Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
One can’t help feeling artists and producers were drawn to this script because of the lurid subject matter. It’s concerned with repressed homosexuality — not homosexuality — and the distinction is an important one. The only thing that kept my interest was the fantasy of Marlon Brando — who at 43 was still quite beautiful — getting it on with Robert Forester, but the movie stretches Brando’s yearning for the young man’s ass (on display in several scenes of naked horseback riding) to the very final moment when Brando — instead of kissing Forster — shoots him. I really felt like I was ‘lunch,' that whatever gay suffering I have gone through, or that heterosexuals wish to imagine I’ve gone through, was just a juicy opportunity for John Huston, Brando, and Elizabeth Taylor to display much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands. Brando obviously ravishes crying, and spreading -- what is it — moisturiser? — all over his face while staring in a mirror, and of course being literally horsewhipped by Taylor. He has one lovely speech in which he extols life among young enlisted men: “And the friendships, my lord. There are friendships formed that are stronger than... stronger than the fear of death. And - they're never lonely. They're never lonely. And sometimes I envy them…” But ultimately Reflections in a Golden Eye just made me want to wash. Audiences laughed inappropriately when it was released: all that ‘sexy angst’. There is (I think) one gay actor — David Zorro. On IMDB it says he was Filipino, and a ‘beautician and a painter,’ and that this was his only film. He is very effeminate and appears as Julie Harris’ servant; he adores her. Brian Keith has a little speech about how the army could have made a man of ‘Anacleto’ (his name has both an anus and a clitoris in it). Of course great actors like Marlon Brando get to play homosexuals and get nominated for Oscars, but not me, or David Zorro. Once, after a drag performance, two young men ran up to me eagerly: “Are you gay?” They both deflated like balloons when I said I was. “Oh, no offense, but, if you weren’t gay then that would be like an amazing performance, but since you are gay you’re just kind of playing yourself, so…” Their analysis was, I thought, fascinating. Adhering to this peculiar rubric, no gay actor could ever be ‘a good actor’ in a gay role; because gay roles are created to offer a golden opportunity for straight actors to display their prodigious talent. This however does not take into consideration that being gay is always acting. Because what do actors do? They monitor their voice, calculate their mannerisms, and carefully chose what to wear. Noel Coward used to warn Cecil Beaton against matching his tie and his handkerchief — it was a telltale sign that might give one away. In the recording of the original Private Lives, Coward’s voice is arch and studied in a way that Gertrude Lawrence’s never was. He spoke in that ridiculously formal way because he wished never to betray his sodomitical working-class origins. Shouldn’t we fags get at least a little credit for all the acting we do -- daily? Our necessary performances suit us to the stage —and draw us to it — and make theatre home for us, even before we know what sex is. I always knew my father thought I was a scary freak and that he expected me to act in some way I clearly had no inkling of. I never came to understand what being his dream son would entail — but I knew it was not me. This was incredibly difficult for both of us. Of course not all homosexuals are effeminate, but they all do — at one point or other — stick a finger up their own asshole and enjoy it immensely. (And even if you wash your hands scrupulously after, the guilty pleasure lingers.) After all, it’s more than just a dirty finger, it’s the knowledge that, deep inside, you wish to be the receiver of pleasure, the passive (God forbid)! victim of lust’s tenacious grasp. And if you are a ‘top’ and a ‘masculine,’ (what I like to call a ‘plumber fag’) well you quickly come to understand that your devotion to other boys is not natural and that (as Judith Butler says) most tops are usually bottoms in disguise, their devotion to their passive partners is so great that they will do anything for them; and this is a sort of relinquishing of power. But all pleasure, is in fact, suspicious. One quickly learns that only the perverted relish pleasure — especially bodily pleasure. If you are heterosexual you are relieved to know sex is not about pleasure — it’s about procreation — but for fags and dykes there is simply no excuse. My first and most erotic childhood sexual experience was with a girl. Her name was Laura, and she was southern and she lived next door to us. She had stick ponies that she used to love to ride on (I later learned that those stick ponies can be, for some little girls a masturbatory, even pre-lesbianic, experience). At any rate she used to invite me over and we would play master and slave. It was all her idea and I hadn’t the slightest notion what was going on. Looking back on it now, the whole fantasy might have been somewhat racist in origin, as Laura was, after all, from Georgia. But I certainly recognized it immediately as tremendously naughty and dangerous fun. There were no actual implements and no actual hurt (except in our minds). We were all fully clothed, and Laura would wander from slave to slave (I vaguely remember there being other slaves), and she would whip us with an imaginary whip. I remember writhing in exquisite pain. That little scene in Laura’s basement reminds me very much of Reflections in a Golden Eye — as nothing much happens in the film — people just keep looking at other people, and having fantasies, and then punishing themselves for them. It’s an exercise in masochism. But perhaps one of the first things we learn as young gay men, is what pleasure we can find not only from physical, but emotional pain. Thus it’s hard to be irritated with Marlon Brando — straight guy that he was — for wanting so much to suffer for his art. But we know all along that if Major Weldon Penderton (Brando) had only offered his own plump and splendiforous buttocks to that young soldier (Robert Forester), there might have been the kind of release we all imagine— and live for, from day to day — often so much more transcendent in our own minds, than in dull reality.
