He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher — shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, and monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.
“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I've never seen such — such beautiful shirts before.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
There was a time when Władziu Valentino Liberace was a king. The child of Italian and Polish immigrants in Wisconsin, he rose to success throughout the 40s and 50s tickling the ivories in a variety of increasingly baroque costumes: tuxedos and fur capes encrusted in rhinestones. His reign has long since passed. Now, when his name is evoked, it's to mark someone as flamboyantly gay; Wallace Wells in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World refers to him as the writer of the "Gay Handbook". It's obvious now looking back at him with hindsight. This guy, with his glitter-encrusted bouffant hairpiece, soft lilting voice and face dolled up to the nines? How did people not know he was gay?
Those people had the obvious answer: gays were decadent demons bent on corrupting your children, humping you in back alleys like a dog taking a bitch, and dragging America into a cesspool. They weren't entertainers, they weren't the softly-spoken man doing renditions of Chopin and Berlin, and they weren't richer than Croesus. Liberace was successful, popular; even when his star faded from the mainstream in the 60s, he remained a darling on the Vegas circuit, selling out night after night, working round the calendar, and living in a miniature Nevada palace. In the words of Roy Cohn from Angels in America, homosexuals were "men who know nobody, and who nobody knows". Liberace was successful, ergo he was a bachelor who just hadn't met the right woman yet.
Bob Black (Scott Bakula) says as much in the opening minutes of Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra. When Liberace (Michael Douglas) wheels out his protégé (Cheyenne Jackson) for a quatre mains duet, Black jokes about them being "a pair of queens", earning him the outrage of an elderly woman sitting in front. To the surprise of his partner, Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), only the two of them, expatriates from the gay underworld, can tell he's hiding in plain sight.
After being introduced backstage, Liberace (or "Lee", as he preferred to be called) takes a shine to the young Scott, especially after the aspiring vet offers to get medicine for his blind dog. Lee offers Scott employment as his assistant, or right-hand man, or bodyguard; the position is never clearly defined. Indeed, after the two embark on a relationship, Lee coos about how he wants to be everything to Scott: "brother, father, lover, best friend".
Scott's initially happy with this arrangement, if reluctant to suddenly move in to Casa de Liberace. It pays well, and the two men love each other very much, Lee providing him with whatever he wants to make him happy. He even fires his long-standing houseboy after Scott complains about he never lets him fit in. But, as with all relationships, the seams begin to show, and it starts with the arrival of plastic surgeon Dr. Jack Startz. Played to wry hilarity by Rob Lowe, Lee asks this tanned squinting grotesque to mold Scott into a younger version of him. Later, he tries to legally adopt Scott. All this flies in the face of Lee's declaration that his new boyfriend "just need(s) to be (him)self", even as he refers to him as "Baby Boy", the name of his beloved poodle.
Behind the Candelabra warmly embraces the absurdity of its subject matter, presenting him without judgement as the contradiction that he was: undeniably gay but a devout Catholic, crediting divine intervention as the reason he survived renal failure in 1963. He loves his "blonde Adonis", cares deeply about him, but there's something predatory about the relationship, how he isn't content with just being a lover but a father figure, a guardian, even as he later accuses Scott of always wanting more and more. It must have been very tempting to try and make this a modern monster movie about a doe-eyed innocent falling prey to the claws of an older sexual predator, and the film manfully stays away from that.
A large part of that is Michael Douglas's performance, which has rightly been getting accolades everywhere. It's absolutely fearless. Douglas doesn't shy away from the excess and vanity of the character, while also making him sympathetic and vulnerable, spending a good deal of the film nude in contrast to his on-stage persona. Lee talks about wanting to be a daddy, of having someone to care for, and that desire never goes away, even as his flaws drive his various surrogate sons/lovers away from him.
The balance is redressed by Scott. In a solid turn by Damon, he's deeply in love but also trying to keep a distance from Lee, refusing to watch porn and coming across as a "gay prude". Despite the film being based on the real Thorson's memoirs, he's equally flawed, selling off Lee's jewellery to score drugs and getting increasingly moody and snarling as the relationship deteriorates.
