The Boys in the Band (2020)

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Movie
German title The Boys in the Band
Original title The Boys in the Band
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2020
length 121 minutes
Rod
Director Joe Mantello
script Mart Crowley
Ned Martel
production Ryan Murphy
David Stone
Ned Martel
camera Bill Pope
cut Adriaan van Zyl
occupation

The Boys in the Band (German to the guys in the group ) is an American film drama by Joe Mantello from 2020 about a group of gay friends. The film is based on the play of the same name by Mart Crowley from 1968 , which was filmed in 1970 as Die Harten und die Zarten . After Broadway - revival of the play in 2018 announced Ryan Murphy to a film with the same cast that consists entirely of openly gay actors.

The film was released internationally on September 30, 2020 on Netflix .

plot

The film shows the play in 1968, a birthday party in honor of Harold among gay friends that takes place in Michael's apartment on the Upper East Side of New York City .

While preparing the party with Donald, Michael receives a call from married straight Alan, a former college friend who wants to meet Michael and breaks down on the phone in tears. Alan doesn't know about Michael's homosexuality and Michael doesn't want to reveal this information to him.

During the course of the evening the guests arrive, the feminine Emory, the couple Larry and Hank, who are divorced from his wife, and Bernhard. Alan calls again every now and then to cancel, but surprisingly turns up. He is suspicious of the behavior of some of the guests and realizes that they are gay, so he mainly talks to Hank, who seems most normal and straight to him, about the common topic of marriage. During the course of the evening, the prostitute Tex, disguised as a cowboy, appears , whom Emory hired as a birthday present for Harold.

Due to Emory's provocative nature and the insinuation that Alan is also gay, a fight ensues between the two, as a result of which Alan withdraws to another room. Meanwhile, the birthday child Harold appears and the friends celebrate his birthday with gifts, alcohol and conversations on the terrace and in the living room.

When Alan rejoins the group and wants to leave Michael's apartment, Michael won't let him go. He initiates a game in which everyone is supposed to call someone they really loved. In addition, he distributes points when you call; when someone answers; if it is the desired person; when you say this "I love you". Emory and Bernard each try unsuccessfully to speak to their first crush; Hank and Larry call each other one after the other after an argument.

Finally Alan should call someone because Michael wants the game to confirm his suspicion that Alan is secretly gay too. A fellow student once claimed to have had an affair with Alan. Alan makes his call, says "I love you!" And asks for forgiveness. When Michael picks up the phone, it turns out that Alan's wife is on the other end. Alan is the first to leave the apartment.

Harold confronts Michael with the fact that Michael actually detests his own homosexuality and would rather live the life of a heterosexual before he leaves the apartment with Tex. After all the guests have left the party, Michael cries on Donald's shoulder because Harold was right. To sober up, Michael goes to a midnight mass in the rain and dark and only Donald remains in the living room.

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Michael Jim Parsons Gerrit Schmidt-Foss
Emory Robin de Jesus Fabian Oscar Vienna
Larry Andrew Rannells Marcel Collé
Donald Matt Bomer Simon hunter
Harold Zachary Quinto Timmo Niesner
Alan Brian Hutchison Matthias Klie
Bernard Michael Benjamin Washington Armin Schlagwein
Hank Tuc Watkins Marcus Off
cowboy Charlie Carver Sebastian Kluckert

background

Play and first film adaptation

The film The Boys in the Band is based on the play of the same name by Mart Crowley , which premiered off-Broadway in 1968 . Crowley wrote it after Stanley Kauffmann asked The New York Times why gay playwrights wouldn't write about themselves and leave straight people alone. It is considered to be groundbreaking for having the portrayal of the lives of gay men central. Despite the surprise success of the play, all gay actors in the original cast remained unouted .

The play was based on a screenplay by Crowley in 1970 filmed and filled by the original nine theater actors. This film is also considered a milestone in gay cinema as the first film in which (almost) all roles are gay. However, the play and film have been criticized by the gay community because the characters are self-hating.

Broadway and second adaptation

In 2018, on the fiftieth anniversary of the premiere, the play was brought to Broadway for the first time as a revival . It was directed by Joe Mantello and produced by Ryan Murphy and David Stone . These three are all openly gay, as are the entire cast of the nine leading roles in the title, led by Jim Parsons , Zachary Quinto and Matt Bomer .

“The guys that are the leads are the first generation of gay actors who said, 'We're going to live authentic lives and hope and pray our careers remain on track' - and they have. I find that profound. "

“The guys who play the lead roles are the first generation of gay actors to say, 'We'll live openly and hope and pray that our careers will keep going' - and they did. I think that's profound. "

- Ryan Murphy

Several of the actors had worked with Murphy on film and television: The Normal Heart Parsons, Rannells and Bomer, and director Mantello; Quinto and Bomer in different seasons of American Horror Story . Parsons and Mantello appeared in Hollywood after the theater performances . Rannells and Watkins, who play a couple in the play and the film, have been in real life since 2019.

