15 November 2007
William Friedkin's "Cruising" (1980)
A diorama of the gay New York scene on the cusp of breaking into the decade of AIDS and actionable gay rights? Not really. One of the greasiest, drab, dirty and – even – self-indulgent murder-mysteries of 1970s movie-making? (Though you can tell it’s on the cutting-edge like Billy Friedkin says in the accompanying documentary: it has an ending). Probably.
It starts out pretty rough: atrocious writing, horrible acting, impressively moussed hair, and big ass glass-shield glasses. And lots of leather and denim, too. And the first murder has a real troublesome sense of reality hanging around it, too. There’s something about the way blood looks in these old movies that’s a lot more disturbing than the more recent forensic-fetishizing splatter scenes. It’s thick and gross, like an artery has been opened. It reminded me of the end of Don’t Look Now with a little less Yellow No. 5.
But maybe it was just the anthropological nature of the whole thing that got its hooks into me. I love seeing New York in movies when it was a little bit scummier. Seeing that hotel on 14th Street (whether it was on Houston as Eugene suspected, or actually on 14th Street as the documentary sort of implied), I just couldn’t help but imagine what it smelled like or if the sidewalks really were as greasy as they looked.
But it extends beyond just that. A lot of these clubs sort of exist in the gay ether here. I’d heard of Ramrod before and so had Eugene. And then to find out that not only did they use the actual exteriors of the place, but interiors and clientele as well? Friedkin (correctly) insisted that it was just a backdrop for a murder-mystery, but it’s definitely a background that is, to say the least, ontological in its mythology.
And yet Friedkin insists in said documentary that he had no idea that the film would upset the gay community, and that seems helplessly naive. He never meant to create a representation of the community, but rather use it as a backdrop for his story. But the only other glimpse of an “Other” gay community in the film ends up as roadkill. And while it’s not clear who exactly it is that’s responsible, it’s 100% certain that the inevitability of it was brought on by the urgency and presence of the gay S&M/leather community. Metaphorically speaking, then, it is a beast which cannot be contained and will thus consume and dominate (oh!) the rest of the culture.
A few quick words about Pacino – he’s restrained, which is surprising since it follows And Justice for All, which is where he developed that screaming = pathos thing. Maybe that didn’t get cemented until Scarface. But it’s pretty hard to know what’s going on here. He seems uncomfortable, and the movie abruptly cuts away whenever it seems like he’s going to do something “gay” ( “I wish I could do something for you,” he says with a smile). And then we’re treated to another Karen Allen sex scene (her primer for Indiana)! So is this character bisexual or what? You could read the end to suggest that he became what he had to become to do his job, and then exorcised it. But that doesn’t really parse out as something someone would do, let alone be capable of doing. Is this the writing falling apart for pure shock, or is there a different way of reading this? Is Friedkin suggesting you can become gay, and exorcise that back out with a few well-aimed thrusts? Gee, why was it the gay community was pissed off again?