Querelle, Music in the Films of Luca Gaudagnino

Last night I saw Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1982 film adaptation of Jean Genet’s novel Querelle at Anthology Film Archives in the East Village. I saw it when it came out, but I had hardly any recollection of it, aside from Jeanne Moreau singing “Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves.” Not only does it still hold up, but it’s quite shocking even by (or especially by) today’s standards. It’s basically a Tom of Finland drawing come to life. I think it might be the most erotic film I’ve ever seen, even though there’s no explicit sex or nudity.

The night before, while I was channel surfing, I happened to catch Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash on cable, which I had also seen in theaters when it was originally released in 2015. I was particularly struck by a scene where Ralph Fiennes starts dancing to the Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue.” The only words I can use to describe it are pure, unbridled joy.

I’ve always found music criticism to be lacking. How can you convey in words what a song is like? You have to hear it (and, in this case, see it). So here it is:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=623d9vZqF-4

I also remembered music playing a pivotal role in another of Guadagnino’s movies, Call Me By Your Name. In this instance, it’s Armie Hammer’s character dancing to the Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way.” Again, the feeling is pure, unbridled joy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq_e88Gp8Bs

On a side note, when I went to see the Psychedelic Furs (twice) last year, it really pissed me off that they replaced the xylophone part in this song with a keyboard. So here it is as it was originally recorded:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LGD9i718kBU

Stray Cats at Pier 17

I remember the first time I saw the first Stray Cats (UK) album at Bleecker Bob’s. (It was an import; they were still relatively unknown in the United States.) It was one of the only times I bought an album just because of its cover. (Remember albums? Remember cover art?)

In the middle of the new wave ’80s, with its synthesizer “hair bands,” these guys carved their own musical path, doing rockabilly, a style that harked back to the ’50s. With his pouty good looks and pompadour to die for, lead vocalist/guitarist Brian Setzer was a natural for the then-nascent MTV. No one was more surprised than I was when they became a hit in America. What was even more shocking was that these guys from Long Island (my hometown!) had gone to London to make a name for themselves. And yet it made perfect sense that these hyper-stylish guys would go to hyper-style conscious England, where it was easier to get a hit record than the US.

They came out of the gate with a number of strong songs: “Stray Cat Strut,” “Rock This Town,” “Runaway Boys” and “Rumble in Brighton” (from their first US album, Built for Speed), as well as “(She’s) Sexy + 17” (from their second US album, Rant n’ Rave with the Stray Cats). Then they basically disappeared. (Anyone remember the Brian Setzer Orchestra?)

But tonight at Pier 17 in New York City, they came roaring back to life, musicianship fully in tow (and they all still have their fabulous hair, damn it!). It’s amazing how much sound these guys get from just a guitar, bass and drums. (Drummer Slim Jim Phantom doesn’t even use a full drum kit, just a snare and cymbal!)

So Setzer and bassist Lee Rocker (who traded a “Long Island, NY” baseball jacket), along with Phantom (who wore a “Massapequa” T-shirt) brought it all back home.

The Village! A Disco Daydream

I felt very un-A List Gay when I entered the Soho Playhouse, but I was eventually won over by Nora Burns’s new show, The Village! A Disco Daydream (and that’s saying something for a curmudgeon like myself).

While I may be a little biased (she once lived in my building), Burns has been paying her dues for years in comedy troupes like Unitard, The Nellie Olesons and Planet Q and is finally getting the recognition she deserves (including a review in The New Yorker!).

And while I didn’t quite catch the end of the disco era in New York City (although I did own a copy of the album A Night at Studio 54) and I was decidedly more East Village than West Village, there were many moments of recognition for me (and history lessons for the kids).

The show tells the story of a hustler named Trade (Antony Cherrie) who lives in the West Village with his sugar daddy (Chuck Blasius) in 1979 and meets a young NYU student (Drew Timberlake Hill) and falls in love. Narrated by “trans-queen” Glace Chase, the show also features “gender fluid” Eileen Dover, a fag hag (Ashley Chavonne), a delivery man (Kevin Boseman) who embodies certain porn movie cliches, and three go-go dancers (Jack Barrow, Chris Patterson Rosso and JMV). (Burns certainly knows her gay stereotypes!) Burns herself appears as Junkie Jane, another character you might have met in the West Village in 1979. While she doesn’t have any lines in this show, she’s prominently featured in her other show, David’s Friend, which is being performed in repertory and which I saw in an earlier incarnation at La Mama.

The mood is set as soon as you enter the theater, to strains of disco music, while the go-go dancers mingle with the audience. While the set is black-box theater spare, for me one of the strong points of the show is its clever theatricality, such as when one actor holds up a widow frame to illustrate someone throwing their keys down to a friend through an apartment window.

The show then jumps forward to 1994 and touches on the devastation wrought by AIDS. The message here seems to be to live life to the fullest and enjoy it while you can.

The entire cast seems to be having a good time and I particularly enjoyed Cherrie who, in addition to being the requisite hunk (with a Ewan McGregor-ish Scottish accent, no less), has some touching moments at the end of the show. And since I sat in the first row, I got to enjoy his, er, “talents” up close. (Yes, I’m smitten.)

If I have any criticisms, they were minor (and, OK, maybe a little personal).

The sugar daddy character, who’s so “old” he has to pay for sex, was the same age I happened to turn the day I saw the show! (I guess people didn’t take very good care of themselves in 1979.)

And the audience on the night I saw the show was sometimes perhaps a little too enthusiastic, especially the man sitting next to me who laughed maybe a little too hard every time he spotted a reference. (This isn’t The Rocky Horror Picture Show!)

But perhaps that’s to be expected when people who are normally glued to their cell phones discover the joy of live theater, especially a production as fun and well-executed as this one.