For its sheer audacity, TV stalwart Paul Bogart's final theatrical movie TORCH SONG TRILOGY is legitimately a landmark in American queer cinema, an unapologetic gay testimony which forthrightly demands respect and equality, and the one who rightfully hogs the limelight is its writer-cum-star Harvey Fierstein.
Adapting his own Tony-winning, long-running, eponymous semi-biographical play onto the silver screen, Fierstein plays Arnold Beckoff, a NYC drag queen whose stage persona is a torch singer, the film spans from 1971 to 1980, before the gay scene are completely altered by the horror of AIDS. The trilogy can be loosely compartmentalized into three chapters, Arnold's initial relationship with his bisexual love Ed (Kerwin, adroit with his open-faced legibility); his tragically aborted romance with the love of his life Alan (a baby-face Broderick gaily bats for the other team here) and the aftermath, including adopting a gay teenager as his son, re-settles with Ed and an attainment of mutual understanding with his mother (Bancroft).
Fairly basic stuff, both behaviorally and emotionally, offered by the script, Arnold comes off as shy, lovelorn, grouchy (often in the fourth-wall-breaking mode), but most exceptionally, is Fierstein's own, short-breathed, gravelly voice that simply cannot carry a normal tune, yet, Arnold is a self-purported torch singer, performs his numbers in a rather comical recitative than actual singing, he is well at home in the burlesque scene. However, to live as an out queer person, he cannot tolerate any murky spot on his life, which encumbers his relationship with Ed, whose bisexuality is often dismissed by Arnold as a front to the heteronormative compliance, and he demands the same from his homophobic mother, on his own terms, he wants to be treated as a normal son,he even goes all the way to adopt a teenager so that he can be a father in a traditional way, and he will not meet her in the halfway.
That stance is progressive, not least at that time, repelling the usual guilt-tinged torment of being homosexual, Arnold is blatantly asking something almost impossible from his mother, whose worldview is completely at odds with her son's, yet, even so, they manage to squeeze some semblance of understanding that can only be germinated by unalloyed mutual love, that is, for my money, what the film really strikes home, and both Fierstein and Bancroft are firing on all cylinders, their confrontation sequences are textbook takeaways of the internecine standoff between a conservative mother and her flamboyant gay son, however antediluvian the prejudice seems to today's eyes, the essence is nothing if not limpid, acceptance excludes any form of concession, and Fierstein's astute and acerbic script takes no prisoners.
An acting powerhouse like Bancroft never disappoints, here, shoehorn in a role characterized by her regressive thinking, she nonetheless exhibits a high-wire act to outpour a deluge of mixed bag of frustration, doubt, displeasure, resignation and compassion, with all those gesticulations , she is so fascinating to watch, and her efforts' resultant emotional impact is impeccably visceral; Fierstein is equally bellicose and uncompromising in fending off the offensive, but also shines in quieter, funnier moments, like the scene where he performs the Jewish ritual to appear immaculate before Ed wakes up in the morning, a bespoke role that is both a blessing and a curse to any thespian. Enough said, if you are a sucker for a bold gay drama with all its messy but souped-up appurtenances, TORCH SONG TRILOGY is just what you doctor ordered.
referential entries: Jennie Livingston's PARIS IS BURNING (1990, 8.0/10); John Schlesinger's SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY (1971, 7.9/10).
View more about Torch Song Trilogy reviews
