Tom of Finland (2017) directed by Dome Karukoski

 This film follows the life of Touko Laaksonen, more commonly known as the gay erotica artist, Tom of Finland. It follows him though his war years and through the time he used his pseudonym to spread his art around the counter culture leather gay scene until he is finally realized as an important artist for that community and achieves a certain level of fame and respect. 

Nicely filmed and well acted, the film does give a good impression of the passage of time and the issues of problems that came up for Tom and his art in each decade. The aging makeup is top notch and natural looking. I am not a big fan of his style, but I would think anyone can see there is a talent and passion in it, transcending the "just dirty drawings" label it was often given in his earlier years. Sure, the bodies are overdone and fantastical in some ways but the faces are honest and bring personality to each character. His work exposes a hidden culture, hidden even to most  gay people in a humanizing and positive way. 

I found the AIDS era stuff very compelling - and hard to get through - as I remember it too well but I am glad its in there and I'm glad they cover it. Tom's erotic art was partially blamed for the epidemic by many people and he stopped drawing for a time because of his guilt. Luckily, he rose above that and continued on, providing a positive example of love and sex in a time when those things were being demonized. His influence and art is often copied and parodied but his legacy is one many artists would be happy to have for themselves. 

The director's next film was "Tolkien" and seems to examine war and its effects on a very different artist and this movie makes me want to check that out as well some day. 

HOWLin' NILFs!

I saw the best NILFs of my generation glorified by Beatness, acting cool and NOT naked, strutting on screen nationwide looking for an Oscar fix....why not?

HBO's Grey Gardens with Lange and Barrymore

The sets, costumes and make-up looks pretty darn impressive, I must say. I so hope Drew mastered the Beale accent.

It airs April 2009

Reexamining Frances

As a closeted gay teen, loaded with angst, I gravitated to the film Frances on cable Tv in the 80s. It was poetic and tragic (with a haunting score by John Barry) starring the radiant Jessica Lange -- and I ate it up. In the Oscar-nominated film, Frances doesn't take any shit from anyone (how very punk rock). She writes an atheistic essay at 16 and pisses off the locals. She then becomes a movie star, pops pills, fights police at The Knickerbocker Hotel, and has to be forcibly restrained before she'll play the 'Hollywood game'. Oh! and she also tells off her parents. Atta girl.

Well, imagine my surprise, 20 years later, when a friend clued me in to the TRUE story behind that 1982 film.

Frances Farmer was most likely what they would call bi-polar these days. With a defiant and independent streak, Frances had a difficult time playing the 30's submissive starlet role and eventually became a hard-drinking feisty lesbian.

She WAS institutionalized in Washington State Hospital for a time -- but was NOT icepick/transorbital-lobotomized into submission as the book Shadowland by Seattle film critic William Arnold claimed. As fate would have it, Mel Brooks' Production Company stole the "research" on FF from that book for his 1982 film Frances. Nobody checked the facts. Embellishment made for better drama. Kim Stanley's monster mother characterization of Lillian was Hollywood hype. The real Lillian Farmer was directly quoted several times defending Frances' decision not to resume her career.

The biography Shadowland was written with Arnold's Scientologist anti-psychiatry agenda. The controversial "church", that some say is simply a cult, still uses FF as their poster child for their "horrors of psychiatry" campaign. While in court for the Mel Brooks copyright infringement case, author Arnold admitted his FF bio to be "fictionalized."

The tagline on the movie posters read: "Her story is shocking, disturbing, compelling... and true." (that's showbiz!)

Frances got out of the hospital eventually, did a horrificly humiliating This is Your Life episode, and continued to get into more public drunkenness trouble. She settled in Indianapolis with her lady lover (who ghost-wrote FF's autobiography), hosted a local movie matinee TV show for 6 years, and died of throat cancer in 1970 just shy of her 57th birthday.

Unlike the very dramatic movie which ended with the caption "Frances Farmer died as she had lived...alone", I am telling you it looks like Frances actually lived and died as a woman full of piss & vinegar!