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May 29-June 4, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 31
Embracing the flower of the world by David Lamble
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come not to bury Jodorowsky, but to praise him. A couple of months back, dear readers, I devoted a column to a kind of eulogy-beforehe’s-dead tribute to the 84-yearold Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. The occasion was a bio-documentary on his life that related how, among other things, he had lost out on a chance to film the sci-fi classic Dune. Well, imagine my joy at being able to report that not only is the old man not dead, but he’s back in theatres with The Dance of Reality, a freshly minted gem that may finally restore him to the Great Filmmakers pantheon. In the opening frames of his astonishing and truly trippy new work, gold coins fall from the sky, and the gray-haired filmmaker stares into the camera proclaiming, “Money is like blood. It gives life if it flows. Money is like Christ, it blesses you if you share it. Money is like Buddha, if you don’t work,
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David Levinthal
From page 21
Many of the pictures were shot with consumer-grade and largeformat Polaroid cameras, the latter an unwieldy contraption he would roll in to photograph a layout. His recent digital explorations of scenes
you don’t get it. Money enlightens those who use it to open the flower of the world, and damns those who glorify it, confounding riches with the soul.” Right out of the box it’s clear that Jodorowsky is channeling the Italian master Federico Fellini as his child alter ego (Jeremias Herskovitz) innocently tosses a stone into the sea and instigates a massive fish kill. Moments later the boy, a Shirley Temple-miming kid with a huge mane of shoulder-length blond hair, offers to scratch the back of a beggar who has lost his hands. The back scratch turns into a full embrace. This symbolically queer act sends his Fascist-leaning dad into a rage, during which he runs off the beggar and screams at the boy and his mom. During their encounter, Dad is challenged about his spiritual hard-on for Joseph Stalin. The dictator’s portrait hangs in the front room, and Dad himself affects a Stalin look. The beggar shouts out a challenge to Dad’s ideology.
“Why dress up like Stalin? You say glorious gold locks, throws him on The Dance of Reality is a glorious you’re a communist, but you only a bed, takes off his shoes, and provisual treat, a one-seating accessible respect the rich. If I had money, claims, “I’m going tickle your feet. If masterpiece, and a very good excuse you’d kiss my stumps!” you can refrain from laughing. you to rush to your Landmark movie “Fuck off! If you come back, I’ll deserve to be my son!” screen for the equivalent of a cincut off your legs.” At two hours and 10 minutes, ema picnic.t At this moment, Mom (who sings all her dialogue) trills, “Jaime, come on, leave him alone.” Dad grabs the boy from Mom’s arms, screaming, “Why hug that cripple? You like men, do you? With that girlish mane, what else could we expect? With that hair, he looks like a faggot!” To which Mom sings, “Show him some respect. Alejandro is holy.” “Holy, my bollocks!” At this point, The Dance of Reality really takes flight for a surreal journey seldom seen these days. Among the gloriously queer moments is a scene where Dad takes Sonny, now shorn of his Scene from director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality.
