26384. cllrdr - July 28, 1999 -
10:12 AM PT
The major reference point for "Lilies" is "The
Maids" -- which Genet, in a moment of divine extravagance,
said should be played by adolescent boys. This has been (rather
unsuccessfully I feel) translated over the years into drag
performances. Men playing women wasn't the point. Genet wanted *boys*
playing women -- evoking all the gaucherie adolescent boys can
muster.
Greysons' film circulates around gay teenage romance in
interesting ways.
26385. cllrdr - July 28, 1999 -
10:14 AM PT
What mattres to Greyson,as with Genet, is not a *successful*
female impersonation, but an underscoring of the distance that
must be traversed between the actor and the character being
portrayed.
26389. cllrdr - July 28, 1999 -
10:41 AM PT
"LIlies" is far less messy than John's other work,
particularly his video features "You Taste American,"
and "Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers."
26390. benear - July 28, 1999 -
11:44 AM PT
...
Great picks and pics, Glenda. I really liked Lilies. The film is
rather expressionistic and really has echoes of Genet. I also
thought the idea that religious fanaticism stemming from
repressed homosexuality was very well expressed.
26391. glendajean - July 28,
1999 - 1:21 PM PT
One of the things about Lilies that I enjoyed was seeing the two
old men, sitting side by side, watching this episode from their
young lives replayed before them. At some point, even the Bishop,
held against his will, seems to have lost his resistance and is
absorbed as the the rest of us in the play. "Vallier was
much heavier than this boy," he tells the older Simon at one
point (aren't we all critics at heart?). This drawing in brings
him to actually sit at the table of Simon's engagement party, a
silent guest.
I did have a puzzle about how the young religious fanantic ended
up becoming a bishop. Like many positions of authority, I would
think that becoming a bishop would require some degree of
political skills and ambition that the young kid didn't seem to
have at all. I would think that being fanatical would have
lessened his chances of becoming a bishop.
26392. cllrdr - July 28, 1999 -
1:25 PM PT
I would think that entering the priesthood put a damper on his
fanaticism.
26393. benear - July 28, 1999 -
4:28 PM PT
I had no problem at all in seeing the transition from repressed
homo to Bishop. Afterall, it is an age old story. By repressing
his very nature, he became a master of disguise and manipulation
(i.e. he developed quintessential political skills). Sound
familiar?
26394. cllrdr - July 28, 1999 -
4:43 PM PT
You bet. It's The Franny Spellman Story.
26395. glendajean - July 28,
1999 - 5:03 PM PT
Okay, I'll ask. Who is Franny Spellman (and from another thread,
what Sondheim would be playing in the cd player)?
26396. cllrdr - July 29, 1999 -
6:42 AM PT
Francis Cardinal Spellman: Major RC fascist. Confidante of J.
Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn. Loved musical theater and used to meet
the cast after favorite shows the better to proposition chorus
boys. Adored the Vietnam war -- where his chief delight was
giving blow jobs to helicopter pilots. Made a national issue of
his antipathy to "Baby Doll" (1956; written by Tennesse
Williams, directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Carroll Baker, Eli
Wallach and Karl Malden.)
Why the "Anyone Can Whistle" cast album, of course.
Either the original cast recording or the concert version of afew
years back staged to benefit the Gay Men's Health Crisis.
26397. glendajean - July 29,
1999 - 6:50 AM PT
I have the concert album. I prefer the 1985 Follies concert cd,
Company or the original cast album for A Little Night Music.
Speaking of Cohn, Anthony Whatever his ex-gay name is, claims he
was Cohn's lover for two years.
26398. cllrdr - July 29, 1999 -
7:31 AM PT
Falzarano. He and a whole lot of other dudes. The most beautiful
guy in Gay Activists Alliance -- Ken Burdick -- ended up as Cohn's
chauffeur. Sad, sad, sad.
26402. glendajean - July 30,
1999 - 8:42 AM PT
Indeed, plays are difficult to film. But when the Parisian woman's
balloon lands in the town, I decided that I very much liked the
style of telling this story. It was stagey, a bit removed from
reality, and yet, given the context of being in a story about one's
memory, festive and possible.
The water imagery, too, on the floor of the prison chapel, then
next to the town, worked in a similar way.
I never thought that all the prisoners were gay. We're only told
that they, the guards involved, and the priest/chaplain believed
Simon's story.
26403. glendajean - July 30,
1999 - 8:44 AM PT
109109 does bring up an interesting point. Did Simon set all
the fires? We know that Bilodeau (the kid who later became bishop)
set the last one. Simon is often lighting matches.
26404. benear - July 30, 1999 -
9:03 AM PT
I agree, Glenda, there is absolutely no evidence in the film that
the other prisoner's are gay, or straight, for that matter.
26405. 109109 - July 30, 1999 -
9:10 AM PT
The group spoke as being outcasts and the ones "pissed on"
in the prison. In a 1950s prison, that group might very well be
homosexuals. Additionally, the black prisoner and another
prisoner made a clear indication that sexual favors had been
afforded the guards who allowed the confinement of the priest and
the elaborate stage show. I thought the theme rather clear.
Either way, I'm not sure it really matters, except in a small
thematic way (a story of the suppression of homosexuality and
love as told by those presently suppressed in two ways - by iron
bars and as a minority within the prison).
I suppose next you'll tell me Tony Montana wasn't gay.
26407. 109109 - July 30, 1999 -
9:31 AM PT
Canadian Press Newswire November 27, 1996
"That went to Lilies, a Quebec film by John Greyson that is
also notorious for its subject matter: a Catholic bishop is held
hostage by homosexual prisoners in a penitentiary chapel.
Lilies won four awards, as did a Canadian production of Eugene O'Neill's
Long Day's Journey Into Night. That David Wellington film took
honors for best actor (William Hutt), best actress (Martha Henry),
best supporting actor (Peter Donaldson) and best supporting
actress (Martha Burns)."
I am not alone.
26409. glendajean - July 30,
1999 - 9:42 AM PT
You may be alone. We may all be alone.
It is a minor point. Certainly the prisoner who played the
Parisian woman was gay. We know Simon was gay. Nothing much else
to tell us one way or the other.
I also agree with 109109 about the handling of the love story
part of the play. Some of the lines were hokey, but it didn't
seem all that distracting. Visually, the tenderness and lack of
self-consciousness, particularly on Vallier's part, worked for me.
It was very sweetly told. By the time the two boys are embracing
in the bath, with mother looking on, we believe in their love
even as we sense the impending tragedy, very similar to Romeo and
Juliet.
26410. glendajean - July 30,
1999 - 9:46 AM PT
I think I said this the other day, but I'd like to emphasize it
again. At some point, caught up in the play, older Simon and the
bishop dropped their antagonisms, and even their roles as
prisoner and cleric. At some point, they went back into their
youth, and both enjoyed re-living those moments.
I have to say, I'm not convinced that the bishop would have
killed himself after being so effectively charged by the play.
The fact that he had done a little time travel in such a stylish
way, the re-living of youth and early love, would probably have
haunted him for the end of his days and really punished him.
And besides, Simon would have been charged with murder, given it
was his knife and he was alone with the Bishop. But of course, a
trivial point.
