British Film Forever's gay costume dramas

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the second episode of British Film Forever, a seven-part retrospective of British cinema that has been running on BBC2 in the UK.

The fourth episode of this series was shown on Saturday night, and once again gay-themed films were included as a prominent and integrated part of the program (although, disappointingly, lesbian themes were once again completely ignored). Subtitled ‘Corsets, Cleavage and Country Houses’, this episode took a look at British costume dramas and the various ways in which they have reflected the past.

Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s lavish adaptations of the novels of gay author E. M. Forster, such as A Room With A View and Howards End, have proved to be some of the most popular British costume dramas. But when the Merchant-Ivory team adapted Forster’s one gay-themed novel, Maurice, for the big screen in 1987, the results weren’t quite so financially successful.

Check out a trailer for the film here:

Even if Maurice didn’t achieve the crossover success of Brokeback Mountain, its tale of handsome, floppy-haired young British men falling in love with each other in Edwardian England did appeal to some straight viewers. American journalist Karen Krizanovich recalls the film cementing her view of the British public: “They’re all beautiful, and they’re all gay! All gay!”

Another filmmaker to deal with queer themes in a period setting was Derek Jarman, an artist and gay rights campaigner who was one of the few British public figures in the 1980s to be openly gay. His approach to the past was much more playful and experimental than that of Merchant-Ivory, though. For example, in his 1986 film Caravaggio, he gives an artist living in the 1600s a typewriter.

Jarman’s films were also more consistently and explicitly focussed on gay sexuality than those of Merchant-Ivory. He gave actor Sean Bean (who would go on to become famous in the Lord of the Rings films and is pictured above) an early role as Ranuccio, the bisexual lover of Caravaggio, in that film.

Although the program did not focus on their sexuality - since there was no particular reason to - it also served as a reminder of the number of great British actors who have been gay or bisexual. Among the actors whose work was featured in the episode were the bisexual Michael Redgrave, and the posthumously outed bisexual Alan Bates, as well as the Oscar-winning gay actor Charles Laughton (who provided the British film industry with one of its earliest costume drama hits with The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933).

Perhaps one of the most moving stories, though, is that of Ian Charleson, the Scottish actor who starred as Olympic runner Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning costume drama Chariots of Fire (1981).

Charleson tragically died of AIDS at the age of 40, but his portrayal of the warm, likeable, devoutly Christian Liddell lives on - even if many viewers may not realise that the part was played by a gay actor.

Check out a trailer for Chariots of Fire here: