Photographers Unknown, The Faces of Man: Photo Set Ten

“Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face – the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man – all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us – we have died – what is there to be afraid of?

 It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I’m afraid of being rushed.” 

—Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man

Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel “A Single Man” is considered by many to be his finest achievement. When it first appeared, it shocked many with its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in maturity. The novel,  which was Isherwood’s favorite of his own work, depicts one day in the life of George, a middle-aged gay Englishman who is a professor at a Los Angeles University. He is an outsider in every way, and his internal reflections and interactions with others reveal a man who loves being alive despite everyday injustices and loneliness. George, unable to cope with the sudden death of his younger partner Jim, encounters different people who give him insight into the possibilities of being alive and human in the world. 

“A Single Man” was adapted into the drama film of the same name in 2009. It was the directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford, and starred Colin Firth who, for his role in the film, was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award. Matthew Goode plays Jim, his partner, seen in flashback sequences. Shot in twenty-one days, the film premiered on the 11th of September, 2009, at the 66th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the festival’s third annual Queer Lion Award, and then entered the film festival circuit. It had an initial limited run in the United States in December of 2009, and began its wider release in the early part of 2010.