Reverend's Interview: Getting Intimate in "Blue Film"

After initially being rejected by US film festivals due to its “controversial” storyline, the striking Blue Film is being released in theaters beginning May 8^th. It ended up having its world premiere at last year’s Edinburgh (Scotland) International Film Festival and garnered considerable attention. I recommend it most highly precisely because of its provocative content.

When fetish camboy Aaron Eagle (Kieron Moore, who recently caught our attention on the gay-themed Netflix series Boots) visits a client in exchange for $50,000, he discovers a masked man (Tony Award-winning veteran actor Reed Birney) with a camera and a series of increasingly probing questions. But when the man reveals a disturbing connection to Aaron’s past, the two drop their personas and gradually reveal their true desires in this seductive, sexy thriller.

Blue Film is coming to us courtesy of Obscured Pictures, which also recently released the similarly controversial Pillion. It marks the feature film debut of talented young writer-director Elliot Tuttle. In his director’s statement found in the film’s press notes, Tuttle writes: “Blue Film is an essay on perversion…I feel frustrated that sex in contemporary film is so conceptual. I want to take sex out of the conceptual space and make it feel uncomfortable, scary, and laced with significance. Blue Film is the accumulation of a lifetime of private thoughts regarding sex, fetish, and relationships.” 

Tuttle recently sat down with Reverend on Zoom to discuss his work. Some questions and answers below have been edited for length and/or clarity. They are also as spoiler-free as possible.

Hi Elliot! Great to meet you and congrats on the film, which is…

Beautiful.

(Laughs) Yes, and obviously a very powerful film. Disturbing at times, very moving at times. I kind of felt a roller coaster of emotions watching the movie. I read in the press notes about how this middle school teacher you had was kind of the inspiration. Can you talk a little more about that experience or your feelings at the time that led you to want to put this on film?

Yeah, I mean, that was its inception, and I think that the film kind of developed in a lot of ways past that. The original point of conception was I had been watching a lot of these Catherine Breillat films that are pretty much exclusively about adolescent sexuality. I was thinking about my own adolescence and, in particular, this one teacher that I had who I was so in love with. I had also done a lot of journaling about this while watching the Breillat films and, at the time, I really did want him to… to have sex with me. You know, kind of warped adolescent thinking that you do as a 12- or 13-year-old, but thinking about it retroactively or later in life and kind of interrogating, okay, who was I actually fantasizing about? I feel like that led me down a whole path of thinking about the way that sex kind of molds the way we live our lives, and the film developed kind of out of that.

You know, I think that's pretty universal across all genders and sexual orientations, actually. But not too many of us really stop to think about it, or how it impacts us later in life.

Yeah, everything. I mean, obviously, I'm also trying to not speak kind of flippantly about it. Like, it's so good that nothing did happen, you know? But I think it's kind of fair game to interrogate that pain to see and be honest about what it was at the time, and to think about it as an adult.

Absolutely. Your actors, Reed and Kieron--who are both great in it--obviously had to feel very comfortable with one another for such vulnerable and intimate scenes. What steps did you take, or did they take, to really help them reach that point of comfort or intimacy?

They did, for sure. I knew that they needed to be comfortable with each other but they loved each other from, like, the minute that they did a chemistry read together. They were texting all the time, emailing all the time. They are friends; they love each other. And so, it started pretty immediately. It didn't require a lot from me although it was something that I had been thinking about, that these two people need, one, to feel really comfortable with me and, two, need to feel really comfortable with each other. If they hated each other, there'd be no escape. (laughs) But that's probably the part I'm most proud of: how they are.

That's great. Speaking of intimacy, the scene where Hank shaves Aaron in the shower is a standout, at least for me. Was that real? Did Reed actually shave Kieron?

That was real. Reed had a little razor and a little bucket of water that he could dip it in, like, off-screen.  And then, I mean, he… we… you know, we filmed what we needed to get for coverage and then, because Kieron kind of has to be hairless for the rest of the movie, sent him to go get professionally waxed. 

Wow, that was impressive. Just the intimacy of it, I mean. I just think that's one of the most intimate things anyone could do to me, or that I could do to somebody else, so oh my gosh.

They laughed through it, though. I remember that being a fun day of filming. Nothing was particularly tough in the production process--which was kind of a surprise, I think, to all of us--but that day, I remember as being particularly fun. They were giggling the whole time because it is a funny and intimate thing. It's very….eww. (laughs)

That's great. What have been some audience reactions to the movie at some of the screenings you've had thus far? How have people responded?

