view counter

Ethan Reid directs 'Fragments', the Incomplete films of Peter de Rome, Godfather of Gay porn

Fragments is the first feature by music video director Ethan Reid. There's no beating about the bush here. Warning: Contains strong, real sex, Greta Garbo, 70s footage, and new interviews with the notorious New Yorker, Peter de Rome. You can buy the film from the BFI online shop here.

 

a Pathétique Films production for
The British Film Institute
FRAGMENTS
The Incomplete Films of Peter de Rome

Running time: 42.30 mins. / Colour.
WARNING: Contains strong, real sex

Peter de Rome has been called “The Grandfather of Gay Porn” and “a legendary pioneering figure” in the field of homoerotica on film.  But like Orson Welles, the story of the films that Peter didn’t complete is just as fascinating as the classics for which he’s been hailed.

He began making erotic short films in the early 1960s, a time when few people dared to attempt this illegal activity. A fearless guerrilla film-maker – before the term was invented - he shot two men having sex on a New York subway train. In 1972 he filmed screen goddess Greta Garbo in the street near his apartment and included the footage in his film Adam and Yves. Few are aware that Garbo’s last screen appearance was in a porn film.

In Fragments: The Incomplete Films of Peter de Rome, shot in New York last November, Peter, now aged 87, talks about his extraordinary life and career. He reveals that two of his biggest fans were William Burroughs and Sir John Gielgud, both of whom wanted Peter to make movies based on their ideas.

Sir John even wrote Peter a scenario, Trouser Bar, about a gay orgy in a clothes shop. Peter hints that this film may still be made!

We also see extracts from incomplete movies never seen before in public. Footage shot on Fire Island may constitute the most substantial record in existence of life in this gay holiday resort in the mid-1960s. We see tantalising clips from the sexy Wet and Wild (1964), the outrageous Violation (1965) and the sinister Scopo  (1966) among many others.  

“I am often accused that my films are made 'purely for titillation.' If by titillation we mean the pleasure of excitement, that is exactly why they are made. I can think of no better reason.” (Peter de Rome from his autobiography The Erotic World of Peter de Rome)

Originally an actor, Peter de Rome was born in France, grew up in Kent and emigrated to New York after World War II. He bought his first 8mm camera in 1963 while working for the civil rights movement in the Southern states.

By day Peter worked as publicist for Hollywood legend David O. Selznick, but in his spare time he was making a very different sort of film.

In Fragments he describes how he tricked Kodak into developing his pornographic films and how he showed them at private parties for guests including David Hockney, Derek Jarman and Ossie Clark. In 1973 eight of the films were blown up to 16mm and released in a compilation, The Erotic Films of Peter de Rome. But Peter’s work was never seen in the UK in any format until he introduced several of his films at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival in 2007.

Also appearing in Fragments is legendary glam and punk rock photographer Leee Black Childers, one of many who praises Peter de Rome’s uncompromising lifestyle and imaginative and stylish movies. There’s little doubt that Peter inspired many artists still working today and that he’s been unfairly neglected in the history of erotic cinema. One of his shorts inspired Wakefield Poole, who went on to direct The Boys in the Sand (1971), now recognised as the first major gay porn feature.

Fragments is the first feature by music video director Ethan Reid. It’s produced by David McGillivray, whose In the Place of the Dead was shown at the LL&GFF in 2007.

Fragments will be screened at the 26th London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on 30th March 2012. Fragments and Abracadaver!, a short film produced by David McGillivray and starring Peter de Rome, are included on the DVD, The Erotic Films of Peter de Rome, which will be released by the British Film Institute on 26th March.

view counter