Mark Dunlap
It wasn't long after I first watched The Boys in the Band, in the mid-1980s, that I went out to find a book with a copy of the play script. I re-read the script so often that I can feel I can accurately say it is downright perfect script: the dialog is always believable, interesting, consistently gives keen insights into the characters' personalities, and has some moments of delightful humor. One of the most fascinating things about how the script "builds" is that the climactic moment occurs with the utterance of a single word. I remember once a large group of us were watching the movie together and when that one word was uttered, someone gasped out loud.Is the film as good as the written word? Yes, but only almost. I am disappointed at the way some dialog was cut out of the film, and I don't just mean a long monologue by Michael in an early scene. Even towards the end there were some brief but crucial bits of dialog that would reveal even more about the personalities of the characters. For example, some other reviewers here have commented on some vicious racial slurs that are uttered in the movie, but there is a crucial line cut from the movie that explains why Bernard tolerates the fact that Emory utters those slurs. Even the Cowboy has a great line in the play that was cut out of the movie. So I recommend that people interested in the movie also try to find any book that contains the script too, and gain even better insight to the characters than you'll see in the film alone.Lastly, I strongly agree with the other reviewers here that Friedkins' direction, the camera work, and the actors are excellent, but I do have a quibble about post-production, namely the editing. There are a couple of scenes in which the process of splicing together segments of different takes is too obvious.
jzappa
What William Friedkin breaks down in 1970's grimly introspective independent chamber opus is a pre-liberation premise of violence joined with massive gentleness, efficiently encapsulated by ex-alcoholic Roman Catholic homosexual Michael when he offers, "You show me a happy homosexual, and I'll show you a gay corpse." The "boys" are greatly alert to their apprehensions, confronting them whenever they look at their reflections. And it's through reflections that Friedkin finds the sad underbelly of Crowley's script. Since homosexuality and hardcore profanity hadn't been so frankly handled in a mainstream movie yet, Friedkin's approach seems more effective, endeavoring to make his footprint without leaving the gum on the bottom of his shoe. He presents customariness in a cockeyed world where difficulty's inescapable.During the opening montage, except for Emory's hilarious flamboyance, the boys all appear "normal" enough. Then the wicked lure begins with eye contact. Michael's friend Donald tells him he was brought up to be a failure, so failure's all he feels accustomed to. Donald's oblique eye contact with Michael tells him, and us, that's why they're together. The looks are what tell the truth. Soon, Michael mourns being gay sans asserting it point-blank. He looks at a picture of himself while saying, "Waste, waste, waste." Indeed the dialogue elucidates the character, but by framing Michael within his own portrait, an ageless mirror, an endless remembrance of the past, Friedkin exposes a fading soul. Even former college roommate Alan, who Michael says wouldn't even betray any emotion in a plane crash, suggests compassion, and doubt in Friedkin's visualization. Alan loses control on the phone with Michael, desperate to visit and talk. After Alan hangs up, he grips his hands together, showing his wedding ring. By holding on this image one or two thumps, Friedkin visually places suspicion in our minds about "straight" Alan's intention for visiting his pal.Plays have no overpowering images. We watch the cast. In films, the camera thoroughly dictates what's seen. When Friedkin animates the camera, involves various angles, the scene feels unspoiled. For instance, near the beginning of the film, Michael, arms heaped with packages, struggles to get inside where the phone's ringing. He can't get the key in, and the ringing becomes a relentless nuisance. Rapid bumpy close-up movements on the keys in his hand, his face and the lock actually develop tension.When an antagonistic, intoxicated Michael instigates the "truth game," his apartment grows exceedingly oppressive. Everyone's humid, inebriated, clammy. Track lights are turned up, which abruptly give the uneasy feeling of an interrogation. Unlit ceilings, rained-on windows further squeeze the action. There's a great corkscrew energy, the breakthrough of startling insight. And, as time passes, there's a particular tranquility. We're still completely walled off in our own lunacy, but over time, it becomes normal. We're comfortable in the shadows from which Friedkin shoots whilst watching