Get over yourself. I read the book. There were no "homosexual overtones." And as to "speaking disparagingly," I've made
-
mmcaravaggio — 12 years ago(September 05, 2013 03:34 PM)
Great insight. I've only watched 20 minutes of the movie, and it was obvious to me 20 minutes in that it's an allegory about a gay man in the heterosexual closet. I love the tennis picture and the eternal love pledge on the cup. Wild. This was very daring or seems now very daring, but at that point in time, there were other films with a similar very explicit theme of gay passing such as Reflections in a Golden Eye, so maybe people in filmmaking at the time were thinking about what it meant to be gay and closeted. Getting ready for that big explosion in 1969. It wouldn't surprise me given how involved Tennessee Williams was with filmmaking back then. So many of his plays deal with this issue and so many were filmed. He probably set going a thought process and spilled over into other films.
Just read the rest of the posts. That a novel on which a film is based does not contain material in the film is not a reason for saying the material is not in the film. Most films of novels are very different from the novels. Novels are not origins that like god dictate what shall be in a movie of the novel. And it works the other way as well. Melville's Billy Budd is all about closeted homosexuality, but no film of it has dared go there. So I'd say that if people like me and others who have posted here are sensing the theme from the start, then it's probably there. There are other typical themes of the era as well such as the "organizational man" idea that one finds in other books from back then like Revolutionary Road, One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Henderson the Rain King as well as in the Twilight Zone. At times, this feels and looks like an extended TW episode.
It would be fun to go back and see what was said back then in the reviews or in interviews with Frankenheimer and company. I suspect Hudson knew what he was doing when he signed on for this movie. -
-
lubin-freddy — 11 years ago(April 21, 2014 11:42 AM)
On second viewing this was quite clear to me as well, although it's just part of a wider sense of middle-age white American angst.
We're told several times, by the wife as well, that the marriage was pretty chaste, and that the husband had little interest in sex.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul -
mmcaravaggio — 11 years ago(April 22, 2014 05:26 AM)
I had not seen Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) when I posted about Seconds' implicit gay theme. Check out that film. Written by Williams and Vidal, it is really wild and very queer. So eastcoast filmmakers back then were putting gay themes into movies. Cool.
-
puirt-a-beul — 11 years ago(October 17, 2014 08:16 PM)
The movie being about an identity crisis, many others things regarding persona & psyche are probably evoked throughout the film, but closeted homosexuality seems like a good decyphering lead to me.
I think you have a valid and interesting point, Greg75. Thanks for making it.
I've just rewatched the film, and I do think considering it as a metaphor for closeted homosexuality opens up an understanding of the behaviour of Hudson's character.
Not that I think the film was actually saying Arthur was homosexual; for me it's about the cost to one's spirit of not being true to yourself, not expressing your own life fully, and the metaphor of closeted homosexuality is one that people can grasp readily, without having to be gay yourself to do so.
It's interesting that Frankenheimer cast Hudson as the lead. Hudson's homosexuality was known in Hollywood, and you wonder if Frankenheimer felt that would give Hudson an edge on grasping the role. His performance shows he had the acting chops to win the role, but he brings an underlying sadness and weary resignation to it that it's easy to think must be drawing on life experience.
But beyond the metaphor, the film reads consistently if you interpret it as actually saying that Arthur was gay. It's interesting that it depicts his friendship with Charlie as the only relationship in which he has been open and emotionally intimate. His wife doesn't depict him as having changed in recent years; she's only ever known him as distant and unenthusiastic; they have a child, but only one, so it's easy to think their intimacy has been infrequent, at best. Arthur is only really animated when talking to Charlie; even after his "awakening" at the wine festival, the best he does is in talking about his own life, with no real interest in the woman that's been sent to spy on him and provoke him. And the drugged fantasy with the woman makes as much sense if he was actually gay, and so it was intended to provoke him to admit his true nature, as if he was straight and it was intended to provoke him to consider his own life again, outside the bonds of his marriage.
The metaphor works, but it also works as an actual reading of the film. It may not have been how the majority of its audience was intended to view the film, but I personally don't doubt that the filmmakers understood it could be seen that way, nor that a reasonable number of viewers would take that meaning and not just the gay ones.
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment. -
craigbhill — 11 years ago(December 01, 2014 08:32 PM)
You confuse and conflate the actor's once-private life with the character he plays, which was not written for that specific actor. Nor was the novel based on a homosexual in any way, shape or form, but on an everyman or more exactly an anyman, or the bleeping POINT of the story would not have worked!
~ Native Angeleno -
oldgoldtop — 11 years ago(December 31, 2014 10:08 AM)
I would think it more serendipitous but can easily imagine Hudson may have at least contemplated the ironic connection. I consider this to be Hudsons finest performance and perhaps he was influenced by his own inescapable inner reality. As viewers we can easily consider the correlation, intentional or not. Hudsons orientation was reportedly well known inside Hollywood so perhaps the coincidence was not lost on others. In the film, Charlie and Arthur did care a great deal for each other but I do not believe it matters if it was platonic or homosexual. More significant IMHO is that it represented another important human relationship that Arthur had lost.
-
oldgoldtop — 11 years ago(January 01, 2015 11:38 AM)
I would think it more serendipitous but can easily imagine Hudson may have at least contemplated the ironic connection. I consider this to be Hudsons finest performance and perhaps he was influenced by his own inescapable inner reality. As viewers we can easily appreciate the correlation, intentional or not. Hudsons orientation was reportedly well known inside Hollywood so perhaps the coincidence was not lost on others. In the film, Charlie and Arthur did care a great deal for each other but I do not believe it matters if it was platonic or homosexual. More significant in my mind is that it represented another important human relationship that Arthur had lost.
-
I_Love_Hutch — 10 years ago(January 11, 2016 03:26 PM)
I realize I am very late coming into this thread. I Just watched Seconds last night and I loved it. But to comment on the OP, I didn't see any homosexual subtext here. However, I wanted to share a story that I read once about this movie and Rock Hudson.
During the filming of the party scene, the director, John Frankenheimer, thought it might work out well if Rock actually got drunk. Rock agreed to do this and proceeded to get fairly intoxicated. The closing bit at the party, when the men are holding him down and the man servant says "They know."
Frankenheimer said that though the public was completely unaware, most of Hollywood knew that Rock was gay. And when he broke down crying, he was unable to stop even after the cameras stopped. I guess it was sort of assumed that this had something to do with the theme of the movie, about identity and having to keep things a secret, being discovered, disapproval. The director pretty much said that Rock was tormented about his sexuality. Of course, this was 50 years ago.
I thought the movie was fascinating, if extremely depressing. Particularly the first half hour or so. John Randolph conveyed the quiet desperation almost a little too well. And IMO Rock Hudson gave an excellent dramatic performance. He was pretty adept at light comedy, but he really surprised me here. -
jock_tamsons_wee_brother — 9 years ago(August 25, 2016 09:48 AM)
I've just seen the film and I thought there was an underlying theme of repression but not in the way you suggest.
I was born well after that period but I get the impression that until the mid sixties was a stifling period of conformity where there was little chance of individuality if you wanted to pursue a safe middle class life. The need to be a reborn was a sort of rebellion against that. The idea for this film is great and I'm surprised it hasn't been remade but the social side is dated. Nowadays, men don't need to do as anything drastic as fake a death, get extensive plastic surgery and a new identity, they just have a mid-life crisis, start wearing jeans and t-shirt and buy a sports car.