"Are you a Catholic?" (Actually No, But I *Get* It)
Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 7:06PM For The Lusty Month of May, we're looking at a few sex scenes. Here's Nathaniel...
They like to say that people come into your lives for a reason. Also true of movies. When I saw Priest (1994) in its American release in 1995, I was just out of the closet but still very much struggling with having been a strict Mormon for then roughly 100% of my life. The movie is about a gay Priest (Linus Roache) who struggles with his vows .... and not just the sexual ones. It hit me in a seismic way. This had never happened to me before or since but I started crying at the end and actually couldn't stop until after the credits had ended.
Where you are in life can dictate a lot about how you receive a movie. But this series is about sex scenes so let's narrow our focus. Today Priest's sex scene, which I had liked (okay, obsessed over - shut up) back then plays super tame. Why did it shock me then? I have the answer in 2015 watching it again...
We aren't very far into the movie when Father Pilkington (the brilliant Linus Roache who Hollywood totally missed the boat on back then as a leading man) takes off his collar, replaces with a dark jacket, and is instantly transformed into a hot piece. We hear bad generic dance music from the gay bar as he arrives and before the song is over, 1 minute and 10 seconds later in fact, he's already naked in bed with a trick named Graham played by Robert Carlyle. (Carlyle was then starting a run that would make him an enduring cinema and TV fixture with Trainspotting and The Full Monty coming right up. Today he's on Once Upon a Time but let's not think about that.)
All it took was TWO glances to kick start this sex adventure ??? I didn't know how this worked back then and never learned or was disappointed to realize (either/or) that life was not like this -- or at least it never was for me as a single person (if you experienced this instant ease with sex, shut up. Stop bragging) -- but it's the movies so hookups and romances have to happen quickly. You've only got 98 minutes, so get yer kit off.
I digress. Seeing Priest again is a revelation. The reason the sex scene then felt so radical is simply this: It's filmed EXACTLY like the most generic of straight sex scenes. As gay scenes, you know, weren't. And at least still aren't with much consistency.
Here's proof:
There is the suggestion that both parties have gotten naked without much in the way of actual nudity...
There is the loving close up of a nipple kiss to kick things off...
The move to the horizontal (if it doesn't happen before the nipple licking)...
A neck arching back in ecstacy, often preceded by someone slipping out of frame (as is the case here) to do unspeakably naughty things to private parts...
A head against the sheets or pillow...
And that adorable/annoying/ubiquitous cliché of cutaways to hands grasping each other more and more tightly as the scene progresses to denote things like *thrusting has begun* and *nearing orgasm* without actually showing or verbalizing those things.
All of which are the exact same beats, camera angles, and goings ons you see in most straight sex scenes and in the same order.
And then the post-coital shot. These are nearly always more fun than actual coitus in movies because there's more opportunities for variety, humor, storytelling, great line readings, and character beats.
Are you a Catholic?
It takes one to know one and Graham has both gaydar and Catholic-intuition. But Catholics don't hold the monopoly on sexual confusion or religious guilt, much as they like to talk about it, and Priest is universal. At the very least it was resonating all over the place in Salt Lake City that day in 1995.
*I understand that the UK version of Priest is some 7 minutes or so longer than the US version. If that 7 minutes is Graham and Pilkington in bed, please disregard everything you just read and send me the footage.
** While writing this article I accidentally clicked over to Priest (2011) and was forced to fantasize about Paul Bettany having sex with all the male vampires throughout time before he killed them. What? I had no choice!
Reader Comments (11)
Loved this movie and Linus Roache. Yeah, Hollywood pretty much slept on that one (although NYC aka the Law & Order franchises) didn't.
What you felt in SLC in 1995, I felt watching My Beatiful Laundrette in 1985 in Provo.
And I had a touch of that just watching people hint at it in a late night PBS showing of Cabaret circa 1975. (I was watching it on a portable black and white TV in my bedroom, thank heavens).
Director Antonia Bird cut a scene of Linus Roache's bare buttocks to ensure only an R rating in the USA.
(source: IMDB)
Tales of the City, PBS version, was my moment. I didn't even know it was possible to show more than hand holding and friendly hugs and stolen glances and of course, death and destruction in the end for their horrible ways as punishment.