suspicion rise concerning Alan's sexuality, closet doors creaking to and fro, divorced teacher Hank and fashion photographer Larry's clashing on monogamy, and the crevices expanding in Harold and Michael's love-hate rapport.That Friedkin uses close-ups throughout the game when the guys call the one person they've ever loved intensifies accent on the caller's defenselessness. For instance, when Emory reaches his unrequited love recipient, we suffer his bittersweet elation when he says, "Del, is this really you?" And his sorrow, acknowledging, "You wouldn't remember me. I'm just a friend. A falling-down drunk friend." As Friedkin presses in for a close-up supported by Arthur Ornitz's skillfully murky cinematography, he separates the caller in a congested room, increasing the spectacle of absolute isolation.It's a parlor murder mystery in a sense. By divulging their deepest skeletons and doubts, the game's like the systematic murder of those who know too much, but in a psychosomatic sense, cruelly exposing their hearts in close-up, revealing a softness within. That Friedkin frames an unforgettable peak moment between Michael and Harold that's both stingingly brutal and honestly tender with Harold first approaching Michael, then isolating the two in frame adds to their unspoken yet implicit closeness.While the film itself acts as a mirror for exploring oneself, the mirrors in the film perform natural functions. When Michael scuffles for his keys and busts through the door, he sprints past the camera, which pans him inside. He rushes around the corner out of sight to answer the phone, yet we see him reproduced in the living room mirror. We observe it simply owing to his unexpected likeness in it. Friedkin frames the shot with Michael vanishing off one side of the screen and re-emerging in the reflection on the other side, at once opens the film but also foreshadows the cabin fever.Equally, when Alan calls Michael the second time, it's from a phone booth, the city lights mirrored in the glass surrounding him. But not his reflection. And when he hangs up, we cut outside the booth to incorporate a flashing yield light in the fore. We follow him until he crosses before cars' headlights. When Harold opens Michael's gift, we're in tight on Harold. The hostility between the two temporarily scatters. Friedkin frames them in independent close-ups, divulging their affection, easing the discontent. Temporarily. The friction fosters again. No one knows when it will detonate or who'll be hurt.The wry humor was hatched from a dejected sense of self, an emotional climate created by what the times told these characters about themselves. Kenneth Nelson, who plays Michael, and Leonard Frey, who plays Harold, characterize this in stark opposition. The cast as a whole matches each other evenly and strongly, yet most memorable, I dare say, Cliff Gorman's Emory. They were told they would keep gay people in a sort of public indigence, in the closet, but all society needed was for it to show them, to familiarize them, and thus integrate them. And it inched the closet door further open for gay characters in media and in all walks of life in our culture.
claudemercure
A birthday party among gay friends turns into a harrowing emotional experience. Writer Mart Crowley was obviously influenced by Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf - a deeper, funnier, and more disturbing play and film.The jokes in The Boys In The Band mostly fall flat, because it's so obvious they were written. The drama is much more effective. Hank and Larry have a realistically complex relationship, and their turn at the game of "telephone" is the film's most moving scene. And the prototypically acid-witted Harold could easily have been a caricature, but somehow Leonard Frey makes every bon mot and theatrical gesture come from a genuine place.Speaking of theatre, I rarely forgot that this film was based on a play, but that didn't prevent it from being engaging. Director William Friedkin is in large part responsible for this. His judicious decisions throughout - from well-chosen reaction shots to a good sense of dramatic timing - facilitate the viewer's emotional involvement.The Boys In The Band has been controversial among the gay community for portraying gay men as psychological disasters. I think this criticism is invalid. First, only one character (Michael) is a true mess. The problems of the others are more ordinary in nature. Second, it happens to be true that being gay is damaging, because from birth, we are taught that homosexuality is wrong. Even if no one says that in so many words, homophobia is impossible to avoid. It's been deemed acceptable behaviour for so long that it's become subtextual in everyday life. This leads to the self-loathing depicted in the movie, and to its too-baldly stated message: "If only we could just not hate ourselves quite so very much."
