Category: gay photography

Aluzio Abranches, “Do Começo ao Film”: Film History

Aluizio Abranches, “Do Começo ao Fim”, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs (Rafael Cardoso and João Gabriel Vasconcellos), 2009, Cinematographer Ueli Steiger, Soundtrack André Abujamra

“Do Começo ao Fim (From Beginning to End)” is a 2009 Brazilian romantic drama film written and directed by Aluizio Abranches. The film stars Rafael Cardoso as Thomás and João Gabriel Vasconcellos as his brother Francisco. In their early stage of life, Gabriel Kaufmann is in the role of Thomás at age six and Lucas Cotrim plays Francisco at the age of eleven. Júlia Lemmertz is in the role of their mother, who gave birth to Francisco in her first marriage and Thomás in her second marriage to husband Alexandre played by Fábio Assunção. 

“Do Começo ao Fim” was filmed almost entirely in Rio de Janeiro with parts filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For its premier, nine copies of the film were released in Brazil in 2009. Despite the limited release, the film became one of the top ten most-watched Brazilian films in that year. In 2010, it was released in DVD form in Brazil with success; after its premier in France, the first edition of the DVD and Blu-ray sold out in less than two weeks. 

The film was shown in 2010 at the Seattle International Film Festival in May, the Frameline Film Festival (the oldest LBGTQ+ film festival in the world) in June, and in July the Outfest Film Festival and QFest. The film which dealt with homosexuality and incest received mixed reviews.

Norman Maclean: “I Am Haunted by Waters”

Photographer Unknown, (Still Water)

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.”

― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

Terry Eagleton: “Arbitrary Definitions of Normality”

Photographer Unknown, (Heavy Construction)

“Equally serious is the complaint that psychoanalysis as a medical practice is a form of oppressive social control, labelling individuals and forcing them to conform to arbitrary definitions of ‘normality’. This charge is in fact more usually aimed against psychiatric medicine as a whole: as far as Freud’s own views on ‘normality’ are concerned, the accusation is largely misdirected. Freud’s work showed, scandalously, just how ‘plastic’ and variable in its choice of objects libido really is, how so-called sexual perversions form part of what passes as normal sexuality, and how heterosexuality is by no means a natural or self-evident fact. It is true that Freudian psychoanalysis does usually work with some concept of a sexual ‘norm’; but this is in no sense given by Nature.”

-Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction

Henry Miller: “The Clothes He Wore, , ,”

Photographer Unknown, (Man in His Hoodie)

“What sticks in my crop about this period, when he [Conrad Moricand] was so desperately poor and miserable, is the air of elegance and fastidiousness which clung to him. He always seemed more like a stockbroker weathering a bad period than a man utterly without resources. The clothes he wore, all of excellent cut as well as of the best material, would obviously last another ten years, considering the care and attention he gave them. Even had they been patched, he would still have looked the well-dressed gentleman. Unlike myself, it never occurred to him to pawn or sell his clothes in order to eat. He had need of his good clothes.”

― Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch