Cop Night and is kicked out for being the only one not dressed as a cop when he actually WAS one.
Was Central Park really that populated at night back then? I remember reading how dangerous it was then, but then again all these men looked threatening themselves in all that leather, so maybe they felt safer because of that?
"Some friends of mine were up there that night and heard someone singing..." brr. That line is quite creepy, really.
I was surprised that there was a lot less homophobia that I was expecting. Some from characters in the movie, but even then it didn't permeate everything. And I didn't pick up any from the actual movie itself.
Al Pacino was HOT! I was really shocked, because I know of him of course, but never thought anything of him. Here, I liked him very much.
Another thing I appreciated about it was a different portrayal of gay men (and I noticed they state straight away that this isn't mainstream gay life, but more an underground culture). We don't really get a lot of portrayals of gay men that are so... well, [italic]threatening[/italic] for want of a better word. I'm not talking about the killing aspect, I mean the masculinity and machismo of the whole thing. In most things we're portrayed more femmey (which doesn't always bother me, necessarily, but it is pretty standard and only one part of the community) or basically neutered. So that was interesting to me. All that focus on hair, muscle, sweat and griminess. I'm not even into leather and I found the look of the movie fascinating. I kinda loved the idea that to go underground in gay culture involves Pacino having to lift weights. Most other movies would have to have him learn camping or something and it'd be jokey. And it's all men bar one woman really, who just seems to exist so Pacino can fuck her. (tbc)