Interior. Leather Bar.
by Bethany Lewis
INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR. is not what anyone expected it to be. Some thought it would be a remake of the 1980 Al Pacino film CRUISING. Some understood that it was to be the reimagining of 40 minutes of controversial footage cut from the film. It might even have been a docudrama chronicling the making of that infamous film. It is, in reality, partially the reimagining of that lost footage, and partly a docu-fiction detailing the shooting of that footage and how the people involved relate to the project. And yet, given this understanding of what INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR. is, it cannot in the least prepare you for the experience of watching the film; It does not remotely give you an idea of what to expect from the project. The misdirection of expectation has understandably split viewers and critics alike, the reaction tending toward one extreme or the other: love or hate. A man coming out of the screening before mine declared to a friend that he hated it, that it was nothing but talking. I, on the other hand, came out of the screening giving it a four out of five in the “audience favorite award” poll. Co-director Travis Mathews, who appeared in person for a Q&A after the film, acknowledged the intense and split reaction to the film, saying that he’s glad that the project got people thinking and talking. If there’s disagreement, at least there’s discussion.
The premise of the docu-fiction is that James Franco and Travis Mathews are recreating 40 minutes of censored footage from the film CRUISING. Franco brings his friend Val Lauren in to play the Pacino part. The film then focuses on Val as he comes to terms with his discomfort regarding the homosexual themes and explicit sex portrayed in the film to which he’s committed himself. Val’s struggle – and indeed even Franco’s initial struggle – highlights how ingrained hetero-normative ideas of love and sex are in mainstream straight culture, and how all other forms of love and sex are sidelined, ignored, or condemned. In a sequence after the filming of a gay S&M sex scene, Franco and Val have a conversation about the tastefulness, even the correctness, of putting such a scene in a film. Franco admits his initial shock on viewing the sex acts in the scene, but insists that he was more shocked by this initial reaction and the social constructs that had brainwashed him into thinking of sex in a specific, exclusionary manner. It is also an experiment in storytelling and challenging the acceptability of the tools at a filmmaker’s disposal. Franco intentionally uses explicit sex as a storytelling tool – a tool commonly perceived as purely pornographic in nature and socially unacceptable in mainstream non-pornographic films. Doubtless many consider INTERIOR. LEATHER BAR. a pornographic film based solely on its use of explicit sex, regardless of intention or purpose. Franco and Mathews consciously and continuously challenge their audience’s perception of sex, love, and pornography in an exceptionally smart, engaging, and provocative way.
The story goes that James Franco contacted Travis Mathews out of the blue, wanting to collaborate on a project that involved the film CRUISING and used explicit sex as a story telling tool. What results is something both distinctly Franco and distinctly Mathews. It has Franco’s frenzied passion and relentless intellectual curiosity, and Mathews’ intent gaze of study and exploration. The two make a perfect team, balancing each other out to create a perfectly paced and complete film. Not only is it smart, thought-provoking, and unusually racy, but it is delightfully funny and ultimately relatable. Val Lauren makes for a charming and empathetic guide through the film – a well-meaning, curious, confused, uncomfortable, but resilient proxy for the audience. We understand his discomfort, his culture shock at a life-style he doesn’t understand, his struggle to understand it, and his determination to accept it. We admire his willingness to explore his own perceptions and beliefs, to accept the possibility of change, rather than blindly refusing to engage. Whether right or wrong, he challenges us to have the discussion and to consider the arguments.
Despite our best efforts, alternative lifestyles and cultures can and do shock us - not simply because we find ourselves isolated within our own cultures and surrounded by others with similar lifestyles, but because popular media and mainstream society actively promote socially constructed normativity and ignore any other valid lifestyles. Franco and Mathews have made a film that challenges a lot of ideas and doubtless will spark a lot of fervent and intelligent discussion. In the end, Val has his own mind to make up, his own thoughts to digest, and we never get a chance to know the decision to which he comes. We are left without resolution, without our minds being made up for us. We are left with ideas to consider, free to think and digest and discuss, free to disagree or to agree – the point is that we are exposed to the possibility of something different.