Not that the relationship needed that much to collapse. When the two first meet backstage, Lee's former protégé, a spitting image of Lee in his rhinestoned white suit and sparkly hair, is sulking and glowering, throwing jealous glances at Scott, hinting at what's in store for the naïve young animal trainer. Lee will build his newest man up, make him a simulacrum of himself, then let him rot and move on to someone else. Behind the Candelabra makes an effort to keep things fair, however; it's Lee's harmatia, his tragic flaw. He mentions in his contract how he has to wear new costumes every year - he has to move on to newer things. It's in his nature, and he can't control that.
Both Lee and Scott are using the other - Lee wants a boyfriend/assistant/confidant, Scott wants a lover/sugar daddy - and they pivot back and forth between affection and resentment, generosity and greed, love and hate. Soderbergh keeps things complex, and doesn't try and influence things one way or the other; the cinematography is distanced, almost journalistic. It's shot at a remove, hinting at a greater world beyond the film's scope, like a fly on the wall.
Soderbergh is going on a sabbatical from film-making. Considering how much Soderbergh has done over his career, not just in the scope of his films (heist blockbusters, sex dramas on video cameras, four-hour biopics of Ché Guevara, comedies about male strippers) but the jobs he takes (writing, directing, shooting, editing, producing), I'd say that's a break well-earned. Nobody that restlessly creative could stay away from cinema for long, so Behind the Candelabra isn't really a full-stop in his career, more like an ellipsis. Given how the film was financed through HBO Films rather than a major studio, allegedly because producers thought it was "too gay" to sell to mainstream audiences, it may be a disenfranchisement with the studio system at work.
That speaks volumes about the state of sexuality in modern cinema. Even in films featuring heterosexual romance, sex is idealised, lustful, a dream state of soft lighting and silken bedsheets. Rarely do you get a film that treats sex matter-of-factly. The only example that springs to mind right now is Shortbus, an LGBT film where coitus is depicted so often, and in such a variety of ways, it stops being titillating and becomes part of the background. I don't mean that in a bad way, either. That was John Cameron Mitchell's intent, and we could do with films that treat sex, and sexuality, frankly and with brutally honesty.
Behind the Candelabra is one such film. Nothing is idealised, although much of it seems absurd and larger-than-life, it's presented as is without a stern nod or raised eyebrow. It realises that, sometimes, the facts need to speak for themselves, and comes off stronger for it. Since it's a film made for television, and premiered on US TV through HBO's own channel, it also has the luxury of joining other titans of the cathode ray as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Hannibal, The Wire, Mad Men, and other programmes that are kicking cinema's arse right now. It's a shame this isn't getting wider release in the UK, because it deserves to be seen. Even if Soderbergh never makes another film and just focuses on painting, it's a fine way to bow out.
Those people had the obvious answer: gays were decadent demons bent on corrupting your children, humping you in back alleys like a dog taking a bitch, and dragging America into a cesspool. They weren't entertainers, they weren't the softly-spoken man doing renditions of Chopin and Berlin, and they weren't richer than Croesus. Liberace was successful, popular; even when his star faded from the mainstream in the 60s, he remained a darling on the Vegas circuit, selling out night after night, working round the calendar, and living in a miniature Nevada palace. In the words of Roy Cohn from Angels in America, homosexuals were "men who know nobody, and who nobody knows". Liberace was successful, ergo he was a bachelor who just hadn't met the right woman yet.
Bob Black (Scott Bakula) says as much in the opening minutes of Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra. When Liberace (Michael Douglas) wheels out his protégé (Cheyenne Jackson) for a quatre mains duet, Black jokes about them being "a pair of queens", earning him the outrage of an elderly woman sitting in front. To the surprise of his partner, Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), only the two of them, expatriates from the gay underworld, can tell he's hiding in plain sight.
After being introduced backstage, Liberace (or "Lee", as he preferred to be called) takes a shine to the young Scott, especially after the aspiring vet offers to get medicine for his blind dog. Lee offers Scott employment as his assistant, or right-hand man, or bodyguard; the position is never clearly defined. Indeed, after the two embark on a relationship, Lee coos about how he wants to be everything to Scott: "brother, father, lover, best friend".
Scott's initially happy with this arrangement, if reluctant to suddenly move in to Casa de Liberace. It pays well, and the two men love each other very much, Lee providing him with whatever he wants to make him happy. He even fires his long-standing houseboy after Scott complains about he never lets him fit in. But, as with all relationships, the seams begin to show, and it starts with the arrival of plastic surgeon Dr. Jack Startz. Played to wry hilarity by Rob Lowe, Lee asks this tanned squinting grotesque to mold Scott into a younger version of him. Later, he tries to legally adopt Scott. All this flies in the face of Lee's declaration that his new boyfriend "just need(s) to be (him)self", even as he refers to him as "Baby Boy", the name of his beloved poodle.
