THE BED (US, 1967, James Broughton)
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“One of the most lyrically erotic of independent films, THE BED is a merry allegory which celebrates impudently and imaginatively just about everything that could happen in bed (and some things that couldn’t) — birth, young love, loneliness, dreams and death, amid all sorts of hanky-panky from fetishism to plain old lechery.” —LA Free Press
Following the success of THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1953), James Broughton was offered a Hollywood movie deal, which he turned down. Instead, the artist took a hiatus from filmmaking to focus on his poetry. 15 years later, he returned to filmmaking with THE BED (1967), which is now widely regarded as his best-known work and a countercultural classic. As described by critics at Bright Lights Film Journal, “[THE BED]’s central image is arrestingly hilarious and absurd — an empty bed is traveling leisurely down a hill… eventually it settles in a meadow and becomes the locus of all manner of strange scenarios and woodland trysts.”
Made during the “Summer of Love,” THE BED was Broughton’s first color film and was as popular as it was controversial due to its joyously erotic depiction of sex and full-frontal nudity. By 1967, the rebellious seeds planted by the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat poets of the ‘40s and ‘50s (of which Broughton was a key sower) had blossomed into flower power. Finally, the counterculture was America’s dominant culture, and Broughton’s cinematic comeback met this euphoric and liberating moment — though not without pushback from the establishment, even within the avant-garde.
In the words of Broughton’s longtime partner Joel Singer, “THE BED rocked the experimental film world with its liberal portrayal of bodies and the senses and sensuality we all experience through them.” Broughton noted in his memoir COMING UNBUTTONED: “When it was finally edited, I could not persuade any commercial laboratory to print it. I received curt refusals: it was against official policy to print ‘frontal nudity’.”
Eventually, Broughton was forced to send the film to a lab that printed pornographic films. Ironically, THE BED is far from pornographic; like all of Broughton’s work, the film centers joy, pleasure, and transcendence while wholly eschewing voyeurism, gratuitousness, or exploitation.
“Broughton's finest film by far. It exists in a state of play fully realized.” —Stan Brakhage
Despite the controversy it generated, THE BED was nonetheless warmly received by most critics and audiences, screening and winning awards at the Oberhausen Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Yale Film Festival, among other venues. It also marked a major comeback for Broughton, kicking off the fruitful second act of his career during the apotheosis of the “hippie” era in America.
THE BED
(US, 1967)
Director: James Broughton
Music: Warner Jepson
- 20 minutes
- 16mm
- Color
- Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server
Published By: GME
Classroom Price: $250
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