"People going to see a Bruce LaBruce film [are] under no illusions," he said. They know they're not going to go and see Bambi or Fantasia."--Melbourne International Festival Director Richard Moore
Bruce LaBruce has a new film, Gerontophilia, screening at
this year's Toronto International Film Festival's Vanguard Programme. But who is Bruce
LaBruce?
To start, he's a Toronto-based writer, director, photographer,
and artist who studied film at York University. In the '80s, he co-edited a
fanzine called J.D.'s. It only had eight issues, but was hugely influential.
This zine is often credited with starting the queercore movement: an outgrowth
of the punk and hardcore movement, which rebels against society's condemnation
of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender movement. It also promoted a confrontational, aggressive stance against what
it saw as gay "orthodoxy."
LaBruce has been influenced by the gritty, independent 1970s
dramas of Robert Altman and John Cassavetes as well as Jerry
Schatzberg (The Panic in Needle Park) and Frank Perry (David and Lisa). As a result, he made several experimental, Super 8 short films like I
Know What It's Like To Be Dead and Give A Piece of Ass a Chance, and later,
full-length films like No Skin Off My Ass (which Kurt Cobain once proclaimed
his favorite film), Super 8 ½ and Hustler White.
Both 2004's The Raspberry
Reich and 2008's Otto, or, Up With Dead People debuted at Sundance,
while his 2010 film L.A. Zombie was banned in Australia. Many of LaBruce's films have played at festivals worldwide and
he's been honored with several festival retrospectives and a screening at MoMa
(for Otto).
Here’s a fun video of a 2008 Bruce LaBruce retrospective
that took place at The Royal in Toronto.
As you can probably tell from the titles of the films,
LaBruce's films often include sexually explicit and pornographic scenes, but
also eschew standard narratives and mainstream film techniques, embracing
radical leftist, anti-capitalist ideas instead. He also rails against the way
irony has been co-opted by the mainstream. At times, his films can be quite
violent, but LaBruce admits he's more enamored of the "aesthetics of
violence" than "excessive, indiscriminate" violence of mainstream
cinema.
But wait, that's not all! Bruce LaBruce has also written and
photographed for an impressively diverse list of publications from local
(Exclaim!, eye weekly, Toronto Life, The National Post) to international (The
Guardian, Vice, Nerve, index, BlackBook) to porn (Butt, Kink, Jack, and
Slurp—amazing titles!).
Now LaBruce's latest film, Gerontophilia, is screening at
the Festival. In a recent interview on The Quietus, LaBruce said, laughing, "In
some ways, I was trying to make it like an after-school special directed by
Ingmar Bergman." Check out Gerontophilia and see for yourself.
GERONTOPHILIA Screening Times:
Monday, Sept 9th, 10:30 PM THE BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA
Wednesday, Sept 11th, 9:30 PM SCOTIABANK 11
Friday, Sept 13th, 12:15 PM SCOTIABANK 3
