Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl, Locked
From the love scene in BRETT AND MELANIE: BOI MEETS GIRL
You would think that after 15 years, a dozen studies and half a dozen well-liked films that it would get easier, that I would start to feel like I know what I’m doing.
And in some ways it has.
When I get stuck, I can remind myself that in many ways, whatever the current couple might be, the approach has proven to be artistically and commercially successful, and there stands ever good chance that whatever I’m stuck on will give way, and ultimately I will find myself with another entertaining and erotic film.
But there is a flip side.
The approach is so very spare, so unaffected, that there’s precious little place to hide. In answering their own self-posed question “Why did we do this?” Brett and Melanie answered almost unison, “Fucking is easy, this (meaning the interview and the overall intimacy) is the hard part.”
Indeed.
With every successive film I become more and more aware how laid bare I am in this work. Maybe not to viewers, whom I hope are caught up in the words and bodies of the films’ subjects, but to myself.
—
For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, perhaps you’ve noticed a shift in the tenor in the past year or so. An uncertainty has replaced gumption. Too often generosity has given way to bitterness. 10 years after all the promise the internet seemed to offer for a real change in how sexuality and image-making might be understood, I look around and to me it looks like meet the new boss/same as the old boss; and I find myself making vows that I won’t get fooled again.
Then while I was in Bermuda, this:
Dear Mr. Comstock,
I’m just writing to you to thank you for changing my life. Okay, so that’s a bit effusive, but also true. In addition to simply growing up in our sexually insane society, I’m an abuse survivor. For all of my life, sexuality has been a harsh contrast between what I’ve secretly imagined it could and ought to be, and what a profound source of trauma it’s actually been. You make films that dare to show the former; that say “yes, this truly exists in the world, it is not just a fairy tale, and ordinary mortals can aspire to achieve it.”
Your artistic courage and conviction have deeply inspired me, and I hope in some small way I can inspire you in return. You’ve blogged about your frustrations with the porn industry, Google, and… well, just about everyone, in a culture that doesn’t understand what you’re doing. Please don’t forget that you aren’t doing this for them. I don’t know how many others actually write to you to say this but I feel certain that I’m not the only one for whom your vision of sexuality has been, or will be, desperately needed in today’s world.
Keep fighting the good fight.
S.W.
I read S.W.’s words tucked in the v-berth of INTEMPERANCE and was shaken to my core. I wrapped my arms around myself, holding on tight as I sobbed great heaving sobs and tears and snot streamed down my face. Six weeks earlier, at NYU Film School I compared myself to that immortalized Korean War Marine corporal, out of ammunition and options and shedding brave and and frustrated tears, still willing to fight, if only he had the means.
But that was not me in Bermuda. Means gone. Will gone. Nothing left but anguish that S.W.’s life had been so deeply wounded, that it fell to my meager little films to provide comfort, and shame that after all my good fortune, I didn’t know if I had the strength to “keep fighting the good fight.”
—-
BRETT AND MELANIE is locked. I am now working on getting a good encode, and from there making the DVD. Serendipitously, just a couple of days ago I received an e-mail from the Cultural Affairs Officer at the New York LGBT Center (where earlier this year Ashley and Kisha had two very successful screenings) asking if they could hold the World Premiere. I happily agreed. It’s nice to have my work acknowledged. It’s nice to know that the film will have an opportunity to play in front of an appreciative audience. It’s nice to know that at least sometimes, the film’s the thing, not who made the film, or why they made the film; but whether or not the audience will feel their time’s been well spend watching the film. I think I still have the will to fight that fight - to make films people enjoy seeing.
