Boys in the Sand (1971): A Gay Coffee Table Porno

Boys in the Sand (1971)

Dir: Wakefield Poole

From a distance, it seems unnatural for the world of the 1970s porno chic to have seemingly caught popularity with a low budget gay hardcore pornographic film that featured no dialogue to go with its trilogy of sexual adventures. However, Boys in the Sand is a gorgeously shot amateur feature that fills the screen with fantasia and matters of cultural and political import.

Comparing the film to the early works of Andy Warhol isn't just a compliment, it's a given. Poole was one of Warhol's contemporaries, and seems to have been inspired by Warhol's earlier works of objectification and voyeurism, such as those featured in both My Hustler and Chelsea Girls. The main difference between the Warhol/Morrissey pictures and Boys in the Sand, other than the hardcore sexuality that Poole was now able to deal in, is that Warhol's films present a sense of jaded detatchment, while Poole is fully engaged in his scene, and hopeful for the next steps to come.

Boys in the Sand is a trilogy of short films featuring Casey Donovan (nee Cal Culver), a blond hairy and toned sort with a sizable phallus, who would go on to be one of the first gay pornographic superstars. All three are presented as fantasias of secret desire and lust.

Bayside begins with a dark haired Peter Fisk walking down a long boardwalk, hopping off at an unmarked location, wandering through a long path of sorts through the forest and ending up at an isolated nude beach, where he strips down to catch some rays and contemplate the water. Casey Donovan magically appears out of the water, and walks up to him. They engage in some beach sex before leaving for a more secluded area in the trees, where they get down on a blanket. When both have came, Fisk puts his leather bracelet/cock ring on Donovan's wrist and wanders out into the water to disappear. Donovan, now alone, dons Fisk's clothing and walks down the beach.

Poolside is a Donovan showcase, where he stars as a richer gay man who is trying to pick up guys on the boardwalk by using the gay newspaper as a signal he's gay. Unsuccessful, he wanders home to sunbathe by the pool, when he finds an ad that he mails about. Time goes by, filled with swimming and wandering the beaches, when he gets his package in the mail. Inside, is a tablet that, when thrown in the pool, becomes Danny DiCoccio. They get it on, and once finished, they get dressed and go out as a couple. On the boardwalk, they meet another lonely gay soul with the same paper.

Inside features Donovan lounging in a treehouse-styled house, when he spots Randy Moore, a power employee setting up a long pole to fix the cables. After taking a shower, he fantasizes about Randy Moore, first laying naked in his sunroom, then out on the deck, then on his landing, and finally in his bed. But, Randy is just his imagination, as he huffs poppers and fucks himself on a large black dildo. After he climaxes and cleans up, he wanders back downstairs to find Moore waiting for him outside his front door. He smiles, and they go inside, closing the front door.

These stories feature gay life in a way that's a blend of fantasia and reality. Bayside features a fantasia of the real phenomenon of cruising, where a blond god comes out of the sea. Poolside blends the reality of gay bar busts with the fantasia of being able to mail-order a boyfriend who comes in a tablet without ever having to be worried about being raided. Inside is about fantasizing about men who may actually be straight, but you can't proposition them because of gay panic, then the hopefulness of the object of your fantasy being attainably gay.

There are no judgments here. Gay is good and beautiful, and gay life comes with its own desires and wants and needs. Gay men have dogs too. They're respectful of straight borders. They lust, they need fulfillment. And, their lust has no borders. Not only is this a gay male fantasia, but the last of the vignettes features an interracial coupling, which features Moore as a power figure with many of the same stances seen in Bayside.

But, Poole is also making comments on the daily life of a gay man. There are reasons why he has the closeups of the raided bars in 1971, 2 years after Stonewall. These were everyday worries of the gay man in a political sense. You couldn't actively go after men for fear they would kick your ass, which is why the majority of Inside is a fantasy about the unattainable until he is attainable. You could go hookup and meet people on beaches that were secluded and distanced and out of the public eye, but you probably had to know about them. These were regular bits of knowledge that have been passed down through the generations.

