Pink Narcissus review â garish colour and dreamlike images in a homoerotic vision of 60s New York
James Bidgoodâs experimental DIY movie, first released in 1971, starred Bobby Kendall and was shot mostly in Bidgoodâs own apartment James Bidgoodâs experimental homoerotic reverie
James Bidgoodâs experimental DIY movie, first released in 1971, starred Bobby Kendall and was shot mostly in Bidgoodâs own apartment James Bidgoodâs experimental homoerotic reverie is now reissued in restored form. The film was shot mostly in Bidgoodâs own New York apartment throughout the 1960s; it was finally released in 1971 with Bidgoodâs name removed from the credits after an opaque dispute with his backers and his authorship only revealed 20 years later.
Pink Narcissus is a movie of garish colour, mute melodrama and dreamlike imagery which mimics early cinema, perhaps simply because the resources for recording lip-sync dialogue were not available. (The director says that Powell and Pressburgerâs Red Shoes was an inspiration although the title alludes more to their nun melodrama Black Narcissus.) It interestingly merges its rather pastoral fantasies with the urban circumstances where these would be consumed â the cityâs movie theatres, outside which poverty and alienation were commonplace.
Some of the most interesting and successful parts of the piece are the radio soundscapes and the modelled neon skylines. Continue reading...
