Cruising 4K UHD (1980) (Arrow Video)

[redrunner97]

I just want to chime in and say that the gay community has really embraced this film recently, especially younger audiences rediscovering and reinterpreting it since Arrow's last blu-ray release and the restoration being picked up on various streaming services.

Obviously, it's an exploitation film and the target of that exploitation is "the secret lives of gay men... shocking, risque and tantalizing oooooh." But underneath is lots of raw verite grit from the pre-AIDS NYC gay leather/kink scene that would be totally decimated just a few short years later. In that way, it should almost be treasured as a time capsule of a brief era between LGBTQ+ liberation of the 60s and 70s and the darkness of the AIDS era that ruined so many lives, wiped out a whole generation of queer people and drove countless others back into the closet.

I think it's an extremely prescient and scary film, especially when you realize all the faces in the crowd very likely either died from or were infected by AIDS. Participants of NYC queer kink culture were some of the most at-risk people in America. It lends the film a real heaviness and weight that is very powerful IMO. And the way the "faceless killer" kind of retroactively becomes an omen of the gay community's future is really eerie. I think it's a masterpiece.

Fun fact: Friedkin's future-wife Sherry Lansing was an ally to the gay community and produced a sort of companion piece to Cruising a couple years later in direct response to the film's backlash. It's languishing with Disney after the Fox merger, but Making Love (1982) is similarly about gay cruising, but it leads to a very tender connection that ultimately helps a married man come out of the closet. And despite being a romantic drama, it too ends up feeling quite foreboding and even sad in a similar way to Cruising because of AIDS being right around the corner. Just really interesting how movies are of their time but also can change over time due to history's reshaping of their context and themes.

[FatherDude]

Originally Posted by redrunner97

And the way the "faceless killer" kind of retroactively becomes an omen of the gay community's future is really eerie.

Hell, maybe even not so retroactively. The epidemic was very much underway when the movie was filming, but it was still only whispered about, having not yet been given a name. The metaphor, conscious or not, probably had resonance even then.

[BluProofie]

Originally Posted by redrunner97

I just want to chime in and say that the gay community has really embraced this film recently, especially younger audiences rediscovering and reinterpreting it since Arrow's last blu-ray release and the restoration being picked up on various streaming services.

Obviously, it's an exploitation film and the target of that exploitation is "the secret lives of gay men... shocking, risque and tantalizing oooooh." But underneath is lots of raw verite grit from the pre-AIDS NYC gay leather/kink scene that would be totally decimated just a few short years later. In that way, it should almost be treasured as a time capsule of a brief era between LGBTQ+ liberation of the 60s and 70s and the darkness of the AIDS era that ruined so many lives, wiped out a whole generation of queer people and drove countless others back into the closet.

I think it's an extremely prescient and scary film, especially when you realize all the faces in the crowd very likely either died from or were infected by AIDS. Participants of NYC queer kink culture were some of the most at-risk people in America. It lends the film a real heaviness and weight that is very powerful IMO. And the way the "faceless killer" kind of retroactively becomes an omen of the gay community's future is really eerie. I think it's a masterpiece.

Fun fact: Friedkin's future-wife Sherry Lansing was an ally to the gay community and produced a sort of companion piece to Cruising a couple years later in direct response to the film's backlash. It's languishing with Disney after the Fox merger, but Making Love (1982) is similarly about gay cruising, but it leads to a very tender connection that ultimately helps a married man come out of the closet. And despite being a romantic drama, it too ends up feeling quite foreboding and even sad in a similar way to Cruising because of AIDS being right around the corner. Just really interesting how movies are of their time but also can change over time due to history's reshaping of their context and themes.

Most of the fans of this film that I know personally are LGBT(myself included)!

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by Alexander_Nevermind

This movie did the gay community absolutely no favors. Even Al Pacino sees it for what it truly is: exploitative. It's an extremely unfaithful adaptation of the 1970 novel written by Gerald Walker.

I will never understand the appeal of this film.

Twitter and Tumblr are over there, thanks ------>

[FatherDude]

Originally Posted by Alexander_Nevermind

This movie did the gay community absolutely no favors. Even Al Pacino sees it for what it truly is: exploitative. It's an extremely unfaithful adaptation of the 1970 novel written by Gerald Walker.

I will never understand the appeal of this film.

Oh, CRUISING is without a doubt an exploitation movie at its core, but I would say the same thing about THE EXORCIST, and plenty of other genre flicks that are popularly deemed to be art.

I'm not saying I put CRUISING in that class, but the fact that there's something kind of objectionable about it is a big part of its staying power, of what keeps it interesting.

As for the novel: Yeah, Friedkin was always pretty candid that he didn't think much of it, and that he was far more inspired by Arthur Bell's articles about the Bag murders as well as anecdotes he got from friends in the NYPD. Aside from the high-level premise, was there really much about the book worth keeping? We're not talking about first rate literature here. Friedkin was about as faithful to it as Welles was to Badge of Evil, which is about right.

[Catastrophe]

So no Blu only release?

What a crock.

Chalk up another reason why I no longer buy anything from Arrow anymore.

[Fat Phil]

Originally Posted by Catastrophe

So no Blu only release?

What a crock.

Chalk up another reason why I no longer buy anything from Arrow anymore.

So you’re going to boycott the thing they’re not releasing? Brutal.

