Bruce LaBruce
Bruce LaBruce | |
|---|---|
 LaBruce in 2011 | |
| Born | January 3, 1964 Southampton, Ontario,Canada |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, writer, filmmaker, photographer, underground adult director |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Website | brucelabruce |
Bruce LaBruce(born January 3, 1964)[1]is a Canadian artist,[2]writer, filmmaker, photographer, and underground director based inToronto.
Life and career
[edit]LaBruce was born inTiverton, Ontario.[3]He has claimed bothJustin StewartandBryan Bruceas his birth name in different sources.[4]He studied film atYork Universityin Toronto and wrote forCineactionmagazine, curated byRobin Wood,his teacher.
He first gained public attention with the publication of thequeer punkzineJ.D.s,which he co-edited withG.B. Jones.[1][5]He has written and photographed for a variety of publications includingVice,the formerNerve.comandBlackBook Magazine,and has been a columnist for the Canadian music magazineExclaim!and Toronto'sEye Weekly,as well as a contributing editor and photographer for New York'sIndex Magazine.He has also been published inToronto Life,theNational PostandThe Guardian.
His movie,Otto; or Up with Dead Peopledebuted at the2008 Sundance Film Festival.L.A. Zombiewas banned from theMelbourne International Film Festivalin 2010 because, in the opinion of Australian censors, it would have been refused classification. However, the film was subsequently able to screen atOutTakes,aNew Zealandlesbian and gay international film festival, in May 2011.[6][7]
In March 2011, LaBruce directed a performance ofArnold Schoenberg's operaPierrot Lunaireat theHebbel am UferTheatre inBerlin.This iteration of the opera included gender diversity,castrationscenes anddildos,as well as portraying Pierrot as atransgenderman.[8]He subsequently also filmed this adaptation as the 2014 theatrical filmPierrot Lunaire.
Beginning withGerontophiliain 2013, LaBruce dropped some of the more sexually explicit aspects of his filmmaking style. He retained his traditional interest in exploring sexual taboos, dramatizing an intergenerational relationship between a young man and a senior citizen, but opted to do so within a film that would be more palatable to a mainstream audience.[9]
In 2018, LaBruce directed the short filmScotch Eggas part ofErika Lust'sXConfessionsseries. The short is about a Scottish gay man who has sex with a woman in a gay bar. LaBruce was inspired to create the film after reading a confession sent toXConfessionsby a heterosexual woman who fantasized about going to a gay bar and having sex with a homosexual man.[10][11][12]
His short film collectionIt Is Not the Pornographer That Is Perverse...was released in 2018. The title refers toRosa von Praunheim's filmIt Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives(1971).[13]
In 2024, his filmThe Visitorwas selected in the Panorama section at the74th Berlin International Film Festivalwhere it premiered February 17.[14]
Themes and style
[edit]According to Courtney Fathom Sell ofSouth Coast Today,some of his films explore themes of sexual and interpersonaltransgressionagainst cultural norms, frequently blending the artistic and production techniques ofindependent filmwithgay pornography.[15]
LaBruce's filmmaking style is marked by a blend of explicitlypornographicdepictions of sex with more conventionalnarrativeand filmmaking techniques, as well as an interest in extreme topics which mainstream audiences might dismiss as shocking or disturbingtaboos.[16]For instance, his films have depicted scenes of sexualfetishandparaphilia,BDSM,gang rape,racially-motivated violence,amputee fetishism,gerontophilia,male and femaleprostitution,twincest,andzombieandvampiresexuality.[16]
He has frequently been identified with theNew Queer Cinemamovement that emerged in the 1990s,[16]although at the height of that movement's prominence, he rejected the association on the grounds that he felt more personally aligned with thequeercoremovement.[16]The queercore movement was born in the 1980s and LaBruce was one of the fathers. Noted as the avant-garde and unapologetic gay answer to the punk movement, queercore expressed the very same discontent with society as the punks were stating.[17]
Filmography
[edit]Feature films
[edit]- No Skin Off My Ass(1991)
- Super 8½(1994)
- Hustler White(1996), co-directed & written with Rick Castro
- Skin Flick/Skin Gang(1999)
- The Raspberry Reich(2004)
- Otto; or, Up with Dead People(2008)
- L.A. Zombie(2010)
- Gerontophilia(2013)
- Pierrot Lunaire(2014)
- The Misandrists(2017)
- Ulrike's Brain(2017)
- It is Not the Pornographer That is Perverse...(2018) forCockyBoysstudio
- Saint-Narcisse(2020)
- The Affairs of Lidia(2022)
- The Visitor(2024)
Short films
[edit]- Boy, Girl(1987)
- I Know What It's Like to Be Dead(1987)
- Bruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy's Home Movies(1988), co-directed with Candy Parker
- A Case for the Closet(1992)
- The Post Queer Tour(1992)
- Slam!(1992)
- Come As You Are(2000)
- Give Piece of Ass a Chance(2007)
- The Bad Breast, or The Case of Theda Lange(2010)
- Weekend in Alphaville(2010)
- Défense de fumer(2014)
- Refugee's Welcome(2017)
- Scotch Egg(2018)
- Valentin, Pierre and Catalina(2018)
Books
[edit]- Ride Queer, Ride(1996)
- The Reluctant Pornographer(1997)[1]
Awards
[edit]- 2019:XBIZ Award– Gay Director of the Year[18]
References
[edit]- ^abc"Arts: Bruce LaBruce".Archived fromthe originalon October 26, 2004.
