Manila by Night: A Queer Film Classic


Book Description

Manila by Night follows denizens of the city’s sordid yet exuberant underworld as they pursue their notions of life, love, and pleasure. In turn, this book follows the film’s equally arduous yet exhilarating journey through repression and censorship to a reluctanct release by the Marcos government as proof of its liberalism during the 1986 uprising.




Queer Southeast Asia


Book Description

Tang and Wijaya present a range of new and established scholarly voices, including local activists directly involved in developments in Southeast Asia. This groundbreaking collection presents the current state of play and longstanding LGBTQ+ debates in this often-overlooked region of Asia. The diversity of both the subject and the region is reflected in the broad scope of topics addressed, from the impact of Japanese queer popular culture on queer Filipinos, to the politics of public toilets in Singapore, and the impact of digital governance on queer communities across ASEAN. Taken in combination, these investigations not only highlight the operations of queer politics in Southeast Asia, but also present a concrete basis to reflect on queer knowledge production in the region. A vital resource for students and scholars of gender and sexuality in Southeast Asia, or any Queer or LGBTQ+ studies looking beyond the West.




C.R.A.Z.Y.: A Queer Film Classic


Book Description

A Queer Film Classic on the 2005 film debut by French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée (best known for Dallas Buyers Club and Wild), about a young gay man who struggles to find his sense of self amidst a "crazy" family of four brothers and a homophobic father who seeks to cure him. The film won a best picture Genie Award (Canada's version of the Oscars) in 2006. Robert Schwartzwald in a professor at the Université de Montréal.




L.A. Plays Itself/Boys in the Sand


Book Description

A Queer Film Classic on two groundbreaking gay arthouse porn films from 1972, both examples of the growing liberalization of social attitudes toward sex and homosexuality in post-Stonewall America. Where Fred Halsted's Boys in the Sand is a frothy romp at a gay beach resort community, Wakefield Poole's L.A. Plays Itself is a dark treatise on violence and urban squalor. Both films represent particular, polarizing moments in the early history of the gay movement. Cindy Patton is a longtime activist and scholar. She is currently professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.




Trash


Book Description

Trash, one of three inaugural titles in Arsenal's film book series Queer Film Classics, delves into the legendary 1970 film that was arguably the greatest collaboration between director Paul Morrissey and producer Andy Warhol. The film Trash is a down-and-out domestic melodrama about a decidedly eccentric couple; Joe, an impotent junkie (played by Warhol film regular Joe Dallesandro), and Holly (played by trans Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn), Joe's feisty and sexually frustrated girlfriend. Joe is the hunky yet passive center around whom proud Holly orbits; while Morrissey intended to show that ''there's no difference between a person using drugs and a piece of refuse,'' Woodlawn's incredible turn reverses his logic; she makes trash as precious as human beings. Author Jon Davies argues that Trash, so comical yet so heartrending, is an allegory for the experiences of Dallesandro, Woodlawn, their co-stars, and countless other human ''leftovers,'' whose self-fashioning for Warhol and Morrissey's gaze transformed them---if only fleetingly---from nobodies into some bodies.




The View from Here


Book Description

John Waters, Gus Van Sant, and beyond: gay and lesbian filmmakers, in their own words.




Farewell My Concubine


Book Description

Farewell My Concubine, one of three new QUEER FILM CLASSICS this fall, is a thought-provoking consideration of Chen Kaige's acclaimed 1992 Chinese film set in the mid-20th century about two male Peking opera stars and the woman who comes between them, set against the political turmoil of a China in transition. The film's treatment of gender performance and homosexuality was a first in Chinese cinema, and the subject of much controversy there. The movie, which helped to bring contemporary Chinese films onto the world stage, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the first Chinese film to do so), and was nominated for a Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar. This book, one of two new QFCs to focus on Asian queer cinema, places the film in its historical and cultural context while drawing on fresh insights from recent works on transgender and queer studies to provide readers with an intimate, provocative, and original look at the film.




Gods & Monsters


Book Description

Gods and Monsters, one of three inaugural titles in Arsenal's film book series Queer Film Classics, deals with the acclaimed 1998 film about openly gay film director James Whale, best known for the Frankenstein films of the 1930s. Written and directed by Bill Condon (Dream girls), the film focuses on the final days of Whale's life in the 1950s. Moving from the slums of Britain in the early twentieth century to the new era of ''talkies'' in Hollywood and beyond, Gods and Monsters trains a gay eye on the historical events that helped shape Whale (played by Ian McKellen) and his films. In 1957, long after his career had peaked, he recounts his experiences to his young, straight gardener (played by Brendan Fraser), with whom he forms an uncommon bond. The resulting film was widely acclaimed, winning an Oscar for Condon's screenplay and nominations for both McKellen and co-star Lynn Redgrave. Noah Tsika's book examines Gods and Monsters from a variety of perspectives, highlighting the complexity and significance of its achievements, including its fusion of fantasy and biography.




Montreal Main


Book Description

A Queer Film Classic: a great Canadian indie film from 1974 that has become a cult classic, about a photographer living among various outcasts in the Montreal neighborhood known as the Main, who becomes obsessed with the teenaged son of friends.




Farewell My Concubine


Book Description

A Queer Film Classic: Chen Kaige’s 1992 film about two male Peking opera stars and the woman who comes between them; its treatment of gender performance and homosexuality was unprecedented in Chinese film. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.