DEVOTIONS (US, 1983, James Broughton and Joel Singer)
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“DEVOTIONS is a beautiful film that delves into the subject of male love. The relationships here are sweet and honest and come in all manners of expression. An elderly male couple bathes one another, washing one another’s hair. Two middle-aged men lay in bed reading, their pets gathered on the bed with them. A rough-looking leatherman sits whisking icing for a cake; his lover enters, pulls his own whisk out, and joins him, with each feeding the other icing as they work. Two men sit sharing a moment of peace while their toddler son sits between them. Two men look longingly at one another while masturbating the other in the back seat of a car. And on and on. The vignettes are short, but each clearly portrays the loving nature of the relationship shown.” —Michael Abernethy, PopMatters
While TOGETHER and SONG OF THE GODBODY are meditative, inward-looking films that examine the rich interiority and sensuality of James Broughton and Joel Singer’s relationship, by the time the artists made DEVOTIONS, they had begun to examine their romantic and creative partnership within a larger societal context.
Characterized by lush, sunlit imagery and the depiction of numerous gay couples of all ages and backgrounds, DEVOTIONS finds Broughton and Singer embracing the euphoric and communal qualities of THE BED and other works from Broughton’s late ‘60s period.
As described by Broughton and Singer, “DEVOTIONS is the vision of a world where men have forsaken rivalry and taken up affection, thereby creating a society that relishes a variety of comradely devotions. The film takes delight in observing the friendly things men can do together, from the odd to the rapturous, from the playful to the passionate. These events appear in a series of cameo duets performed by men of all ages and appetites. The tapestry of changing scenes is strung on a narrative thread: the personal romance of the two makers of the film, as they discover their own affections and interweave them with those of their friends. In the end they assert their hope that loving comradeship may yet be the happy norm for the world.”
Just as Broughton and Singer’s SONG OF THE GODBODY was accompanied by a poem of the same name, DEVOTIONS is accompanied by a poetry collection. Of that collection, documentary filmmaker Eric Slade (who collaborated with Stephen Silha and Dawn Logsdon on the 2013 documentary BIG JOY, about Broughton and Singer’s lives and relationship) remarked: “[Broughton] was so in love with Joel when writing the poems in DEVOTIONS, and that love just pours off the page.” This love is apparent in the corresponding film, which celebrates the beauty and passion of Broughton and Singer’s connection, and exemplifies the artists’ lifelong pursuit of romantic and spiritual ecstasy.
DEVOTIONS was filmed over a period of nine months between Seattle and San Diego and included the participation of over 45 couples. The music, scored for flutes and gamelan, was composed especially for this film by Lou Harrison.
DEVOTIONS
(US, 1983)
Director: James Broughton and Joel Singer
Director of Photography: Joel Singer
Starring: James Broughton, Joel Singer
- 22 minutes
- 16mm
- Color
- Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server
Published By: GME
Classroom Price: $250
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