Is there some special insight the LGBT possess? In my most copacetic moments I’ve thought this to be true. After all, being disenfranchised by the societal status quo offers one the possibility of a keener perspective on its workings than that enjoyed by those who aren’t obliged to question it in order to survive. Think of what Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and Getrude Stein had to say about politics, family, romantic love and language itself, much of it exceedingly pointed and incisive.
Not all LGBTs share this keener perspective of course. Self-loathing homosexuals (one could scarcely call them “gay”) like Joe McCarthy henchman turned Donald Trump role model Roy Cohn and more recently “Alt-right” would-be provocateur Milo Yiannopoulis are exceptions to the rule with their overt hostility to the “out and proud.” On a less histrionic level so is writer-director Xavier Dolan who recently declared “I would not say that being gay has influenced any of my work. And will probably not. I’m gay, but I also have brown hair and I’m nearsighted.” Well so much the worse for him. Such verbal shallowness only serves to underscore his artistic shortcomings.
The same can’t be said of today’s most important proudly “out” gay filmmakers Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, Tom Kalin, and now most remarkably Andrew Haigh. Besides gayness, Haynes has deal with everything from “environmental illness” (Safe in 1995) to the problems of the deaf. (Wonderstruck in 2017) And while Van Sant explored the lives of gay street hustlers in My Own Private Idaho (1991) and memorialized a martyred gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk in Milk (2008) he has also dealt with a straight working-class mathematical genius in Good Will Hunting (1997) and most recently a paraplegic cartoonist in Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far on Foot. (2018). Kalin, by constrast, has dealt with gayness but only within extreme and problematic circumstances: the Leopold and Loeb murder case biopic Swoon (1992) and in Savage Grace (2007)–the life and death of queer upper-class sybarite, Anthony Bakeland, and the incestuous-minded mother he murdered. Not exactly something to make GLAAD glad, though fans of iconoclastic “New Queer Cinema” have been delighted. But when it comes to Andrew Haigh his departures from gay material are of a quieter and devastatingly subtler sort.
Born in 1974, (five years after “Stonewall”) this British writer/director initially made his mark with three straightforwardly gay projects: Greek Pete (2009), a lightly satirical comedy about a “rent boy;” Weekend (2009) a deeply touching romance about a “one-night stand” that rapidly turns into something more; and last but far from least, Looking (2014-2016), the HBO series about a group of gay friends in modern day San Francisco. All exhibit an ability to address gay lives and loves honestly, unsensationally and often movingly.
From here Haigh has taken off with great success in very different, quite unexpected directions. 45 Years (2015)–an adaptation of writer David Cnstantine’s short story “In Another Country”–deals with a long-married middle-aged straight couple and the upset caused when a nearly-forgotten episode from their past rises up to reconfigure what had been a calm and unperturbed dailiness. Evidencing the same sensitivity towards the ebb and flow of personal feelings put so movingly on display with unknown actors in Weekend, 45 Years stars British film legends Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. Again one cannot help but be deeply impressed by Haigh’s ease with realistic drama (he has cited the Karel Reisz’ 1960 classic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as a major influence) but also the mastery with which he guides stars old enough to be his grandparents.
Throughout 45 Years one can sense Haigh’s genuine curiosity about the warp and woof of a relationship utterly different from the ones he has known, yet at the same time relevant to him in that what these characters experiemce in coupled maturity may well await Haigh in his own life with the man he recently married.
But 45 Years is only a sight detour compared to Haigh’s most recent film Lean on Pete. Adapted from a novel by Willy Vlautin, it centers on a sweet-spirited teenager (played with exceptional grace by Charlie Plummer) who following the death of his father (his mother was out of the picture many years before) must fend for his own with naught in the way of resources. He finds himself teaming up with a horse trainer, the ever-resourceful Steve Buscemi, who with the help of a female jockey played by Chloe Sevigny races horse at small time events at fairs and such in the Pacific northwest. Put in charge of a horse named “Lean on Pete,” Charlie finds himself emotionally drawn to the animal, even though both owner and jockey keep telling him “he’s just a horse.” This, of course, signals tragedy as horses like Lean on Pete once their racing prowess has ebbed are “sent to Mexico”–i.e. wherever there’s a slaughter house that will process them into dog food. Foolhardy Charlie, realizing Lean on Pete’s time is at an end kidnaps the horse and sets off on a journey that seems aimless at first, but is eventually aimed at reuniting him with an Aunt he hasn’t seen in years.
Certain foreign-born filmmakers like Antonioni with Zabriskie Point (1970) and Emir Kusterica with Arizona Dream (1993) seem keyed to portray America–particularly its Western regions, as a kind of surreal wonderland. But being British, Haigh fits right into America, just like Tony Richardson did with The Border (1982) and Blue Sky (released posthumously in 1994; Richardson died of AIDS in 1991) and Karel Reisz with his Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams (1985). What makes Haigh’s film come alive is the simplest thing imaginable–the sight and sound of his hero walking with and talking to the horse he’s come to love. No this isn’t a “kid loves horse” story like National Velvet (1944) or The Black Stallion (1979) for Haigh makes clear that what Charley is engaged in in these scenes is a species of “interior monologue.” He’s a young man in crisis trying his best to hold himself together while holding out hope that something will save him. He is in the end saved, being reunited with his Aunt, but the interior monologues he’s been engaged in are at an end as Lean on Pete was indeed “just a horse.”
Haigh’s refusal to run from the sadness and disappointment life is often heir too is refreshing, as is the fact that this is a film about an adolescent male that’s not locked on sexuality. We often forget that that’s not the only thing involved in growing up and Lean on Pete is a starkly sensible reminder of this fact.
At present Haigh is in the midst of making The North Water–a five part television mini-series scheduled for release in 2019 about a former army surgeon who signs up as a doctor aboard ship making an expedition to the Arctic only to discover that one member of the crew is a dangerous psychopath. No telling at this point if there’s anything “gay” in this story. But whether there is or isn’t one can be sure it will be redolent with the emotional insight that makes Andrew Haigh one of today’s most important film-making talents, and offer further proof that gayness may well be an artistic advantage for those artists who truly know who they are and what life in all its complexity is really like.