An Englishman in New York

behind I see the film, Quentin Crisp was only a name. eccentric, bizarre, a kind of Oscar Wilde, with the basic differences , of XX century. the film change everything. not only the perception about the lead character, because it is more than a portrait. not the manner to see a community. but the way to discover a period, in its fundamental traits. it is difficult to define the brilliant work of John Hurt. sure, it is amazing, touching, spectacular, magnificent. he becomes, scene by scene, Quentin Crisp. but his great contribution , his impressive performance, are not reduced at a good acting. but at subtle, precise explanation of an option, its consequences and the way to fight and win against the time. a film like a huge open window. maybe, to yourself.

Saw this film at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC and was deeply impressed. A loving, yet honest, look at Quentin Crisp in his later years in New York. John Hurt just IS Quentin Crisp in this role. It's amazing how accustomed we can be to bad acting as a norm until you see a performance like this and are suddenly reminded of how it's really done. Supporting cast is equally effective (how can they not be when you've got Cynthia Nixon and Swoosie Kurtz) with a massive standout being Denis O'Hare. Beautiful understated effective performance. More than simply biographical, it offers many social subjects for consideration in context - queer-on-queer prejudice, appropriate responses to AIDS in the 1980's, and much much more. It's a really good film, and well worth seeking out for just the acting alone. John Hurt is just perfect.

This movie is worth seeing when it comes out on television. Everything about the film works, and I do mean everything! Brian Fillis certainly did his homework and scripted a show that holds one's interest, and will intrigue anyone who is unfamiliar with Quentin Crisp. Granted any made-for-television movie has limits of what can be written and shared, often dictated by time slots and network requirements, but this movie has surface and detail and informs. Brilliantly written and acted! John Hurt's performance is absolutely phenomenal and as otherworldly as Quentin Crisp was. Denis O'Hare's acting ability is fully on display throughout the film, providing a touching portrayal of someone who loved and cared for Quentin Crisp. Jonathan Tucker is a star and is spectacular in his role. Swoosie Kurtz and Cynthia Nixon provide colorful portrayals of two women in Quentin Crisp's New York life. Could not ask for a better cast. Definitely, see the film when it appears on television!

This is a fascinating film on so many levels, but most notably (from a production point of view) because Hurt is reprising a role he played 35 years previously as a much younger actor. What makes the piece even more perfect is it picks up where the other film (The Naked Civil Servant) left off.

Quentin Crisp – the one time naked life model and civil servant has gained celebrity due to his ITV film 'The Naked Civil Servant'. He is given the opportunity to fly to New York for one month to give talks; however once he arrives in the big apple he falls in love with a city which seems to offer him everything he ever dreamed of. Quentin quickly gains residency as 'a legal alien'. However, he faces some hard lessons about the vastly changing face of not only public homosexuality but also the world in general.

My opinion of an Englishman in New York is it's a flawless piece of work. It's rare a film can deliver such a sharp, but honest message which is relevant to today's society. In the original 1975 piece, Quentin was abused and attacked by 'hetrosexual' society not only for being gay but being different. In an Englishman in New York everything has flipped. The heterosexual world seems (on the whole) to adore him and be accepting of his eccentric and overtly homosexual persona. However, now his victimisation comes from the gay community who are excluding their own if they do not fit the very strict criteria of what they deem 'attractive'. Once upon a time Quentin was celebrated in the gay community as a brave pioneer of human rights. Now he's seen as a ghastly old queen who represents every gay stereotype a homosexual man is fighting against.

Hurt plays Crisps exasperation to this new rejection with perfect understated brilliance. It becomes very apparent that Quentin was fighting the cause for individuality and the colonisation of the gay community was not actually what he wanted. He seemed to long for a world where every individual was accepted on their own merits and not because they fit criteria of a certain group. WHen Quentin discovers the (seemingly) universal ambition of gay man is to be a caricatured clone of the male heterosexual stereotype – you can almost hear his eyes rolling. It's also saddening to watch the world speed by Crisp in fifth gear, as he tries to get his head around the aggressive "fad" that is AIDS. This lesson being a particularly poignant one he has to learn.

Even after seeing 'The Naked Civil Servant' (20 years ago) I had always seen Quentin Crisp as representative of tolerance toward homosexuals. After seeing 'An Englishman in New York' I now see him as someone far more important. Crisp represents tolerance toward individuality and our right to be whoever we want to be without fear of exclusion. As the song says "If Manners maketh man as someone said, Then he's the hero of the day, It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile Be yourself no matter what they say".

This film was definitely superior to the BBC's new "Day of the Triffids" adaptation (which was scheduled directly against it), but is not the dramatic equal of the original "Naked Civil Servant", with which it will inevitably be compared. I suspect the main cause of this is that the source material simply doesn't provide a lot of scope: when a story starts with its protagonist in his seventies and having finally gained acceptance and even celebrity, the time-span is inevitably somewhat short and there isn't a great deal more that can happen to him. Even in situations which could, and would, have been threatening to the younger Quentin Crisp, his elder statesman status effectively restricts the repercussions.

As a result, more or less the only 'plot event' of the film is the arrival of AIDS in New York, with even that seen largely through the effects on Crisp's career of a single dismissive quip (his reasoned attitude is that making too much of AIDS will only bolster public perception of homosexuals as disease-ridden outcasts, but this doesn't go down well among his target audience). Otherwise, "An Englishman in New York" consists largely of bons mots; little snippets of Crisp performing and delivering his famous lines, whether to an audience of one or to a small studio gathering.

That said, given the limitations of its material the film manages to pull off the difficult trick of its predecessor, presenting its deliberately flamboyant, over-the-top protagonist as a sympathetic human being whose pose we not only condone but find ourselves applauding. I generally shy away from 'gay issues', but find myself feeling here for the people he meets and the prejudice he encounters, both from them and on their behalf. In some ways, it is as hard to be a determinedly effeminate homosexual among the butch 'clones' of an out-of-the-closet New York as among the disapproving middle classes of pre-war England.

John Hurt does an excellent task in portraying the physical aging of the character, and of course it is a great bonus to have the same actor appearing in both films with a genuine generational time-lapse between them. It is just a truism that -- despite Quentin Crisp's much-repeated prediction that every year "things are going to get worse" -- happiness, as the proverb has it, simply doesn't make for such an enthralling story as do troubled times; and this is essentially a depiction of a man who has finally come to terms with the world, and it with him. As such it is well-meaning and pretty well executed, but not a particularly unmissable experience.

And inevitably it is less touching and less striking than its predecessor.