- ^"A Timeline of Photographer Bruce LaBruce's Erotic Career".Paper.February 18, 2018.
- ^Gayle MacDonald (July 22, 2010)."Australians won't see zombies having sex".The Globe and Mail.RetrievedJanuary 12,2012.
- ^"Filmmaker's series critiques gay sensibilities".Toronto Star,November 1999.
- ^Block, Adam (November 20, 1990)."The Queen of 'Zine"(PDF).The Advocate.p. 75.RetrievedMarch 12,2020.
- ^Festival zombie porn flick banned.ABC News,July 21, 2010.
- ^"Bruce LaBruce zombie film banned in Australia".CBC News.July 21, 2010.RetrievedJanuary 12,2012.
- ^Michael Ladner."Bruce LaBruce and Item Idem at the Opera".Butt,March 10, 2011.
- ^"Marie-Hélène Thibault et Pier-Gabriel Lajoie dans «Gerontophilia», un film de Bruce LaBruce tourné à Montréal".Huffington Post,December 19, 2012.(in French)
- ^""Are you a good boy?" – Scotch Egg by Bruce LaBruce now on XConfessions! ".Erika Lust. Archived fromthe originalon August 12, 2019.RetrievedAugust 12,2019.
- ^"Scotch Porn".The Wee Review.RetrievedAugust 12,2019.
- ^"PORNOTOPIA: Adult sex film fest comes to Toronto a second time!".Toronto Sun.RetrievedAugust 12,2019.
- ^"It is Not the Pornographer That is Perverse..."TOP Kino.RetrievedDecember 5,2021.
- ^"The Panorama strand of the Berlinale to open with Levan Akin's Crossing".Cineuropa - the best of european cinema.January 17, 2024.RetrievedMarch 20,2024.
- ^Punched in the Nose: An Interview with Filmmaker Bruce LaBruceArchivedMarch 4, 2016, at theWayback Machine.South Coast Today,February 27, 2008.
- ^abcd"Bruce LaBruce: There Is a Certain Romance to It".L.A. Record,June 26, 2009.
- ^Dave Croyle (2014)."Sexual Revolution, Bruce LaBruce".Gay Essential. Archived fromthe originalon November 5, 2014.RetrievedDecember 10,2014.
- ^XBIZ Award Winners,XBIZ,January 2019
External links
[edit]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- 1964 births
- Alt porn
- Living people
- Canadian columnists
- Film directors from Toronto
- Screenwriters from Toronto
- Film producers from Ontario
- Canadian male screenwriters
- Canadian pornographic film directors
- Canadian experimental filmmakers
- English-language film directors
- German-language film directors
- Canadian gay writers
- Canadian LGBT artists
- Canadian LGBT film directors
- Canadian LGBT screenwriters
- Queercore
- People from Bruce County
- Canadian theatre directors
- Canadian horror film directors
- Canadian photographers
- Canadian contemporary artists
- LGBT photographers
- 21st-century Canadian LGBT people
- 20th-century Canadian screenwriters
- 20th-century Canadian male writers
- 21st-century Canadian screenwriters
- 21st-century Canadian male writers
- Gay screenwriters
- 20th-century Canadian LGBT people