Various and Sundry Self-Indulgences

REVIEWERS are despicable characters. In one way or another they always manage to ruin movies, especially independent movies. Independent movies are difficult for the reviewer because, as a general rule, they don't have stars, their subjects are not always well-focused, and they can appear self-centered because they are often not intended to appeal to mass audiences, as Hollywood movies are.

Black Star, by Tom Joslin, is one such independent film, and I'm going to tell you something about it which will ruin it for you. I'm not telling you this because I want to put the film down as an independent work, but because it's the main issue of the movie, and I can't avoid it. It's about a homosexual. That, in itself, should not ruin the film for you, but the fact that you could have watched this movie for half an hour and not known it was about a homosexual could make my meddling annoying. You would have been given a surprise, and I have spoiled it.

You see, Black Star gets off to a mundane start (liketoomany other independent films), with family history and photo albums. Tom Joslin's family is very ordinary. His mother comes from a prominent Boston lawyer's family; his father still revels in his college football glories; together they run a tennis club and a summer camp. One brother is a tennis pro and the other races motorcycles. Then, all of a sudden, Joslin's lover appears on the screen, describing how a friend who later jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge married him and Tom. Who would have guessed that a homosexual could have such an ordinary family background?

Well, now that I've ruined the surprise for you, let me say that I have not ruined the whole movie.

Joslin no doubt intended the film to be a strong gay liberation statement, and if the strength of the statement had rested on that element of surprise. I would have failed as a reviewer. But it is Joslin himself who sold the audience short on a gay lib statement by letting his movie become self-indulgent. Those endless photo albums, those lengthy shots of everyday existence, like driving in a car or sitting on the porch, those over-used cinemaverite sequences which Joslin admits he hates, are not meaty enough for the viewer, who feels he is being led toward some real expose of how the gay couple in the film really interacts, an expose which he never gets.

Joslin could have preserved his statement, "Gay is the revolution--Oh yes!" despite the aforementioned gobbledy-gook, if only he and his lover had actually made love in the movie. But they never quite bring themselves to it. Instead they end up making love to the movie itself.

But I said that I have not ruined the whole movie. Joslin, who has been making films since he was 14, has inserted so many distractions, veering from the direct path so often in the movie, that he has succeeded in making a totally different and seemingly unintentional statement about homosexuality: for anyone Victorian enough to think of gay men as sexual deviants, he has shown the gay man having a productive, normal life. Joslin himself is a teacher at Hampshire College in Amherst.

Black Star contains several other Joslin films made at different times in his life. One is a fight between two boys, one a fatal mountain climbing accident, one a crime-detective story, one a changing of the seasons story. These apparently random detours from the main line actually serve to highlight the gay man's normality and productivity.

Much of the film is straight documentary in style, but Joslin brazenly exhibits an unrefined diversity with his inclusion of surrealistic pink-filtered sequences, abstract sequences and single-frame sequences.

Joslin shows how he lives and how he came to admit his homosexuality alongside the reactions this provokes in his family. His mother attempts to be philosophical, his brothers don't really care much, and his father is extremely embarrassed at his son's "effeminacy."

If the viewer does not already sympathize with Joslin and his lover, he will after being handed some blatant one-liners by Joslin's parents. Father, for example, bemoaning his son's estate, says, "When you get mixed up with the arty people...ech...that's it." He himself admires the "tough-guy" image. Mother says she is disappointed he will not have a typical family life, so she doesn't give him the land in the country should would otherwise have given him.

While all the various-and-sundry-ness of Joslin's life and love have somehow made the movie an artistic, cohesive statement, they have also made it a very loose confederation. Let us hope that in his next film Joslin will first be brave enough to make the statement he sets out to make, and, second, will not feel he has to tie all the loose ends of his life and work together in just one bundle.

GEORGE GRIFFIN, animator and Visiting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies, will personally present his own special brand of fatalistic humor and discuss a program of his films tonight at 8 p.m., at Center Screen, in the Carpenter Center. The program will include "The Candy Machine," "The Club," "Rapid Transit," "Trik Film One," "Trik Film III," "L'age Door," "Viewmaster," "Hand Collations," "Step Print," "Block Print" and "Thumbnail Sketches."