Man, this movie was made when taking on gay parts was still a risk to your career. Kudos to these actors for taking it on.
The mostra intense movie watching of my life was "stand by me". I was changing my grade. Going from biology to movie school. And i was coming to my senses that my best friends from middle school were not my friends anymore becouse se lost touch. Soo, i watched The movie and was struck by life. I couldn't stop crying until The end of The end of The credits.
I still consider stand by me The best movie of all times.
I didn't realise, until 1971 and "Fortune and Men's Eyes" that other people had penises. I was shocked. But aroused. Then, in 1972 (probably early 1973) when I saw Cabaret, and Liza said to Michael York, "Maximilian." York responded, "I do." and she replied, "So do I." Well, I knew I wasn't alone in this world. I had a penis and I liked other men to like it and I liked it even more if they knew I liked theirs. In those 'dark ages' days, I was still under 25 years old. How things have changed since then! There can be good movies regardless of the sexual orientation of the characters. Brokeback was a great movie. The orientation had nothing to do with the greatness of that movie. And, I hate to admit... had I been an Academy voter that year, I would have voted for Crash. Having seen both repeatedly since, I now prefer Brokeback.
There are few movies with homosexual context which I can say rank up there with Brokeback. Off the cuff, the only one I can think of currently is Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and that was way back in 1971. But no sex scenes, other than a kiss. Most of the gay films I've viewed on youtube are not spectacular. I don't want to say they "suck", because they don't, but ....
That's it for today.
I've never seen this, or really heard about it. I'm pretty bad at viewing LGBT films outside of the recent big ones (Brokeback, Boys Don't Cry, The Hours, Kids Are All Right, etc.). I guess I'll have to watch out for it. Is it on Netflix?
I'm embarrassed to say my most emotional/intense experience was with Million Dollar Baby in my room late at night as a teenager. I really had nothing to relate to it, but for some reason I sobbed for 15 minutes straight like never before or since. Like more than when my parents got divorced! Haha. I think it was just a sad time for me when I saw it and I wasn't expecting that ending.
For me it was that devestating "the party's over" scene in 'And The Band Played On...' that did it to me. (I also learned about Poppers from that movie, but that's another story.).
I was a theater manager working alone on a Tuesday at AMC Galleria in St. Louis, when we had a sneak preview of this film during Holy Week. The local Catholic radio station found out that we were showing itannounced the plot twist that the film has a (*gasp*) Homosexual Priest in the film, and then gave out our private phone number on the air. (How they got that I don't know.)
St. Louis is very Catholic, so in the 7 hours I worked, I had to answer at least 150 or more irate phone calls from concerned citizens that I was going to Hell for showing such false flith of a film about a Homosexual Priest.
What did not concern the Catholics was the actual plot of the film, with the ethical dilemma of child abuse. No, the idea, the audacity that a film would have a homosexual priest was just unfathomable to them.
It was a nightmare of a night.
Oh, and by the way, at the same time this happened, the big news story of the week was the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in the metropolitan St. Louis area.
Homsexual priests?!?!? Why, I never!!!
The movie that did that to me was Maurice. I also cried at the end of that movie and was sad several days afterward.
I saw Priest on or around 1999. What is funny (or not) is that I am catholic (still am) but I got involved with a priest in 2000. That was the worst relationship that I have ever had.
I love this film and it helped me come to terms with how to relate to my faith and my sexuality. I think the uncut UK version also has Greg (Linus Roache) having flashback to that night when he met Graham (Carlyle) and it shows them dancing and Graham gesturing for Greg to come over with a "come here" gesture with his finger, suggesting that it was a bit more than just glances and then sex right away.
It is so beautiful how McGovern and Bird portrayed their relationship. Most times when Hollywood are going to show the tragic gay storyline (The Imitation Game, A Single Man etc.) they only show the angst, the guilt, the homophobic abuse. In Priest they show all that, but they remind the audience of why a person would choose to expose himself to that and that is because of the wonderful feeling of falling in love, loving another person and the amazing feeling of sexual satisfaction