[Catastrophe]

Originally Posted by Fat Phil

So you’re going to boycott the thing they’re not releasing? Brutal.

What?

[Smegma]

Originally Posted by Alexander_Nevermind

This movie did the gay community absolutely no favors. Even Al Pacino sees it for what it truly is: exploitative.

And so?

What's wrong with an exploitation flick?
Why should any film be obligated to do favors for any community?
Should they never make a film about a priest that molested altar boys because it doesn't show the Catholic Church in a positive light?
The film covers a small subculture of leather gays that did exist at the time. It doesn't mean every gay person is into leather and chains. The same way Basic Instinct doesn't mean all lesbians are serial killers.

It's just a movie.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Alexander_Nevermind

outside of it being exploitative and abhorrently offensive there is really nothing to "get".

I'm not trying to start a fight, but I really think your outrage says more about your own personal insecurities than it does the film itself.

[FatherDude]

It's the kind of movie that inspires a wide gamut of reactions, and I’m sympathetic to all of them. The appeal of the leather bars to Friedkin was that they presented an irresistibly unusual and atmospheric setting for him to set his serial killer movie, though the atmosphere was largely his own creation. He used his skills as a film maker to exaggerate the exoticness and danger of the underground scene, which was almost certainly more lighthearted in reality. Even the excellent soundtrack Friedkin provides the bars in the form of Willy DeVille, Rough Trade, etc. is a falsehood, as the real leather bars were said to be playing the same sort of Top 10 pop you’d hear in any other night club of the time. So it’s an exploitation movie in the sense that Friedkin was interested in the S&M world mainly as a bizarre, menacing backdrop, but being an aesthetic opportunist isn’t the worst sin that can be committed by a movie director – it might even be the definition of one.

Friedkin's approach is shamelessly indelicate, but that's also the reason CRUISING goes places that a more reputable movie can't take you. And while its “authenticity” gets overstated a lot -- the you-are-there realism of the photography stands in contrast with very heightened and subjective sound design -- there is nevertheless a real time capsule quality to the location shooting that gives it an enduring intrigue and historical value. It’s also impressive how unflatteringly the movie depicts the police considering how much goodwill from the real NYPD the production depended upon -- the cops in this movie are incompetent at best and abusers of homosexuals at worst, and I don’t think seeing that so unflinchingly presented in movies at the time was much more common than on-screen fisting.

[JoelGoodsen]

Originally Posted by Alexander_Nevermind

This movie did the gay community absolutely no favors.

Van Damme did my leg no favors either. I kicked a palm tree last week and fractured my shin

[Fat Phil]

Originally Posted by JoelGoodsen

Van Damme did my leg no favors either. I kicked a palm tree last week and fractured my shin

Umm, you have to keep doing it over and over again. That’s the only way you get stronger.

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by JoelGoodsen

Van Damme did my leg no favors either. I kicked a palm tree last week and fractured my shin

As a bisexual male, the sight of Van Damme makes me feel closer to gay than straight. In this essay I will

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

As a bisexual male, the sight of Van Damme makes me feel closer to gay than straight. In this essay I will

Van DAMN

[Vixen of the Night]

Here's what I know about the different pre-DVD/blu-ray versions of Cruising.

What I assume to be the theatrical cut was released by Warner Bros in the 90's. It contains the warning at the beginning of the film, and had a few bits cut that were included on the original CBS Video release, which did not contain the disclaimer, and was almost a workprint in away since the audio was missing sound effects the Warner release contained.

The stuff missing from the Warner VHS was

[Show spoiler]more explicit footage in the Precinct night sequence. Mainly a camera pan shot of guys making out and sucking on a knight-stick.

A line of dialogue from the killers roommate who mentions that the killers father died a few years ago, which explains all the written letters he had to him that were never mailed, which the cops found suspicious. This lets us know the scene between the killer and his Dad wasn't real, but a hallucination on the killers part.

I think the above two moments were restored for the dvd/Blu-ray releases. So I don't know whether they'll be included on the new release or not if they're not in the original negative of the film. But we'll see.

Either way. I'm just upset this release is not getting a blu-ray release, since I've wanted to see the deleted footage for years, as well as own the original theatrical version since I hated what Friedkin did to the dvd/blu releases.

[zepol]

Originally Posted by Alexander_Nevermind

This movie did the gay community absolutely no favors. Even Al Pacino sees it for what it truly is: exploitative. It's an extremely unfaithful adaptation of the 1970 novel written by Gerald Walker.

I will never understand the appeal of this film.

The rock soundtrack for one. Al Pacino in it for 2. It's sort of a slasher film which was big in the 80s' for 3. When my friends saw this in 1980, we figured out that the disco group VILLAGE PEOPLE were gay.

[grahams76]

Originally Posted by zepol

When my friends saw this in 1980, we figured out that the disco group VILLAGE PEOPLE were gay.

Not even an inkling beforehand?!

[zepol]

Originally Posted by grahams76

Not even an inkling beforehand?!

No not at all! Gay men were always featured in movies & tv as flaming like on BARNEY MILLER. That's how we knew gay men looked and of course on the street we would see that type too. VILLAGE PEOPLE were handsome tough guys how on earth could that be gay is how we thought. Even Elton John we thought was just a showman and then in 1977 he says he is gay.

[spanky87]

I feel like such a c*nt for buying the previous blu-ray.

[Geoff D]

Ruh-roh...