Behind the Candelabra warmly embraces the absurdity of its subject matter, presenting him without judgement as the contradiction that he was: undeniably gay but a devout Catholic, crediting divine intervention as the reason he survived renal failure in 1963. He loves his "blonde Adonis", cares deeply about him, but there's something predatory about the relationship, how he isn't content with just being a lover but a father figure, a guardian, even as he later accuses Scott of always wanting more and more. It must have been very tempting to try and make this a modern monster movie about a doe-eyed innocent falling prey to the claws of an older sexual predator, and the film manfully stays away from that.
A large part of that is Michael Douglas's performance, which has rightly been getting accolades everywhere. It's absolutely fearless. Douglas doesn't shy away from the excess and vanity of the character, while also making him sympathetic and vulnerable, spending a good deal of the film nude in contrast to his on-stage persona. Lee talks about wanting to be a daddy, of having someone to care for, and that desire never goes away, even as his flaws drive his various surrogate sons/lovers away from him.
The balance is redressed by Scott. In a solid turn by Damon, he's deeply in love but also trying to keep a distance from Lee, refusing to watch porn and coming across as a "gay prude". Despite the film being based on the real Thorson's memoirs, he's equally flawed, selling off Lee's jewellery to score drugs and getting increasingly moody and snarling as the relationship deteriorates.
Not that the relationship needed that much to collapse. When the two first meet backstage, Lee's former protégé, a spitting image of Lee in his rhinestoned white suit and sparkly hair, is sulking and glowering, throwing jealous glances at Scott, hinting at what's in store for the naïve young animal trainer. Lee will build his newest man up, make him a simulacrum of himself, then let him rot and move on to someone else. Behind the Candelabra makes an effort to keep things fair, however; it's Lee's harmatia, his tragic flaw. He mentions in his contract how he has to wear new costumes every year - he has to move on to newer things. It's in his nature, and he can't control that.
Both Lee and Scott are using the other - Lee wants a boyfriend/assistant/confidant, Scott wants a lover/sugar daddy - and they pivot back and forth between affection and resentment, generosity and greed, love and hate. Soderbergh keeps things complex, and doesn't try and influence things one way or the other; the cinematography is distanced, almost journalistic. It's shot at a remove, hinting at a greater world beyond the film's scope, like a fly on the wall.
Soderbergh is going on a sabbatical from film-making. Considering how much Soderbergh has done over his career, not just in the scope of his films (heist blockbusters, sex dramas on video cameras, four-hour biopics of Ché Guevara, comedies about male strippers) but the jobs he takes (writing, directing, shooting, editing, producing), I'd say that's a break well-earned. Nobody that restlessly creative could stay away from cinema for long, so Behind the Candelabra isn't really a full-stop in his career, more like an ellipsis. Given how the film was financed through HBO Films rather than a major studio, allegedly because producers thought it was "too gay" to sell to mainstream audiences, it may be a disenfranchisement with the studio system at work.
That speaks volumes about the state of sexuality in modern cinema. Even in films featuring heterosexual romance, sex is idealised, lustful, a dream state of soft lighting and silken bedsheets. Rarely do you get a film that treats sex matter-of-factly. The only example that springs to mind right now is Shortbus, an LGBT film where coitus is depicted so often, and in such a variety of ways, it stops being titillating and becomes part of the background. I don't mean that in a bad way, either. That was John Cameron Mitchell's intent, and we could do with films that treat sex, and sexuality, frankly and with brutally honesty.
Behind the Candelabra is one such film. Nothing is idealised, although much of it seems absurd and larger-than-life, it's presented as is without a stern nod or raised eyebrow. It realises that, sometimes, the facts need to speak for themselves, and comes off stronger for it. Since it's a film made for television, and premiered on US TV through HBO's own channel, it also has the luxury of joining other titans of the cathode ray as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Hannibal, The Wire, Mad Men, and other programmes that are kicking cinema's arse right now. It's a shame this isn't getting wider release in the UK, because it deserves to be seen. Even if Soderbergh never makes another film and just focuses on painting, it's a fine way to bow out.
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