GLR September-October 2024

INTERVIEW

Phil Tarley talks with a (very) independent filmmaker

‘I always had crazy boyfriends.’

B RUCE LABRUCE’S CINEMA occupies a limi nal space between haute couture pornography and experimental narrative film. The prolific artist-provocateur is releasing his new book, The Revolution Is My Boyfriend , to coincide with his fifteenth feature film, The Visitor . LaBruce is also a savvy cultural critic and contributed an article titled “Notes on Camp—and Anti-Camp” to this magazine in 2014 (March–April issue). A hallmark of his sui generis œuvre is the delightful metafictions of his cosmology. One of his first big films, Hustler White , references Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boule vard , and his new feature film, The Visitor , pays homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema . A fan of his moviemaking, I must confess I also collect his still photographs. My favorite LaBruce movie, L.A. Zombie ,

B RUCE L A B RUCE

starring mega-pornstar François Sagat is mega-hard to stream. The plenitude of pithy penises often mark LaBruce’s films as too dirty for narrative platforms and too arty for porn sites. I interviewed LaBruce in his Toronto home from my West Hollywood apartment via Zoom on May 1st. Spencer Toulouse, my assistant, facilitated the research, recording, and transcrip tion of the interview. Phil Tarley: My sources tell me that you grew up in or around Toronto—are they right? Bruce LaBruce : I grew up on a farm 150 miles northwest of Toronto. I came here to study film and dance. PT: I think of you as a highly transgressive artist, as much of your work flagrantly violates conventional morality. What in spires you to take on the standard rules and norms? BLaB: Outsiders and misfits—the kind of people who test the conventions of society. In the 1980s, I was in the punk move ment, and I always had crazy boyfriends, like hustler boy friends, and I lived with female strippers. I surrounded myself with people who inhabited the fringes of society. These are the characters who interest me. Many of my films are based on fetishes. Fetishists tend to be outsiders. But everyone has a fetish of some sort. Even with a fetish that seems really per verse, you can have a romantic connection to the fetish object. Even if it’s an amputee stump or a dirty foot, you can still feel an almost religious devotion to it. These characters and their fetishes have always interested me. PT: What, may I ask, are your fetishes? BLaB: I’m a basic foot fetishist. I have a hustler fetish. I have a skinhead fetish. Most of my films feature skinheads in one form or another, whether they are skinheads, monks, or punks. It’s the actual shaved head that sets me off. PT: Interesting. Even though your characters do nasty, kinky things to each other, they’re often very tender, and there’s a love between them, a light and airy sweetness. Can you talk about that? BLaB: Well, part of it is like what I was saying about fetishists. People think they’re nasty and dirty, and they don’t have any real human emotions. I always found them very human, and spiritual. Just because you look like a mean, ag gressive punk or skinhead doesn’t mean that you don’t have a gentle or empathetic side. Insane characters actually have a heart as well. In Hustler White , Piglet, the skinhead hustler— all he wants is a kiss. He doesn’t care what anyone does to him, all this extreme sadomasochism, choking, and autoerotic

Phil Tarley’s essays and photography have appeared in LAWeekly , The WOW Report , The Advocate , Out magazine, Genre , and others. Bruce LaBruce, 2024. Above and cover photographs by Amanda Majors.

September–October 2024

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