Frank was, for many years, my best friend, colleague and, at one point, my partner. We spent a significant amount of time together in Cannes, usually at the television markets of Miptv and Mipcom. I drank then; and Frank and I liked to “party” – i.e. drink too much, stay up too late, etc. Frank was handsome, had an attractive, well-muscled body which looked very good on the beach and, as well, he was intelligent, an accomplished painter as well as a multiple, award-winning film-maker!

Plus, he was single!

So, among the female population, he was thought of as a “catch” and thus much sought-after.

But, Frank was gay – before the term, “gay” was hijacked from the English language and its previous meaning of being “happy” and “in good spirits.”

I knew Frank from High School in the early fifties. As befitting the time, his sexual orientation was a mysterious problem and a source of confusion and anguish for him.

As the truth dawned on all of us, his acceptance of that truth changed his lifestyle forever!

The party scene.

This was the “roaring 70’s” for many of the gay crowd – pre AIDS, unfettered sex, 24 hour partying – the “world will never end” type of thing!

Frank took to this life full bore taking advantage of his attractiveness and expressing an assertiveness in personal relationships heretofore unseen in this somewhat shy but friendly man.

While I was married with children and am heterosexual, we continued both our friendship and business partnership as filmmakers – he primarily as a director and I as a producer.

Together, we had some significant success – and enjoyed the creative tension and results that our collaboration wrought.

But, all of this found its zenith during the 70’s and Frank ’s homosexuality manifested itself fundamentally underground – I know that he felt “trapped” within a sexual orientation that was basically unaccepted and unwanted in mainstream society.

Many homosexuals during this period were forced to lead double lives.

Through a mutual New Yorker friend, Adolpho, I was led one night through the gay bars and bathhouses of Manhattan – the sex was frenzied and open while each establishment was full – in fact, everything, and I mean everything, was “busting at its seams!”

So I was toured through this then quite murky and somewhat unknown, hidden “demimonde” that Frank and many of his fellow, gay men found so alluring. I have never forgotten that long ago New York night – it was both provocative and fascinating to see so many individuals throwing off all convention and sexual chains to such an untrammeled degree. In fact, in that, I envied them.

But I didn’t envy Frank, my very good and beautiful friend and partner; so talented as well as being gracious and humble, who was forced into a kind of “hiding” for most of a life that ended much too soon in his forties.

However, Frank and I enjoyed much creative passion and good times here in Cannes.

I am certain that he would heartily endorse this issue of Report from Cannes’ choice of movie – “Boys Don’t Cry” – with the breakout and academy-award winning role for Hillary Swank.

Movie Review:

Boys Don’t Cry

Directed by Kimberly Peirce — 1999
Starring: Hillary Swank, Peter Saarsgard, and Chloe Sevigny

This movie has some interesting facts surrounding it – the first and only movie directed by Peirce (to date), it was Swank’s first major role and she won the Academy Award as Best Actress that year for her brilliant performance and it is based upon a true story.

Teena Brandon of Lincoln, Nebraska is experiencing a “sexual identity crisis” (which, in this case means that Teena, a young girl, would prefer to be a young boy) thus changes her name to Brandon Teena, cuts her hair, dresses as a young man and travels to Falls City, Montana where she successfully passes as a male.

A dangerous crowd.

Brandon (Swank) immediately develops friendships with a rough, hard-drinking, trailer-park crowd. One of the friendships turns serious when Lana, played by Chloe Sevigny in another Academy Award performance for this film – as Best Supporting Actress – falls for Brandon in what starts out (in her mind) as a boy-girl relationship.

The Brandon/Lana romance deepens.

Of course, the situation deteriorates quickly as the romance deepens, anomalies appear and questions occur. Lana’s brother Tom Nissan and his friend John Lotter lead the brutal and drunken “investigation” into the Brandon Teena mystery. Both are ex-cons and the screen spews their hatred and violence as they finally discover the truth about Teena Brandon which, in turn, leads to their raping, beating and, ultimately, murdering the 20 year old Teena. 

The cinematic rendering of this true story is harrowing and challenging to watch. Hillary Swank and Chloe Sevigny give brilliant performances in very demanding roles. Swank researched “passing” as a young man for four weeks at the insistence of first-time director Peirce, who came across the story while in film school. According to Swank, she ventured into the bar scene of Santa Monica in “character” with husband and actor Chad Lowe along for support.

Her portrayal of the anguish, fear and dreams of Teena is mesmerizing while Sevigny brings to Lana a sensitivity and luminosity that allows the audience to accept her unconditional love for Teena/Brandon as true and beautiful even as everything is hurtling to barely-watchable violence, murder and tragedy.

After the discovery that Brandon is a girl, Lotter and Nissen beat and rape her.

I didn’t see the accompanying documentary on the DVD but I feel that I had already experienced the “truth” of Teena’s terrible ordeal. I heartily endorse the Werner Herzog view that there are two truths of any reality – the “accountant’s truth” and the “ecstatic truth.” The ecstatic truth is that which is expressed in fiction or in depictions of real stories wherein invented situations or events are included.

Such an artistic freedom may allow a deeper, almost mystical truth to emerge. Hillary Swank’s interpretation of the Teena Brandon personage as well as Chloe Sevigny’s work regarding the reality of Lana Nissen almost certainly is of this sort. This is what I love about movies – their ability to engage my emotions in such a cathartic manner that I, to some extent, experience what is happening on the screen!

Lana with the murdered Teena.

In the case of “Boys Don’t Cry,” I participated – somewhat – in the confusion, sadness, excitement, tenderness and fear of this young girl’s terrible odyssey. It’s the existence of this “ecstatic truth” that allows this superb and disturbing film to deliver its message of innocence and hope being smashed by ignorance and cruelty with such heartbreaking power.

But, as is too often the case, that is the way of our world! So, it’s a relief to see in the printed coda at the conclusion of “Boys Don’t Cry” that the murderers, John Lotter and Tom Nissen are, respectively, on death row awaiting execution and serving two consecutive life sentences.