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 Love and Death on Long Island (1997)
Director:
Richard Kwietniowski
Stars: John Hurt, Jason Priestly, Fiona Loewi
Release Company:
Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Best Gay Cinema |
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If you had told me that pretty boy Jason Priestly would star in an arthouse movie that would receive positive reviews from pretentious critics, I’d have thought that you’d overdosed from watching too many summer blockbusters. On the other hand, Brendan Fraser (The Mummy) takes a remarkably effective turn in Gods and Monsters as the younger friend of the great Ian McKellen, who received rave notices and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal as Frankenstein film director James Whale.
Writer/director Richard Kwietniowski's Love and Death on Long Island contains similarities to the more widely seen Gods and Monsters—the most obvious being the homosexual attraction that causes elderly writer Giles De'Ath (John Hurt) to fall in love with young Ronnie Bostock (Jason Priestly, typecast as a shallow pretty boy teen idol film star). The story retains a closer connection with Thomas Mann's classic Death in Venice, a poignant tale of a writer who becomes greatly enamored of a young boy from afar while on vacation.
London widower De'Ath has isolated himself as a writer and refuses to join the latter part of the twentieth century declaring " I'm a writer--I write. I don't process words." When he wanders into an electronics store, he can't tell a VCR from a microwave and has no idea that television monitors are required for video players. After a radio interview with the iconoclastic writer, billed as an interview with an "old fogey," he decides to check out a "cinema" for the first time in many years and heads for a local multiplex theater.
Intending to see Eternal Moment, based on an E.M. Forster novel, De'Ath mistakenly plops himself into the middle of teensploitation film called Hotpants College II, described by a local critic as a "puerile romp without a single redeeming feature." Disgusted by the lowbrow film, De'Ath prepares to walk out when suddenly he becomes mesmerized by Ronnie Bostock's big screen image, especially with a pose that reminds him of Henry Wallis' portrait of a writer entitled "The Death of Chatterton" displayed in the Tate gallery. It's a life changing moment for the old man.
Suddenly the energized 70+ year old writer begins collecting American teen magazines and secretly cutting out every image of Ronnie Bostock that he can find. He returns for another viewing of Hotpants College II, hushing the teen audiences whenever his beloved Bostock appears on the screen. De'Ath even goes so far as to buy 20th century inventions like a television and VCR so that he can watch lame soap operas that star Bostock, and relentlessly rent and study every Bostock film that he can--Tex Mex and Skid Marks, that contains banal lines like "You're nothing but a skid mark on the underpants of Life."
In short, the smitten De'Ath becomes the world's leading authority on teen idol, Ronnie Bostock. A fantasy based on one of the television quiz shows has the academic De'Ath selecting "the life and career of Ronnie Bostock" as his category:
1. Where does Bostock live? Chesterfield, Long Island
2. What is his favorite reading material? Stephen King
3. What training shoes? Reeboks
4. What is the name of his dog? Strider
De'Ath pauses, saying " I wonder" when the fantasy game show host asks what Bostock means when he says that he likes hanging out with the guys. Though unspoken, De'Ath wonders if this young hunk could possibly become his friend and lover.
De'Ath attempts to conceal his infatuation and obsession. He locks his Bostock album in his desk drawer and orders his housekeeper to leave early and avoid dusting his study (where he now watches Bostock films). Regressing some fifty years, the former erudite writer now lectures with awkwardly placed pop culture references. Internally, De'Ath attempts to rationalize his new-found infatuation, describing his experience as " . . . the discovery of beauty where no one ever thought of looking for it."
Like a teen questing for a first love, De'Ath obsesses about his teen idol more than Jimmy Stewart does for Madeleine in Vertigo--not that Love and Death on Long Island equates with similar psychological aspects of Hitchcock's classic thriller--it's far lighter and sillier. The film serves primarily as a character study with touches of dry humor, subtly carried out by overlooked actor John Hurt, who need not rely on grotesque Elephant Man makeup or stomach popping aliens to retain our attention this time. Watch his face carefully for many small comic moments, especially when he is immersing himself into Ronnie's pop culture world of pizza and teenspoitation movies while seeking some quality time alone with the object of his affection.
One chuckle occurs during the Tex Mex scene where Ronnie plays a dying martyr--De'Ath, emotionally mesmerized like one of Leo DiCaprio's Titanic teen lovers, slowly moves toward the screen to plant a kiss on his unrequited love, only to jerk back suddenly when an editing cut switches to a priest. I also get a kick out of the scene which sets up a daylong outing with either Ronnie or his girlfriend Audrey (Fiona Lowewi) depending on whether it rains or not. (Guess which TV channel De'Ath hurriedly consults when he returns to his Long Island motel?)
As good as Hurt is, Priestly plays off Hurt's character without taking away from it--something that could have occurred with less skillful writing. While Hurt laughably compares Ronnie's body of acting work to Shakespeare (who relied on bawdy humor to entertain the commoners), Priestly continues to act blandly without insight just like the characters he plays in the films within the film. Priestly does have his one poignant moment when Hurt reveals his desires for a Verlaine-Rimbaud relationship, and he carries it out with the right touch.
But, make no mistake about it, this is John Hurt's movie and he makes the most of a memorable role. Even though people looking at the surface may have a difficult time relating to an elderly man who suddenly pursues a young male movie icon, it's still parallels a situation than most of us have experienced during our teenage years. The loneliness, the quest for an unattainable perfect love, the infatuation for some idealized sexual image that we know so little about is a common experience. Sometime in our fantasies, we have wondered what would happen if we actually met up with a fantasized love object but, as the fictional writer De'Ath bookends,
"It is difficult to know where to begin since, unlike you, I already know the ending."
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