SONG OF THE GODBODY (US, 1977, James Broughton and Joel Singer)
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“The film consists predominantly of extreme close-ups of parts of Broughton's body. The camera slowly becomes the tool revealing the erotic beauty of the body and the sensual pleasure in loving oneself. The ecstasy and power of sexual gratification are celebrated by the camera, as it maintains an erotic role, probing, revealing and visually caressing. Broughton's song is a praise of his body as divine androgyne, and an acceptance of this higher godly sexual power.” —Richard Bartone, Millennium Film Journal
Made one year after their debut collaborative work TOGETHER (1976), SONG OF THE GODBODY (1977) sees Joel Singer sensually photograph James Broughton’s nude body at a virtually microscopic level. The resulting piece is an erotic and body-positive filmic evocation culminating in a protracted close-up of Broughton’s anus.
Jon Gartenberg included SONG OF THE GODBODY in his film program James Broughton, Cinema Poet for The Museum of Modern Art in July 1979. Of the film, he wrote: “In SONG OF THE GODBODY (photographed by Joel Singer), the closeup images of body hairs and eyelashes, crevasses and the phallus, coupled with the poem on the soundtrack (narrated by Broughton), celebrate the sexual and life-giving force of the male body. It recalls BELLS OF ATLANTIS (1953), which also uses a poem on the soundtrack. Whereas BELLS OF ATLANTIS celebrates the life-producing power of the woman through images of water, SONG OF THE GODBODY affirms the life-giving power of the man, through a landscape of the male body.”
“A classic liberation film!” —Larry Kardish, Film Curator, Museum of Modern Art
Broughton’s poem SONG OF THE GODBODY is a companion piece to the film, published in a collection titled ECSTASIES. It reads:
I breathe you I contain you I propel you
I am your opening and closing
I am your rising and falling
I am your thrust and surrender
I stiffen you I melt you I energize
I quicken your humor and heartache
I set the spark to your fluid
I stir your mixable blessing
I am your inside operator
I stretch I sweat I maneuver
I flex your will and your man power
I polish your launching pad
I prime your engines of quest
I fan your spontaneous combustion
I drive your vehicle of dreams
I accelerate your valor and risk
I am at the root of your folly
I am at the top of your form
In you I caper and flourish
In you I become what I am
You are my cheerful vicissitude
You are my sturdy weakness
I am your faithful bedfellow
I am your tenacious secret
I connect your links
I replenish your seeds
I bathe in your bloodstream
I bask in the raw of your nature
I am the conductor of pulse and impulse
I am the director of anatomical play
You are my theater of nervous charades
You are my circus of knack and bungle
I am your unheeded prompter
I am the slips of your tongue
I am the catch in whatever you think
I am the quirk in what you are sure of
I carry a lantern through your labyrinth
I call to you from your vitals
You hear me best when you marvel
You hear me least when you whimper
You are my ancient You are my child
You are the brother of all your heroes
My earnest monkey My ticklish lion
You are my zoo and my sanctum
I tune up your instruments
I play on your organs
I strum in your breast
I croon in your head
I elixirate your phallus
I enter your every orifice
I impregnante every beginning
I effervesce I rhapsodize
You plunge into motley waters
You catch on fire when you love
You are my liquid opal
You are my burning bush
I sprout your sperm and your egg
I spawn the engodments of flesh
I shape the new body of Adam
I reshape the old body of Eve
I engender all the women of men
I generate the men of all women
I love you in every man’s body
I live you in every man’s lover
Trust that I know my own business
Cherish your fact and your fettle
Respect your perpetual motion
Relish your frisky divinity
You are my ripening godling
You are my fidgety angel
You are my immortal shenanigan
You are my eroding monument
I am ever your lifelong bodyguard
I am always your marathon dancer
Let your feet itch with my glory
Dance all the way to your death
“SONG OF THE GODBODY is the best thing of its kind since SONG OF SONGS and yours is better illustrated.” —June Singer, Author of ANDROGYNY
SONG OF THE GODBODY
(US, 1977)
Director: James Broughton and Joel Singer
Director of Photography: Joel Singer
Starring: James Broughton
- 11 minutes
- 16mm
- B&W
- Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server
Published By: GME
Classroom Price: $250
Institutional Price: Inquire
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