MY VERY OWN PRIVATE DIONYSIA: The Films of James Broughton

“Poetry, like love and religion, is a glorious conjunction of sense and nonsense.”  James Broughton, Testament

There are a lot of avant garde films I’d like to write about, but do not, because I realize people may have little or no chance to see them. Unless I know that copies of experimental films exist on video, or can be purchased from the filmmaker, I think I would frustrate the reader who may be interested in these films but would have no way of seeing them, except for home video, which most avant-garde filmmakers despise.

Thus, we are pleased to write about the works of James Broughton, of whose work a large portion has been made accessible thanks to Facets Video in a six-tape compilation. Broughton (who passed away in 1999 at the age of 85) was also a poet, whose lyrical works were often spoken in his films, which forged musings on nature, the body, joy of life and a Zen-like oneness into a body of work that is nothing if not personal or diverting. Essentially the work of Broughton can be assembled into three themes that are sometimes explored simultaneously: emancipation, the body religious, and Zen oneness.

Mother’s Day explores Broughton’s classic theme of emancipation, in which adults free themselves from the rigidity of maturity and regress to childlike behaviour (the film opens with a full grown man cuddling in a fetal position in the arms of a matronly statue). The comic playfulness is watched under the rigid eye of Father, who is represented as an actor whose eyes move within a cutout of a picture frame. This is an important ancestor to 1960s Baudelairian cinema, in which people freely act out in front of the camera., stripping themselves of their inhibitions. Mother’s Day is really the only Broughton film (in this piece, anyway) which displays an interest in film form (all of his subsequent works are very simple, with little regard to the technical properties of cinema).  This 1948 movie is made to look older than it really is, with silent movie title cards, Mack Sennett tomfoolery and iris effects to make it look rather antiquated. Autobiography is a common feature in Broughton’s work, yet Mother’s Day remains one of his few films which explores the “cinema diary” approach- also a staple of many other 1960s avant-garde filmmakers. The remaining films from this era (Loony Tom, Four in the Afternoon, The Pleasure Garden) that are in the Facets package further explore the themes of emancipation from the shackles of conformity.

The Pleasure Garden

The Pleasure Garden is a playful fantasy in which people can “just be” in a supposedly enchanted park (filmed in Crystal Palace, London, England). The film is evocative of Cocteau in its bouncy rhythm, histrionics and a touch of the otherworldly (even the statues move in this park!) The stuck-up high society people with frown lines and horn-rimmed glasses (who at first try to thwart such vulgar displays of joy) eventually give themselves over to the jolly tomfoolery in the garden. It is interesting that Lindsay Anderson was the production manager on this film- he would soon be among those who spearheaded England’s “Free Cinema”, which produced such films as O Dreamland and Momma Don’t Allow (representative titles of the themes these films would explore). In that respect, The Pleasure Garden feels very much a part of The Free Cinema as it is of Broughton’s work.

For the next 15 years, James Broughton would work solely in the theatre. Then in 1968, he emerged into the cinema realm with one of his best-loved films, The Bed.  This is part of his handful of works from 1968 to circa 1972, which seemed to play upon the hippie movement of the day: freedom of expression (especially sexually), and explorations into mysticism, nature and the cosmos.

Can You Feel The Oneness?

The Bed (1968) is a joyous piece which basically chronicles the life cycle on a bed, positioned in a meadow. Lovely naked beings frolic about, while birth, life and death all occur on the sheets. Somewhere in the mix, Broughton is atop one of the bed posts as a Pan-like figure, who plays the sax instead of a flute.

The Golden Positions (1970), mainly shot with gold or sepia filters, transposes the human body into a Zen-like model shop. Because the film is mainly filmed with gold or sepia filters, it has an otherworldly, ancient exotic look to it. Essentially it is a celebration of the body religious. His models pose in positions of everyday activity like having a meal, or re-enactments of universal symbols.  These diverse notions are common in that they are all performed in the nude. Again, this was another vital film which overturned the taboo of the naked body onscreen. The shape of everyone’s own physiology is unique, thereby individual works of art.

It is important to note that, as learned as Broughton obviously was in Greek mythology and Zen philosoophy, his films of this period really subscribe to no separate doctrine. These pieces tend to amalgamate all schools of thought into a whole, or if that was not satisfactory, Broughton would just create his own blend of mythology.

This is most apparent in his major work, Dreamwood (1972), which was initially based on the myth of Theseus, but Broughton then shelved the notion in order to pursue his own ideas. This micro-cosmic epic is of a man whose pursuit of a woman leads to a series of sexual elemental initiations, which then culminates in the film looping to the beginning in the tradition of the 1940s trance film. The most telling image of the film is the lead character literally making love to the ground. A more literal example of man’s oneness with nature does not exist.

