From the “High, Low and Elsewhere Culture” Department: Blue Angel, the 1929 flic that introduced bisexual Marlene Dietrich to the American public, has been restored and is showing at various places. Dietrich was the protege of gay director Joseph von Sternberg, who directed. Its original release in America was held up until Dietrich’s Morocco with Gary Cooper was released. (Morocco was the one that suggested Dietrich’s variant sexuality… wearing a man’s tuxedo, she kisses another woman on the lips). Dietrich, married for years, had a long affair with Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front), exulting when she learned of his impotence: “Oh, how wonderful!” According to her daughter’s bio of her, she didn’t like regular sex with men but sex with woman was never a problem. (Chicago Sun-Times 9/28) (One of her more outrageous quotes was “Sex is much better with a woman, but then one can’t live with a woman!”)
The NY Times (9/23) reports a retrospective show of Canadian artist Emily Carr. Carr traveled about Canadian provinces in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, painting and writing of the various First Nation Peoples she encountered. Her strange vehicle, the “Elephant” has even been reproduced. Her show at the Royal British Columbia Museum is in Victoria, BC. Carr, long thought to be a lesbian, is the subject of much scholarship, including that of our local Chicago historian, Marie Kuda.
The Chicago Sun-Times (9/28) reports on the re-release of the movie Kiss of the Spider Woman in which William Hurt credibly plays an effeminate gay man who falls in love with a straight revolutionary in prison. The film is noted for turning stereotypes upside down. The gay character is not denigrated, nor are his rather odd personal values. The movie is about ideas.
The NY Times (9/24) reports on artist Yasumasa Morimura’s current show called “An Inner Dialogue with Frida Kahlo.” He reproduces her works (usually self-portraits) painting himself as Kahlo, down to the famous uni-brow and faint mustache. He even goes beyond repros and has works as Kahlo might’ve done them. At the Luhring Augustine Gallery in Chelsea, NY City.
A NY Times reviewer (9/28) doesn’t like the gayest of gay writer Allan Gurganus’ stories, “He’s One Too,” in a new collection called, The Practical Heart. The reviewer says the author confuses a child molester with his victims. The rest of the stories are charming, though, including “Preservation News,” about a dying house restorer who transforms the lives of his friends and neighbors even as he grows weaker from AIDS.
The Manchester Guardian (9/1) has a profile of retired Anglican bishop Richard Holloway. He had been Primus, or head of the Anglican Church in Scotland. He journeyed theologically leftward to a point where he infuriated the Archbishop of Canterbury by supporting gay and lesbian clergy. Commenting on a conservative politician who had surprisingly come out for the legalization of marijuana in Great Britain, Holloway said “I wonder if the Tories [British conservatives] are not actually trying to develop a very socially reformist agenda that might include things like the legalizing of gay unions.” One hopes ideas like these will drift across the Atlantic to American conservatives.