Did Cruising director William Friedkin cruise the gay community without taking responsibility for the consequences? Was he cruising for a bruising, or careless about his film’s impact on gay men’s safety? (Is it a double standard when sexualized slasher-movie killings of gay men draw protests, but the same acts done to women on screen are treated as par for the course?) Friedkin the man may have been ignored while filming a scene from the movie at a bar’s jockstrap night, but Friedkin the director’s 1980 look through — or is it at? — a sexual underground hasn’t gotten the blind-eye from gay men, then or now. In this week’s Guardian and on this blog, you’ll find critical writing and specific history on the subject, some of it scathing.
William Friedkin circa 1970s
Cruising is not a perfect movie, or Friedkin’s best movie. It has ridiculous moments. The faux-Freudian explanation at the end parrots Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as routinely as any Brian DePalma imitation of Hitch. But I’ve been fascinated by it since an era when it was reviled and hard to find on VHS tape. And I like it. I like Cruising‘s ambivalence and its ambiguity, which could be viewed as prophetic in a societal sense and influential in a stylistic sense. (In comparison, a lot of New Queer Cinema still seems rather, um, safe.) I like the movie’s gorgeous but scary shots of Central Park at night. I like its soundtrack. I think it’s interesting that the “killer”‘s disembodied voice — a quality that takes on new meaning the more you consider the story — might very well be the influence behind the killer’s voice in gay screenwriter Kevin Williamson’s Scream series. Today, Cruising seems most interesting to me as a movie that critiques (hyper)masculinity, straight and gay, as the boundaries between them blur.
I had a 20-minute block of time to talk with Friedkin when he came through town recently in conjunction with Cruising‘s upcoming run at the Castro Theatre and DVD release. Here’s what he had to say about Cruising — and about Mercedes McCambridge being tied to a chair, knocking back hard liquor and swallowing raw eggs for The Exorcist. (Johnny Ray Huston)
Guardian: The Roxie Cinema here in San Francisco has had a role in the changing reputation of Cruising, so I want to ask you about your relationship with them.
William Friedkin: I don’t know if Elliot [Lavine] and Bill [Banning] are still running [the Roxie], but they always ran films that I made, and I came up [from L.A.] whenever I could to answer questions from the audience. I loved what they were doing.
Now it seems the DVD is the true cinematheque.