But, what makes Boys in the Sand so essential is the cinematography. Shot on a handheld, which is reminiscent of the Warhol shorts, Poole manages to create a lush and richly photographed film about gay sexuality. In movies that had preceded it, and would follow it, frequently the films would eschew quality imagery just to have hard raw sexuality featured in a raw light. There was nothing romantic or beautiful about it. But, looking at the images in this, you come to realize that Poole's main limitation was the quality of film stock. While the handheld nature of the film leads to periodic shaky cam pans, it's forgivable for many of the stills that he created which were framed as deeply as any mainstream film would before it. Sometimes it was random luck, and sometimes it was static shots that were purely intentional, but Poole's films frequently had a gorgeousness to them that is rarely seen in pornographic filmmaking.

Is Boys in the Sand essential? Is it good? Well, it's erotic, and it's beautifully shot. To say it is just a gay pornographic film is so reductive of the qualities that are in it. But, it is primarily a pornographic film. It's place in the history of porno chic is undeniable, and its place as a gay time capsule of the post-Stonewall worries of 1971 also render this to be a must watch for those who want to see what people were thinking and worrying about. I enjoyed watching it, and it is romantic in an anonymous way.

The Virgin Spring (1960): Arthouse does rape-revenge

The Virgin Spring (1960)
aka Jungfrukallen
dir: Ingmar Bergman

Throughout this website already, I have been cataloging the varieties of the rape-revenge genre. The movies have had different purposes: a feminist take (Descent), a desire for female agency (I Spit On Your Grave), a genderqueer primal scream (Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives), a sociopolitical teardown (The Woman), or completely exploitative desires (Thriller: A Cruel Picture). For the majority of these movies, the final goal of the film is to get to the revenge, and because rape is such a violating act, the victim is exonerated from any vengeful act they participate in, regardless of depravity of the vengeance. Descent is the obvious exception, in that Maya eventually realizes that her revenge is not as satisfying as she wants it to be.

Given the age of the above movies, one might think that rape-revenge is a rather new genre. But, the rape-revenge genre is older than old. One can look to the Roman story of Lucretia, whose rape, and subsequent suicide, led to the vengeful overthrowing of the Roman Monarchy that led to the development of the Roman Republic.

The Virgin Spring has origins in a murder-revenge ballad from 1673, Tore's Daughters in Vange. In the ballad, Tore's 3 virgin daughters were on their way to churc, when they were murdered by herdsmen, and a spring developed where they were murdered. The herdsmen continued on to Vange after the murders, and sought shelter in the home of the parents of the daughters. Upon discovering what the herdsmen had done, the father, Tore, killed the two older herdsmen. Before Tore could murder the youngest Herdsman, Tore asks their identity and discovers that the herdsmen were his sons who were returning home. So, three guys killed three virgins, who happened to be their sisters, and then were killed by their parents out of vengeance. Upon this realization, Tore asked God for forgiveness, and built a church on the site of the spring as retribution.

The Virgin Spring re-develops this framework to change it from an familial story of non-identity and murder to a rape/murder-revenge story about violation and grief. Bergman has also crafted a story of envy, religion, sin, redemption, shame, and guilt. That the story is set in medieval Sweden focuses even more of the story on the classic themes it portrays instead of trying to claim it is a story of modern sins.

