Overview
Invited by the conductor Premil Petrovic to stage Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, a musical theater work from 1912 based on the poems of Albert Giraud, LaBruce transposed a strange and tragic episode of true crime onto the composition. Complementing the original atonal score is a narrative about a trans man who is outed by his girlfriend’s father and forbidden from seeing the young woman again. Crestfallen, the protagonist decides to prove the fact of his manhood by castrating a taxi driver and then revealing his newly transplanted member to the two of them. This story, which for LaBruce “serves as a kind of allegory for all gender radicals and outcasts driven to extremes by the disapproval and hostility of the dominant order,” is rendered in a visual style that nods to the era of Schoenberg’s melodrama. LaBruce cheekily appropriates the formal vocabulary of silent cinema with black-and-white photography, irises, and intertitles like “A cock, a cock, my kingdom for a cock!”
Director and cast
More films
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
Comedy · Drama · PG-13
Amidst her own personality crisis, a southern housewife meets an outgoing old woman who tells her the story of Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, two young women who experienced hardships and love in 1920s Whistle Stop, Alabama.
- Runtime
- 2h 10m
- Director
- Jon Avnet
- Cast
- Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary-Louise Parker
Les Biches (1968)
Drama · Romance · R
A bored bisexual millionaire picks up a young destitute street artist and whisks her away to her villa in Saint Tropez. They meet a dashing local architect and both fall for him, setting in motion a ménage à trois of deception and betrayal.
- Runtime
- 1h 35m
- Director
- Claude Chabrol
- Cast
- Stéphane Audran, Jacqueline Sassard, Jean-Louis Trintignant
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
Drama · Music · R
Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.
- Runtime
- 2h 3m
- Director
- Todd Haynes
- Cast
- Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Toni Collette
Nowhere (1997)
Comedy · Drama · Science Fiction · R
In Los Angeles, a colorful assortment of bohemians try to make sense of their intersecting lives. The moody Dark Smith, his bisexual girlfriend, her lesbian lover and their shy gay friend plan on attending the wildest party of the year. But they'll only make it if they can survive the drug trips, suicides, trysts, mutilations and alien...
- Runtime
- 1h 23m
- Director
- Gregg Araki
- Cast
- James Duval, Rachel True, Nathan Bexton
Rent (2005)
Drama · Romance · PG-13
In New York City's gritty East Village, a group of bohemians strive for success and acceptance while enduring the obstacles of poverty, illness and the AIDS epidemic.
- Runtime
- 2h 15m
- Director
- Chris Columbus
- Cast
- Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Rosario Dawson
Comments
Talk about the film with other members