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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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We had a new production on TV here last night. And I watched it, though I never actually ever liked the tale. My excuse is that we have a houseguest who wanted to watch it.
The casting was interesting. Stephen Fry was little known worldwide until he was cast as Oscar Wilde in the relatively recent film. He was Dr Arnold. It amused me that a gay actor was cast as a headmaster in the school. Alex Pettyfer was cast as Tom.
Now this interested me more because Alex is handsome in an unpretty kind of way, and is very blond in a head turning kind of way (and is also tipped to be in Pirates of thre Caribbean 3). I was interesed becuase it struck me how many boy heros are cast from very good looking boys. I could list many, from Freddie Bartholomew in Dickens (aeons ago) through Mark Lester as Oliver, and the list would be endless.
It struck me that period (and other drama) seems to be populated by not just homoerotic elements, but that, when there is a chance to use a gorgeous young boy in the cast it becomes very much an adult/youth droolfest.
The excuse is always Mums and Grannies. But something tells me there is far more behind this than the M&G factor.
Yesterday we even had a shot of Alex's naked rump, with makeup showing cane marks. Though I somehow suspect, since he winced very realistically during a graphic caning scene, that they may not have been makeup [personal memories of being caned here]. It was a subliminal flash, and was a delightful rump. But it was not necessary to the plot to see it.
So I am back to the alomst paedophilic casting of gorgeous youth in perido and other dramas, and wondering why this goes on. Of course it is to sell tickets or the show to other channels and stations, ut it still seems to me to be inherrently homoerotic and paedophilic.
Of course it would not be less paedophilic if the child were ugly, but the erotic would not be so present. The only place where it was necessary to have a beautiful boy was in Death in Venice, a very boring film about obsession withy a very beautiful boy.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Well, there is a theatrical tradition that the hero is handsome. And as an audience we seek to empathise with the hero and imagine that we share his positive attributes, which include both standing up for what is right and being incredibly good looking! I don't see anything necessarily homoerotic in that. Heterosexual guys like a good looking hero too!
I only saw part of the production, but thought that Alex Pettyfer gave a stunning performance. His is a name to follow in the future.
By all accounts the cast rather enjoyed enacting the caning scene. Writing in this week's TV Times. Stephen Fry recalls:
'I had to beat Alex Pettyfer, who plays Tom, on the buttocks, but he had padding on so I could let myself go. He joked that he enjoyed it enormously. He kept saying, "Beat me harder!" It was all very amusing.'
Here's a pic:
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Timmy,
I'm sorry that you found Death in Venice boring, but the danger there is that most people think of it as just one of Visconti's major films rather than a screen adaptation of one of Thomas Mann's major works, Der Tod in Venedig. I was lucky enough to see it in Berlin in 1971 when it first came out.
I am willing to concede that that the film shows an emphasis of an old man's obsession for a beautiful boy. The Novelle is an early work of Mann's and must be seen in the context of his life. He was bisexual and his adoring wife from a Jewish academic family in Munich was fully aware of this. They had six children, three of each, and Thomas was extremely erotically attracted to one of his sons during adolescence.
Certain themes run through Mann's works. The artist is different from mainstream, ie then middle class, society. He is an outcast. In order to succeed as an artist he must suffer, usually inwardly rather than physically, in order to produce great work, whatever the genre. The other constant theme is Verfall or decay.
Venice was and is a decaying city. The obsession with the boy was not acceptable to society. Therefore von Aschenbach had to die, ironically from the cholera he contracted on eating that most erotic of fruits - strawberries. Irony is another great theme of Mann's. (Von Aschenbach was originally a writer, not a composer modelled on Mahler.} In his life Mann did meet the real life Tadzio (Wladyslaw Moes, a rather chubby dark haired Polish boy) as well as Mahler on the edge of a breakdown, both in Venice.
I don't know if the point comes across, but von Aschenbach and Tadzio never speak to one another.
I could go on for much longer, but my point is that the obsession for a boy in the original was the symptom rather than the major theme.
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Nick
Thanks for the pic of Alex Pettyfer. Not on Google - yet.
I had to decide between Tom Brown and The Vicar of Dibley. I made the wrong choice, comfortable in the knowledge I had ordered the DVD of Tom Brown from
http://www.play.com
at a snip at £12.99p p&p included. Not issued until the 10 January.
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Even so, with Mann the work must stand alone, as must Visconti's film. For the artist to be a great artist one should never need to know hsi background. Otherwise he is using excuses.