Bergman opens the movie with a shot of a demonic-looking woman. She is visibly very pregnant, and she is opening up the kitchen for the day, while also praying to Odin for help in her situation. In the next scene, her family is openly worshiping a Crucifix, posing as a duality between the Christian masses and the polytheistic worshipers of the Gods of old. As soon as they finish praying, the Christians start figuratively putting more yokes on the pregnant woman, Ingeri, who is also their half-daughter and is also pregnant out of wedlock. The proceed to slut-shame her for her indiscretions, and tell her how much of a burden she is. Meanwhile, their good and blonde daughter Karin is busy sleeping away the day after dancing so long the night before. Being a maiden, she is supposed to be taking the virgin candles to the church, but she is too busy snoooozing while her mother is making excuses. After waking, and agreeing to delivering the candles, Karin demands to wear a specific dress, and also demands to have Ingeri accompany her on her journey to the church.

In the first act, Bergman has already set up Odin vs Christianity, Ingeri (sinner) vs Karin (virgin), envy, nepotism, family dedication, and the shame of out-of-wedlock pregnancy. But, Bergman has also set up the innocence and naivety of Karin as she constantly witnesses her parents' oppression of Ingeri and, feeling sympathy, wants to give support Ingeri as a human being.

Ingeri and Karin set out on their journey to the church. As they travel down the path, Ingeri pretty much calls Karin a slut for dancing with everybody the night before, and tells her that she's gonna get raped behind some bushes. Meanwhile, Karin is all "I just am asking around for your benefit, and I think that I can fight guys off."  Ingeri, frustrated that she couldn't get Karin's goat, ditches Karin and visits the cabin of Odin's real world analogue. The analogue tries to rape Ingeri, but she runs away from him and his assault.

On the other side of the narrative, Karin comes across 3 herdsmen with whom she shares the picnic which was provided to her. After eating, the herdsmen rape and murder Karin while Ingeri looks on from a cliff. At first, Ingeri looks happy that Karin is getting violated. But, as Ingeri witnesses the brutality, she starts regretting her desire for Karin to be violated. The youngest herdsman, who is just a wee child, also looks horrified at what he just witnessed.

The herdsmen take all of Ingeri's belongings, including her special dress, and make their way to the residence where we began. At first they're taken in by the family, until the herdsmen try to sell her dress for money. Upon identifying the dress as Karin's, the parents fret, grieve, prepare themselves, and then murder the highwaymen. In the end, looking upon the murdered boy herdsman, the parents start to realize what they had done. But, they have to find Karin, whose body is still in the field. Upon finding the body, the family begs forgiveness, and believes that the building of a church is the best form of atonement for the crimes they committed out of revenge.

What The Virgin Spring retains that most of the other films do not is that need for a post-revenge redemption. The Woman attempts a perverted redemption by having the Woman take one of the children as payment for the suffering inflicted on her. But, really, that isn't nearly as redemptive as the idea of doing something altruistic in a place where so much evil has been done. Building a church out of a sincere sense of self-knowledge of one's evil acts is morally redemptive, and actually builds something constructive out of the mess.

Last House on the Left, the American kind-of adaptation, eschews the rebuilding of community for a scorched earth finale. Last House attests that the situation has irrevocably changed this family, and is not interested in any guilt of the family over their revenge. But, Last House on the Left is also political in nature. Craven has argued that Last House is about the Vietnam war. And, by participating in the act of aggression and revenge, America had never apologized, and so his characters do not need to apologize.

Still, the changes of The Virgin Spring from the original ballad inform the audience that Bergman was less interested in the sordid and more interested in the morality. By not making everybody related, and removing the incest and kid-killing twist at the end of the ballad, Bergman places the focus squarely on religion and shame for the course of the movie. Even immediately after the violation, Karin is walking around shell-shocked, traumatized, and crying before she is murdered by a blow to the head. She is ashamed and violated, but is offered no chance at redemption or forgiveness.

The Virgin Spring is not graphic by today's terms, and Bergman's methodical pacing extracts the horror from the onscreen acts. The horror is replaced with a studied distance at the immorality that surrounds the piece. The multi-layered nature of the film, delving into emotions and religion among other issues, makes the film still vital. Add in a bit of shame and guilt and The Virgin Spring is still an essential entry into the rape-revenge genre.