This film is adorable.Īnd de Rome’s thoughts on the erotic, which inform his own aesthetic, are worth hearing. Indeed, de Rome comes off as the type of effortlessly magical person to whom remarkable things just happen. Thank goodness that de Rome, who died last year, was still around to tell his own story, which also includes cameos by Edgar Allen Poe (really), Derek Jarman, Julian Clary, and Greta Garbo-whose last ever appearance on film, incredibly, was captured by this queer little fellow from England. That event in 2007 occasioned the making of this, the feelgood hit of the summer if you’re up for a lot of tenderly photographed cock and a visit with a stately British homo. His feature length films, Adam & Yves and The Destroying Angel are rightly considered to be masterpieces, while his entire canon is now safely housed with the British Film Institute.
Though it was never meant for anyone besides friends and partners passing through Manhattan’s queer underground, de Rome’s gorgeously-wrought home-erotica caught the eye of William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, even John Gielgud, who went cruising in NY with the gentlemanly expat.
Inspired to get a little more ambitious with his hobby after seeing Jean Genet’s agony-drenched “Un chant d’amour”, de Rome made dozens of 8mm films, frequently documenting, with unwavering artfulness, his own shame-free pursuit and capture of the day’s game, usually a black guy, often “straight”. There, he eventually pursued a quiet interest in beefcake during his off-hours from Paramount’s publicity department. The remarkably sprightly 89-year-old also did his time with British Lion, Rank, and Alexander Korda before taking off to New York in the ‘50s at David O.
It turns out that the impish subject of this unreasonably inspiring profile-surely the first and only documentary about porn that doesn’t end with everyone addicted, convicted of murder, or dead-actually worked for the great British filmmaker during his apprenticeship in the post-war U.K. Imagine Michael Powell as a size queen with an 8mm camera and you’ll end up with something like Peter de Rome. Peter de Rome: Grandfather of Gay Porn (U.K.)