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By Trenton Straube
Friday, September 07, 2007
His feature film debut was directing Cher in “Good Times,” and he helmed “The Boys in the Band” and, a decade later, “Cruising.” Gay, gay, gay. Yet William Friedkin’s relationship with the LGBT community has often been contentious. Most famously, activists protested “Cruising” for what they perceived as a negative portrayal of gay men. The 1980 thriller stars Al Pacino as an undercover cop in New York’s gay leather S/M scene (See The Blade’s accompanying review.) We spoke with Friedkin about his films, Sen. Larry Craig and Fire Island.
How does “Cruising” compare to your other films, such as “The Exorcist” or “The French Connection,” in terms of the conversation it generates?
I get more e-mails, letters and invitations to speak about “Cruising” than anything else I’ve made. By far. The thing that brings it about is it seems like it’s a banned film. Many younger people have heard about “Cruising” but have never seen it before except in a horrible videotape version.
I’m curious to see how activists reacts this time. [Editor’s note: The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation does not plan to issue a statement denouncing “Cruising.”]
I said to Warner Bros that I didn’t want to pitch it to gay organizations or groups. I don’t want to ghettoize the film. It’s not meant to be an anthropological study. It’s about these unsolved murders against the background of the leather bars. That’s how I always viewed it.
Has the dialogue about “Cruising” changed?
Not really. What I’ve found over the years is that many people felt confused because there is no single killer in the film and the murders are largely unsolved—and that’s what happened on the original cases I based this on.
“Cruising” to me was about the exploitation of gay people by the New York Police Department. If you see the film now, you get that, and that’s where a large part of the questions deal with.
The interrogation scene, with the cop in the jock strap. Did that stuff happen?
Many times. In the middle of [an interrogation], an very large intimidating Afrincan-American gentlemen wearing a jock strap and a cowboy hat would come in and without a word slap the guy across his face. They did all sorts of things like that to make it impossible for the suspect to think he was in the real world.
The DVD extras offer fascinating facts. I hadn’t realized people protested the protesters.
All the people in the bar scenes were patrons of the Ramrod, the Mine Shaft, the Anvil—all around Little West 12th Street. They were paid as scene extras. They never felt they had anything to hide or that they were being critiqued as a group.
They stood with us and threw rocks and cans back at the protestors. You had thousands of people throwing stuff at literally hundreds of guys that all participated in the film. The entire gay world did not object to “Cruising.”
Now that gay life is more mainstream, can people watch “Cruising” without projecting such a political stance on it.
Yes, I think they can, but nevertheless the film is very disturbing. It was disturbing then and it still is.
But it’s a thriller. That’s the point, right? And the underground scene you portray is erotic and decadent to begin with.
I don’t find it decadent.
How so?
Anything that doesn’t hurt someone or kill someone is not decadent. Especially in regards to sexual practice. My impetus was more about the violence against gay people at that time, the prejudices of sick people who questioned their own sexuality and found a lot of question marks and took it out on gay people. I believe that some of the murders at that time were done with that motivation.
Did the activists’ outcries affect the movie?
I don’t know that. There were a lot of protests against Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” and it did extremely well, whereas [Martin Scorsese’s] “The Last Temptation of Christ” was protested and it didn’t do well.
Could you even make “Cruising” today?
The people that you would pitch it to are interested in sequels and remakes that cost anywhere from $100 million to $300 million. In those days you had people who were curious and really literate and in tune with what was going on in society. And films didn’t cost as much. So [studios] could take a chance.
Al Pacino approached you for the role. Did the actors fear being perceived as gay?
That was thought of, but I never had such discussions. Many actors and actresses to this day feel that way. Rock Hudson guarded [his sexuality] to his dying day, which is tragic to me—and the whole response to Sen. Larry Craig is tragic. I don’t know what he did that is wrong except that perhaps he’d been a hypocrite.
Talk about police exploiting gays, you could argue Craig’s case was entrapment.
I believe it was.
“The Boys in the Band” (1970) was also controversial. But now, it’s a queer classic. Why has it aged so well?
It’s a universal love story. I did the film because of Mart Crowley’s screenplay, which was fun and moving and very touching. They’re now planning to bring out a DVD of that. But it’s a completely different film than “Cruising.”
You could argue that it’s a negative portrayal; the boys are bitchy and pathetic.
The closet was still very much with us—still is to a lesser extent—“The Boys in the Band” is almost a documentary of what gay life was like among gay men in the ’60s.
You’re straight, but before filming, you went to Fire Island for research, right?
Mart Crowley had a house in Fire Island. I went and stayed at his house several weeks. Fire Island then was then an all male community. And I hadn’t seen that scene before. I found it a very invigorating lifestyle, full of energy and fun. A constant stream of people enjoying themselves.
“Cruising,” Sept. 7 at E-Walk Stadium 13, 247 W 42nd St. DVD release, Sept. 18.
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