In April 2019, Murphy announced that The Boys in the Band would be filmed for Netflix based on the Broadway revival, which featured Mantello again, directing David Stone with Murphy, and reinventing the same actors. This film was shot in July in Los Angeles , where the apartment was set up as a studio stage. As in the 1970 film adaptation, fifty years later, for an opening scene, Mantello again used the Bar Julius in New York City, which is still the city's oldest, continuously run gay bar . Crowley has a cameo in this scene . The film is dedicated to the author of the play, who died in March 2020.

The film was released on Netflix on September 30, 2020.

reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , the film achieved a critical rating of 80% based on 64 reviews and on Metacritic of 70 based on 21 reviews.

Ryan Lattanzio from IndieWire awards the grade A- and particularly praises Jim Parsons ' performance: “The fact that the cast only consists of openly gay men creates a special chemistry, since the actors, first produced on Broadway, have one Have familiarity and comfort that would hardly be seen in a cast consisting of gays and heterosexuals. The displays are all excellent, but this is Parsons' show. The excellent television actor, famous for The Big Bang Theory, recreates his Hollywood persona for a character who is partly a bitchy queen, but mostly a wounded animal. [...] While Crowley's piece no longer has to speak for every problem faced by gay men, [Parsons' role] Michael speaks in his final breakdown for all gay men who have ever or permanently dealt with self-hatred. "

Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian awards four out of five stars and says the film is theatrical and ready for the stage, but has the noticeable intensity of a soap opera as the ongoing onslaught of the craziness of a telenovela. It is still refreshing to see a play in which the characters speak to one another in long paragraphs; unexpectedly powerful, especially in the absurdity, moodiness and pain that Parsons stuffs into his portrayal; a strange, addicting dose of unhappiness.

Stephanie Zacharek from Time writes about the impact of the fifty-year-old material: “Works that are very specific to their time can be more useful to us than safe, general, timeless works. They show us where we are and how far we've come, and sometimes even reveal bugs that we still have to work on. That is the value of Joe Mantello's adaptation of Mart Crowley's 1968 piece . [This version] is like an unusually powerful telescope that gives a clear and vivid view of a not-so-distant past. "

Accompanying documentation

Movie
German title The Boys in the Band: Something personal
Original title The Boys in the Band: Something Personal
original language English
Publishing year 2020
length 28 minutes

Also published on September 30, 2020 Netflix an accompanying documentation short film Beititel Something personal (Original Something Personal ), interviews with the cast and crew and especially with Crowley contains about the legacy and the effect of the piece to Erstaufführungszeit and today.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Adam Feldman: Meet the all-star, all-gay cast of Broadway's upcoming revival of The Boys in the Band . In: TimeOut . February 20, 2018. Accessed September 12, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b Nick Romano: The Boys in the Band party it up in first look at Ryan Murphy-produced Netflix film . In: Entertainment Weekly . August 21, 2020. Accessed September 13, 2020.
  3. ^ A b c Jesse Green: A Brief History of Gay Theater, in Three Acts . In: The New York Times . February 26, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  4. ↑ Harry Haun: Laurence Luckinbill, Original Boy in the Band . In: American Theater . July 24, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  5. ↑ Michael Klemm: The Boys Are Back In Town . In: Cinema Queer . Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  6. ↑ a b Olivia Clement: Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Andrew Rannells, and Matt Bomer Lead The Boys in the Band on Broadway . In: Playbill . May 10, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  7. ↑ Andrew Rannells and Tuc Watkins Make Their Relationship 'Instagram Official' . In: Towleroad . September 22, 2019. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  8. ^ Jude Dry: Ryan Murphy to Bring Controversial Gay Play 'The Boys in the Band' to Netflix . In: IndieWire . April 17, 2019. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  9. ↑ Tuesday, July 16 Filming Locations for To All The Boys I Loved Before 3, Stumptown, Bull, & more! . In: On Location Vacation . July 15, 2019. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  10. ^ Mara Reinstein: Inside the NYC Apartment of The Boys in the Band . In: Architectural Digest . September 28, 2020. Accessed October 1, 2020.
  11. ↑ James Kleinmann: Oh, Mary! There's a new trailer for Netflix's The Boys in the Band . In: The Queer Review . September 2, 2020. Accessed September 14, 2020.
  12. ↑ The Boys in the Band at Rotten Tomatoes (English) Template: Rotten Tomatoes / Maintenance / "imported from" is missing, accessed on October 7, 2020
  13. ^ The Boys in the Band at Metacritic , accessed October 7, 2020
  14. ↑ Ryan Lattanzio: 'The Boys in the Band' Review: Mart Crowley's Stage Scandal Is Now a Darkly Witty Romp on Netflix . In: IndieWire . September 25, 2020. Accessed September 28, 2020.
  15. ^ Peter Bradshaw: The Boys in the Band review - fierce fun and games in the pre-Aids era . In: The Guardian . September 25, 2020. Accessed September 28, 2020.
  16. ^ Stephanie Zacharek: The Boys in the Band Is a Product of Its Time — But That Doesn't Mean It Can't Speak to Ours . In: Time . September 30, 2020. Accessed October 8, 2020.
  17. ^ Lindsey Sullivan: Get a Sneak Peek at The Boys in the Band: Something Personal Documentary Short . In: Broadway Buzz . September 21, 2020. Accessed September 30, 2020.