During this period, Broughton also made films that were comparatively less iconoclastic. This Is It (1971) continues Broughton’s exploration of religion updated to a modern sensibility, with a toddler going around in a modern-day Eden, which is the streets of a residential California area. Finally, the director’s philosophic pursuits can be witnessed in High Kukus, which is a single shot of a pond. Broughton’s narrative amplifies the complexity of this deceptively simple image. He talks about all of the properties of this single shot- the water, the reflection of the heavens above, the frog going by, the camera which films it. In a rather laid-back way, Broughton has incorporated life, nature, the universe and art in a single shot. Not bad for a weekend excursion to the park!

Testament (1974) is Broughton’s own 8 1/2: it is a diary-like collage of style, autobiographical references, and poetic observances. Inside there is also a mock-up movie, “The Folies of Dr. Magic”, which is a strange hybrid of slapstick and the movie magic of Georges Méliès, with more than one narrative thread at work. There is an A to B progression, as intertitles “Education”,”Work”, “Art”, “Marriage”, and “Return to the Ancestors” sequence the action onscreen, in that order. Throughout there is a melange of autobiographical Pandora such as small town images, Broughton speaking at a podium, people with silver makeup in a meadow (an image which sums up a typical Broughton film of the times), a boy in bed (innocence? Freud?) and photos of himself at young and old ages… yet this is not necessarily presented in chronological order. In the “Ancestors” piece, there is a “Fellini by way of Broughton” passage featuring exotically dressed people parading down the street (he has created his own Black Orpheus, where the carnival of life collides with the spirit world). It is also during this segment where we get a universal image which sums up the frustration of the time cycle. At a beach shore is a rocking chair (what more iconographic image of old age exists?) and, in backwards motion, the director comes to sit in it. Perhaps this is not only the singular definition of this film, but maybe Broughton’s work as a whole.

Geography Of The Body

As the career of Broughton continued, his films actually became smaller, or literally microscopic. In the late 1970s, he made a series of shorts- many of which are frankly devoted to the naked body. Despite the abundance of onscreen genitalia (often in extreme closeup), the images neither shock nor titillate. In this regard, Broughton has eliminated the taboo that stigmatically surrounds how one reacts to the naked body. He equates man and woman’s natural gifts to art.

Erogeny (1976) is just that- a series of closeups of body parts. But this film is just more than a celebration of our bodies. All of the intimate compositions form interesting canvases, with shadows, shapes and folds. And the film is titled Erogeny simply because, although there are extreme closeups of male and female “good parts”, many of the images could be either from a male or female body-  thus, in a literal Yin and Yang union, both sexes are shorn of their individual identities and form one. Broughton continued such intimate explorations of the human body with Hermes Bird (1979) and Song of the Godbody (1977).  In the latter, the sole image is of a penis gradually becoming erect (it isn’t a long film, certainly, but it could have been shorter, depending on the talent’s stimulus). On the soundtrack, in the meantime, Broughton reads aloud any metaphor he can think of in describing the male organ. Circular towers, land formations are all alluded to as the object becomes aroused. Devotions (1983), which Broughton co-directed with his partner Joel Singer, is simply a collage of images in which men enjoy each other (in the most intimate definition of the term).

Even in this twilight stage, Broughton was conveying images that, although still pushing the envelope in more conservative parts of the country, were not meant to shock but to present things as they naturally are. When one sees the films of James Broughton, one may be surprised by their simplicity. Still, despite the comic playfulness and the gentle flights of fancy, there is a disarming complexity that pervades them. Enjoy.

Broughton On Video: Facets Video has a six-part tape set of Broughton’s work:  “Rituals of Play” collects Mother’s Day, Four In The Afternoon, and Loony Tom. “Parables of Wonder” collects High Kukus, The Golden Positions, This Is It, The Gardener Of Eden, and The Water Circle. “Autobiographical Mysteries”  features Testament, Devotions, and Scattered Remains. “Erotic Celebrations” begins with The Bed, followed by Erogeny, Hermes Bird and Song of the Godbody. Dreamwood and The Pleasure Garden are each featured on their own separate tapes.

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Originally featured in Vol. #1, Issue #4. Since this publication, Facets had re-released these films onto a DVD boxed set. Kino Video would feature some earlier Broughton titles not represented here on their Avant Garde DVD boxed sets. There has also been a lovely documentary, Big Joy: The Adventures Of James Broughton, released in 2013.

Postscript: Since this article was originally published, it has become easier to access avant garde cinema, via DVD, Blu-ray or online.