Myra Breckenridge

I just saw Myra Breckenridge. From everything I've heard I thought I'd hate it, but I actually really loved it. It made me realize that I'm an extremely campy person. I've been protesting my campiness lately, because so many people see Viva as "merely" camp, but Viva doesn't hold a candle to Myra in the camp category. I think it's a lucky thing I didn't see it while filming Viva...I might have been tempted to put a little of it in, and that really would have made things a mess!

As it is, there were certain parts of Myra that reminded me of parts of Viva. The reason I finally saw it in the first place is because my friend Elena mentioned it, and come to think of it, she may have been doing so in relation to the part of Viva where I fetishize Rick's back muscles when he takes off his shirt in front of the fire during a lovemaking scene. I'm not quite Raquel Welch, whipping the men into submission, but it was a bit like that on the set, with me as director ordering these men to be amorous with me. The role reversal really did feel great. But I have some even better footage in reserve, of Bridget and I trying to take his pants down...

Then again, I really loved the campy gay men in Myra. And I loved the gay sensibility at the root of the old Hollywood fantasies. I think my deepest fantasies are the same as those of a gay man in 1970. Marlene Dietrich singing "The Man's in the Navy," the FABULOUS Mae West with her musical numbers, the hats and clothes and hairdos, Carmen Miranda, Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, The Heiress, the stars on Hollywood Blvd. with a close-up on Ann Miller's star, the vapid pretty girls with giant eyelashes, the glitz and glamor and cowboy motifs, the songs, the white suits and riding outfits! It's just how I think about film. An outfit, a detached glamor or old movie fantasy creates a scene, an image. I'm trying SO hard to repress this way of thinking in order to make a taut drama! But seeing this movie makes me think it might be hopeless! It brings out all of my worst instincts!

Then again, I think Myra is actually quite original, beautiful looking, and also subversive content-wise, or I wouldn't like it, no matter how many hairdos, decors, and old Hollywood references. My boyfriend always says I have the personality of an older gay man. I'm starting to realize that it may be true...!