But DinV is a side issue. It is the sole example I can think of where the boy lead simply must be beautiful
David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, Harry Potter (by no means a handsome hero in the books, you notice), Tom Brown, Tom Sawyer all tend towards exceptional beauty in the leading boy.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I must disagree that an artist's work must stand alone in order for him to be judged a great artist. An artist and his work must be worked on in order to derive anything that approaches full understanding. A superficial reading or viewing may or may not give you pleasure on that superficial level. If it does not, are you going to deny yourself greater intellectual pleasure and understanding by not going into the background? If the answer is yes, for whatever reason, you are the diminished person, not the artist or his work.
I had a reproduction of a biblical scene by van Gogh. I think it was the betrayal of Christ, but don't quote me. It came as a picture on a clock and at first it was just a picture until an artist friend of mine explained the subtleties of the lighting effects of a candle shielded by a hand.
Let's face it a pretty boy or a pretty girl is a box office attraction and you don't have to be a paedophile to be attracted.
This goes off at a tangent. In the BBC production of David Copperfield the boy David as played by Daniel Radcliffe, right-handed. The adult David was left-handed.
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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Eothain
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Likes it here |
Location: Rohan!
Registered: April 2004
Messages: 108
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I wish I'd seen this now. I saw it advertised on TV but my parents weere too busy watching Cheers or something. Aw well, I suppose they may repeat it sometime...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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I think some very subtle issues are being overlooked here...
1. pretty boys in film are the result of casting directors choices, not necessarily revolving around the intent of the origional atrist whos work is being screenplayed.
2. viewers of said pretty boys which are cast into these films have their own agenda for opinion of the casted actor. They see what they want to see, thusly reading into the intent of the author what they as viewers choose to believe.
3. more often than not, imagination of the reader does not translate very well to expectations of what is portrayed into film or theater for that matter. Everyone has to (more or less to some degree) agree that the imagination is by far more erotic than the written word. This is made even more tangible when you factor into the equasion personal preferances.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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hmmm several issues here i think
firstly, acting these days is less about actual acting talent, and more about looking good on camera. generally speaking, and as far as possible, hollywood directors will cast people who look half way good or better in every possible role except those that actually require an ugly actor... and if you think of the list of hollywood leading actors and actresses, how many of them can truely be said to be ugly? at the least they are ruggedly handsome in a certain light. this does of course filter down into lesser, more localised productions, and eventually onto stage, where acting ability does still count for something.
in most roles, people will emphasise more with a cute/good looking actor/ess simply because they do tend to evoke a greater emotional responce from the audience. its to do with subliminal stereotypes. if you see this rough looking evil faced boy getting beaten you'll thikn he must deserve it one way or another, a cute pretty boy is more likely to get sympathy. and obviously, you do want you audiance to sympathise with the hero, those few features where the hero is a villain, society/authority is portrayed as being evil, so that the villain becomes good (robin hood) or the villain may be a criminal, but often/sometimes has the moral high ground, or works toward some kind of greater good type idea (jack sparrow to some extent... certainly captain peter blood in a much older pirate film)
in war films, the english/american officer in charge is young bold and dashing, but the german officers tend to be older, bearded, more sinister styled. evil is often associated with uglyness (sauron/orcs) and good with beauty (elves, eowyn, but interestingly aragorn is described as less than handsome)
paedophilic tendancies? well yes... i guess there are, but i doubt that thought has even crossed the directors mind. beauty evokes an emotional attachment regardless of age, and with children, often regardless of sex. of all the films i've seen, all the gore, the beheadings, the fight scenes, the gunshot and other war wounds, all through kill bill and saving private ryan and every thing the worst image i ever saw in a film, the one that always makes me turn away, cringe and shudder is actually in a 12.
the film is master and commander, the actor is Max Pirkis, age 13, with curly white blonde hair (all his own) and a very english accent (eton boy) the scene? the bit where he has his arm amputated, and oyu don't even see it... partly because he's a good actor, and he his expressions are very real in that scene, but partly because it was very easy to form an emotional bond with a young blonde blue eyed boy, because for so many people, that image is attactive, not in a sexual way, but just generally attractive. and that kind of emotional bond with a character is what draws you into a film (or book) is what makes it real. because you feel what they feel, their experiances become yours and you find oyurself in the tale, living the tale, and that should be what every filmmaker and author aspires too, and while many of them make good films and write good books, so few of them manage to get that link perfect.
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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What has been striking me about the actor is that he is absolutely perfect (in the Tom Brown part) to be either of Chris or of Nigel. Of course there is not a chance of that! He woudl be too old before filming coudl even start. What typecasting to avoid for life, though!!!!!!
Now, if you were going to cast him as either of those boys, which part would Alex Pettyfer play? And why do you make that choice? I'll give you my ideas later 
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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