The Music Lovers (1971) Queer Film (F)
The honeymoon sequence, set to the “1812 overture,” a delirious mix of sexual frustration and nationalistic bombast, may be for Russell freaks only!
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Author: Patrick Browne
Death In Venice (1971) Queer Film A-
Visconti’s best idea was changing Aschenbach’s profession from a writer to a composer opening up the movie to the Mahler Adagietto .
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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971) Queer Film A-
“The Garden of the Finzi Continis” is based on the semi-autobiographical novel by gay Italian writer Giorgio Bassani who is played in the film by Helmut Berger.
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Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Queer Film (A)
In “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, Murray Head plays a free-spirited bisexual who is having simultaneous relationships with Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch. Finch’s closing monologue, delivered directly to the camera—“I am happy, apart from missing him”—is one of the great grace notes in queer film history: tender, dignified, and devastating in its simplicity. It is also one of the finest pieces of acting ever captured on film.
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The Boyfriend (1971) Queer Film C+
Although not explicitly gay, the film is filled with camp theatrical energy, exaggerated male dancers, coded glances and mannerisms, a backstage world where gender roles blur, and gay actor Max Adrian as Lord Brockhurst, the wealthy, eccentric aristocrat who attends the film’s show-within-a-show, bringing his trademark queer-coded presence. The Boyfriend is unmistakably queer in tone, style, and sensibility, putting it very much in line with Russell’s other 1970s work.
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