I've been really pleased that most people seem to be responding to it in good faith and, if anybody doesn't, I guess they're not talking to me about it. We've had a couple walkouts one time, but the audience reaction is really interesting. I feel people kind of giggling for the first 10 minutes at maybe how confrontationally it begins, and then they settle into it. No one talks for, like, 80 minutes or something. You feel the room change in a really interesting way. And so I've been really enjoying sitting in (on screenings) and then talking to people about that feeling afterwards. I also remember in Edinburgh, at our premiere with people watching the film for the first time, the theater was very hot because they don't really have AC in the UK in their movie theaters. And I remember that kind of adding to, like, the discomfort.

That would not be pleasant, no. (laughs) You know, I could really see the movie sparking conversation in the gay or LGBTQ community but also in the community of those who have been abused, or have kind of been in the situation that the boys were in the film. I wonder, if you haven't gotten any of those reactions yet, are you kind of prepared for them?

We have gotten a few reactions and they've all been very thoughtful. It's such intimate and private subject matter that people are not always offering up their personal experience but I see it in, like, Letterboxd reviews or in some of the ways in which people have resonated with the film. It's often really moving, how engaged with the film they are, and how it resonates in some way with them. I think the reason that anybody makes a film is for an audience to hopefully resonate with it.

Sure. Any thought about when the film is released? It did cross my mind watching it: Should there be a trigger warning? A warning for folks who might be extra sensitive, or maybe have experienced some of the things that the characters experience.

It's a good question. Actually, no one's asked me that question yet. I think that the idea of trigger warnings is, like, everyone has their personal feelings about it. I recognize their use for some people, totally. I don't love when a film gives me a trigger warning. That's just me. I think that an audience member is totally valid to walk up and leave the theater at any point they choose, and no hard feelings. But my personal feeling about trigger warnings in general is that (they) can defang a film a little bit, or it makes cinema kind of like fodder for something else.

I'm trying to find the right words. (pause) I think cinema, kind of at its essence, is a place for people to be absent of feeling embarrassed. You're in a theater alone, kind of. Like, you're there in a dark room and you're able to look into an actor's eyes so intimately and not feel self-conscious. I think cinema is a place for people to get lost in that and to be confronted by things they are scared of, or excited by, and it's a place to do it kind of without any judgment, because it's just you and the screen, really. But, again, this is my opinion, and a lot of people have use for (trigger warnings).

I think that's fair, what you just said. And when you think about it, every movie made today has negative content that could trigger something for someone.

Fascinating. I mean, it's kind of what the--in some kind of tangential or lateral way--what the rating systems are for.

Yeah, absolutely. Without spoilers, have you thought about what becomes of Aaron and Hank after your story ends?

Yeah, like, yes and no. Yes, in the way that how both of their arcs land is meant to hopefully aid the audience in imagining where these two characters go. I at least had to think about how I wanted the audience to think that their lives progress. So yes, in that way, but every film has an end. Every film has a beginning and an end, and I feel like my job is to tell that story to the best of my ability and to have that arc hopefully be resonant. In that way it's only after filming that I think, like, both of their endings kind of mean something to the characters. So I would hope that kind of informs where an audience thinks those characters go. No plans for a Blue Film 2 though.

(Laugh) What is next for you? Are you working on anything already, or waiting for this to get out there, or…?

I've been really focused on the release of the film but I've been writing a lot. I wrote (Blue Film) when I was 23, made it when I was 24, had a festival premiere when I was 25, and now releasing it in theaters when I'm 26, and so I've had a lot of time to, like, play. I've been cooking up some stuff and I'm really itching to make another thing. I've had enough time since the production of Blue Film that I want to get back in the saddle and do it all over again.

That's great! I wish you well with this, and I wish you well with your future endeavors.

Thank you so much for your time.

The Most Reverend Chris Carpenter is editor of Movie Dearest and chief contributor. He has been reviewing movies and theatre since 1996 and also contributes to Rage Monthly magazine (ragemonthly.com). He is a founding member and former Vice President of GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Critics (galeca.com) and currently serves as a nominating/voting member of its New York-based Theatre Wing. Reverend Carpenter has been an ordained minister since 1995.