Lee, Grant, and Judd
“Wedding Banquet”; Film Forum run; Carlyle hillbilly
BY DAVID NOH
Of all the many and varied
fi lms of Ang Lee’s, I
think his second, “The
Wedding Banquet” from
1993, remains his most satisfying.
A simple, human, and very funny
account of a mixed race gay couple
somehow having to face heterosexual
marriage, at a time when
the mere mention of a gay wedding
would bring on derision, was, I
think, more germane to Lee’s immigrant/
assimilated psyche than,
say, the Hulk, Jane Austen’s romantic
heroines or, God help us,
‘60s cowboys in love.
My view of “Brokeback Mountain”
is decidedly in the minority, but
two hunky straight actors, Heath
Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, “courageously”
playing gay for pay in a
prestige Oscar-worthy production
was, for me, a disconnect — never
more clearly than when the two did
the deed, like farm beasts without
benefi t of any foreplay whatsoever
or, I might add, lubricant. Lee once
told me, “Oh, I’m too shy when it
comes to sex scenes. I just let the
actors work it out for themselves.”
So the two actors behaved just like
straight men playing gay: go right
to the cornholing and get it all over
with as quickly as possible.
By contrast, the wayward emotions
and hilarious mishaps in
“The Wedding Banquet” may have
been a trifl e exaggerated at times
but overall this small indie production
had a bracing authenticity to
it. The indispensable Quad is presenting
a special screening of it on
November 19, part of its “Coming
Out Again” monthly series, focusing
on lesser known queer fi lm
landmarks. The screening will be
followed by a Q&A with its co-writer
and producer James Schamus.
For one more week at Lincoln
Center’s Eleanor Bunin Film
Center is Navad Lapid’s “Synonyms,”
the best fi lm I’ve seen
this year, starring the phenomenal
and gorgeous newcomer Tom
Mercier. This astonishing, daring
work about a traumatized immigrant
May Chin, Winston Chao, and Mitchell Lichtenstein in Ang Lee’s 1993 “The Wedding Banquet,” at the
Quad Cinema on November 19 as part of its “Coming Out Again” monthly series.
Lee Grant and Warren Beatty in Hal Ashby’s 1975 “Shampoo,” at the Film Forum December 1.
Israel ex-soldier’s experience
in Paris is at once diffi cult, exhilarating,
disturbing, and often quite
beautiful in its relentless exploration
of the truth, profoundly ugly
as it may be in our world today. It
has echoes in it of two other confrontational,
sexy, and seminal
fi lms with a Paris setting — Bertolucci’s
“Last Tango in Paris” and
Jean Eustache’s “The Mother and
the Whore” — and is, superior to
both. Brando’s butter shtick in
“Last Tango” is nothing compared
to what Mercier’s character puts
himself through at the behest of
a gay porn director. It leaves you
gasping for breath and yet rapt.
Coming up at Film Forum,
FILM FORUM
FILM FORUM
starting November 17, is a fi lm
festival featuring that most intelligent
and radiantly durable
of actresses Lee Grant, who survived
a McCarthy era blacklisting
to go on to appear in an Oscarwinning
fi lm, “In the Heat of the
Night,” as well as to win one herself,
as a deliciously rapacious Beverly
Hills rich bitch in Hal Ashby’s
dazzling “Shampoo.”
On the roster of screenings are
those two titles, as well as William
Wyler’s “Detective Story’ in which
she played a shoplifter, winning a
Cannes prize and an Oscar nomination;
Jean Genet’s “The Balcony,”
where she was the assistant/ lover
of Shelley Winter’s brothel madam;
and “An Affair of the Skin,” an art
fi lm curio from 1963 by Ben Maddow,
about an unhappily married
wife (Grant) and husband (Kevin
McCarthy), whose lives intertwine
with an aging model (Viveca Lindfors)
afraid of losing her young
lover.
Grant was something of muse to
rebel auteur Ashby, and his timely
“The Landlord” is also scheduled,
with Grant playing the wealthy
mother of Beau Bridges who cannot
understand why he bought an
apartment building in late-‘60s
Brooklyn, until she drops by and
gets rollickingly high and scarfs
ham hocks with none other than
Pearl Bailey. It is my very favorite
420 movie scene.
When I spoke to Grant back in
2014 — when she published her
marvelous, coruscatingly honest
memoir, “I Said Yes to Everything”
— she was every bit the
friendly, ultra-smart, and warm
pal you’d dream of having. I felt I
had been decorated when she said
at end, “You’re my new best friend!
I’ve talked with you about things
I haven’t talked about with anybody!”
From the moment Wynonna
Judd stalked irritably onto the
stage at Café Carlyle on October
15 — confi ding she’d forgotten to
pack the outfi t she was supposed
to wear — and gave forth with elemental,
soul-stirring sound on the
Anthony Newley/ Leslie Bricusse
warhorse “Feeling Good,” I was in
the palm of her hand. Not only was
there that voice, but also a beautifully
sculpted Statue of Liberty
face, an unpredictably uproarious
wit that ranges from low-down
backwoods to bone-dry as Noël
Coward, queenly confi dence that
at times verged into Mae West-land
with haughty smirk of a smile, and
seen-everything eyes, rolling up to
the heavens in sarcasm as well as
musical transport (as she played
guitar, harmonica, and snare
drum).
Most of all, there was an undeniable,
priceless authenticity, as she
➤ CARLYLE HILLBILLY, continued on p.34
November 7 - November 20, 30 2019 | GayCityNews.com
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