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Ripe for Rediscovery, James Bidgood’s Ultra-Sexy Queer Classic ‘Pink Narcissus’ Blooms Again in 4K
John Waters champions the kitschy gay classic, which was difficult to see for decades, yet enormously influential on many distinctive modern artists.
Ogling his rough-trade star Bobby Kendall, as the muscular young man admires his own ephemeral beauty reflected in countless mirrors, Bidgood stacks one super-saturated sexual fantasy upon another until such point that the film can’t contain itself any longer, erupting directly into the camera — and by extension, all over the screen/audience. Watching “Pink Narcissus” again in its glorious new restoration, I’m seduced all over again by how coy it all seems — even the more vulgar Times Square sequence, a parody of the decadent city he so loved, featuring Charles Ludlam, founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, as the abortionist and the man selling “pissicles.” A quarter-century has passed since my first viewing (and 54 years since the film was initially released), and now, it’s virtually impossible to avoid X-rated imagery, which spams our inboxes and ambushes our Google searches. “Ya know, because of all that sissy scenery in that ‘Narcissus’ thing, I guess people expect me to be lounging around in a silk caftan, face powdered and rouged with 20 yards of orchid chiffon draped around my neck, with my bong and a few boys by my pool,” Bidgood told Butt magazine in 2010.
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