''Interior. Leather Bar.'' is a 2013 American
docufiction
Docufiction (or docu-fiction) is the cinematographic combination of documentary film, documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or ciné ...
film, which premiered at the
2013 Sundance Film Festival.
["Interior. Leather Bar.: Sundance Review"]
''The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'', January 19, 2013. Directed by
James Franco
James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has starred in numerous films, including Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002 film series), ''Spider-Man'' trilogy (2002–2007), ''Milk (2008 American film), Milk'' (200 ...
and
Travis Mathews, the film stars Franco and Mathews as themselves working on a film project which reimagines and attempts to recreate the 40 minutes of deleted and lost sexually explicit footage from the controversial 1980 film ''
Cruising''.
The film's cast also includes Val Lauren, Christian Patrick,
Brenden Gregory, Brad Roberge, Colin Chavez,
Michael Lannan and A.J. Goodrich.
Background
Despite early media reports when the project was first announced, the film is not itself a recreation of the deleted footage, featuring only brief scenes that actually do so literally.
["Gay Film Auteur Travis Mathews Talks Interior. Leather Bar."]
''Filmmaker
Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...
'', January 19, 2013. Instead, it uses the idea of recreating the footage as a plot point to explore the creative and ethical questions arising from the process of trying to make such a film. It depicts issues such as the actors' level of comfort or discomfort with the material, the conflict between creative freedom and
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...
, and the ways in which the cinematic representation of
LGBT
LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...
issues and people has evolved since ''Cruising'' was originally released in 1980.
One of the main narrative threads of the film is the confusion of several participants over why James Franco would want to be involved in such a project in the first place.
[
Mathews has stated in interviews that one aspect of the original film's production that interested him was the contrast between analyses which suggest that the deleted footage constituted homophobic propaganda, and those which suggest that it was more ]documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
in nature.["Cruising With Travis Mathews: The Nightcharm Interview"]
. ''Nightcharm'', March 9, 2013.
Reception
''Interior. Leather Bar'' has an approval rating of 58% on review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, based on 38 reviews, and an average rating of 5.4/10. Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
assigned the film a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
See also
* List of docufiction films
References
External links
*
*
*
2013 films
American docufiction films
Films directed by James Franco
2013 LGBTQ-related films
2010s LGBTQ-related drama films
Films directed by Travis Mathews
2010s English-language films
2010s American films
American LGBTQ-related documentary films
Gay-related films
{{LGBT-documentary-film-stub