and WWII Marines planting a flag on Iwo Jima. He deliberately blurs most of the photographs, which has the dual effect of making them appear both more life-like and unreal. Since his grad-school escapades, Levinthal moved on to create increasingly lurid, voyeuristic, politically incorrect imagery: male sexual
fantasies of submission and domination acted out with female dolls; baseball greats like Willie Mays and Babe Ruth in action; so-called “blackface” memorabilia; the myth-
with their perfect hair, stylish fashions and a dropdead, loser gaze, photographed by Levinthal in saturated color and transformed into ladies-who-lunch ice queens. (Of course, there’s Barbie’s shady past to consider; before she was acquired by Mattel and became a role model for hordes of little girls, she was Bild Lilli, a German sex toy.) Utilizing dolls of a very different vintage, “Desire” (1990-91) and “XXX” (2000-01) venture into pornographic peepshow territory. In the former, a headless female body David Levinthal, courtesy San Jose Museum of Art shot from behind “Untitled (No. 1),” from the series Hitler Moves stands with its legs East (1975) by David Levinthal. Vintage Kodalith. hip-width apart while another figure is posed kneelical Wild West of cowboys, bucking ing and cupping her breasts. broncos and gunslingers heading In the strongest section, Mein for High Noon stand-offs that only Kampf, whose chilling Holocaust existed in the movies; and Barbies, imagery is horrifying yet imposthose mean, wasp-waisted dolls
of “limerence” all converge in this exceptional snapshot of life in the waning years of gay adulthood. It’s been several years since Holleran’s last fictional outing; here’s hoping for more of this brilliance from him in the longer form. With, superbly edited by Jameson Currier, assembles 16 authentic stories of varying lengths and themes. David Bergman’s sexually charged tale “A Sentimental Education” finds two men – one horny, the other a hustler – who meet in a park and take the action home. Lambda Literary Award finalist Michael Graves offers a multi-narrated, multifaceted story replete with recipes, definitions, and factoids dedicated to his deceased grandmother, who wanders “through the shadows of our kitchen while I scratch up my notebooks.” Other stand-outs include San Francisco resident Dan Lopez’s
“Andrew Barbee,” a shark-fishing adventure story that’s part of his forthcoming collection on gay men and the sea; Tom Schabarum’s affecting baby-stealing yarn “Follow Me Through”; and Shaun Levin’s poetic four-page observance on the addictive, obsessive, physical beauty of men in “The Beautiful Boy.” Local San Francisco writer Lewis DeSimone creatively and effortlessly transports readers back to that memorable prePride night when the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down, and places two reflective characters in the thick of the celebrations at Castro and Market Streets in “Pride.” These two compilations usher in a season of good reading for gay book-lovers by a colorful collage of writers at the peak of their abilities.t
David Levinthal, courtesy San Jose Museum of Art
“Untitled,” from the series Airport (1996) by David Levinthal. Cibachrome print.
from American history, which don’t have the same depth or intrigue of his earlier forays, include a helicopter from Apocalypse Now and renditions of Custer’s Last Stand
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New gay fiction
From page 22
Ursula, though? Drag queens. Don’t tell me they aren’t,”) and maybe even a kiss. The next tale is set at another happy gay coupling, this time in Provincetown, where New York author David Puterbaugh instructs us on “How To Be Single at a Wedding.” Elsewhere, Steven Reigns’ short but sweet bedroom tale “On These Sheets” romantically satisfies as much as Taylor McGrath’s “A Royal Mess,” about a rebooted relationship set in a pet store. Among the lengthier pieces in the collection is “Foundations” by New England writer Timothy Forry, which follows a couple who become separated during a violent storm, and traces the power of their reunion surrounded by rubble and destruction. Stealing the show, perhaps, is Andrew Holleran’s “Symposium,” which follows the activities of a graying gay man who is gifted a luxurious suite at a secluded Fort Lauderdale guesthouse to give a speech on the state of gay publishing. Observations on books, writers, love, sex, aging, shaving the back of a loved one, and the nature
sible not to look at, a group of naked men is clustered at the edge of a large burial pit where, one surmises, they’ll soon join fellow victims; the background is blood-red, and shadowy SS officers can be seen in the distance. Elsewhere, a looming guard tower blocks the gateway to freedom and the view of a wintry sky. That plastic toys are enlisted to depict a monstrous chapter in history doesn’t trivialize it as one might expect; instead, it adds a repellent inhumanity. We also see Hitler, his arm extended in salute, standing on a balcony, reviewing the troops filing past him below. Levinthal’s preoccupation with Nazis and the seductive pageantry of the Third Reich supposedly began when he found a Hitler toy in an Austrian shop, followed by the discovery of a New Jersey vendor stocking SS officers and a bevy of munchkin-sized Fuehrers. Like some obsessive out of an old X-Files episode, Levinthal, consumed by scenarios fueled by imagination and memory, engineers fictional worlds that become more real than reality. t Through Nov. 30. Info: www.sjmusart.org.