Tuesday, June 21, 2011

James Franco and His Zit Look Adorable at Screening of His Latest Gay Film, 'The Broken Tower'

Here's foxy James Franco at the Los Angeles Film Festival yesterday, where he showed off "The Broken Tower," his new film about Hart Crane, the tortured gay poet who committed suicide at 32 by jumping off the steamship USS Orizaba back in 1932. ("A look at the dreams, unapologetic love of men , manic highs and depressive, death-haunted lows of early 20th century rebellious, self-destructive visionary poet Hart Crane from his early years as the son of a wealthy Cleveland businessman through his sojourns in New York, Cuba and Paris.") Franco, who used the story as his thesis project at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, got the idea while reading Paul Mariani’s biography of Hart, who "ferociously chased sailors" when not "agonizing over every word" of his poetry. Naturally, Franco plays the title role, as well as directing, editing co-producing and writing the screenplay. The film isn't due in theaters until 2012, but after reading that it features graphic sex scenes of "Franco-as-Hart ebulliently performing fellatio on what appears to be an impressive phallus" and "ecstatic as he is topped during anal sex," I may just have to see about getting my hands on a screener sooner! Read a great Q&A with Franco about the film in the Jewish Journal HERE.

1 comment:

ML said...

There was definitely something going on with writers and poets back in the day. Check out this poem by Walt Whitman (1819-1892), and tell me it doesn't resonate in today's political climate:

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them?--Or what with the
destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of
These States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods,
and above every keel, little or large,
that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Walt Whitman
(Gay Pride torchbearer and early proponent of gay marriage?)