James Broughton  (1913 - 1999)

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The Films of James Broughton -- The Pleasure Garden

Made in Great Britain (1953, 38 min) and winner of a special prize for poetic fantasy as Canner in 1954, this comic fairy tale, produced by Lindsay Anderson. A poetic and comic fairy tale that was filmed in the ruined remains of London's Crystal Palace. Allen Ginsberg has called this short film, "on the side of the angels. It's a great testimony for love in the open."

  The Films of James Broughton -- Autobiographical Mysteries
 

The world according to Broughton is told in Testament (1974, 20 min), a complex collage of personal imagery, songs and dreams. Devotions (1983, 22 min), co-directed with Joel Singer, is a personal vision of a world of brotherly love. Scattered Remains (1983, 22 min) is a filmed performance piece of Singer "doing" Broughton.

The Films of James Broughton -- Erotic Celebrations
 

The physical meets the philosophical in this collection of shorts directed by gay filmmaker James Broughton. The Bed (1968, 20 min) is a delightfully lyrical homage to the bed and the various roles it plays in our lives. Broughton's inspiration for the film came when "I couldn't get out of my mind how all the great events in my life take place in bed." In Erogeny (1976, 6 min), sensual touch in compared to the exploration of landscapes. Herme's Bird (1979, 11 min) glorifies the male phallus; and Song of the Goodbody (1977, 10 min) is a sly attack on sexual taboos.

Broughton, James (1913- 1999)

FILMMAKER,  POET,  PLAYWRIGHT, TEACHER

A filmmaker, poet, playwright and teacher, Broughton was born in San Francisco and at the age of nine was sent to a military academy when his father discovered he wanted to be a ballerina. But when it was discovered he had romantic relationships with boys at the school, he was brought back home.

After dropping out of Stanford University Broughton hitchhiked to New York to become a merchant marine. There he met Emil Opffer, former lover of Hart Crane. After leaving the merchant marine Opffer introduced him to magazine editors and Broughton began doing freelance writing.

Back in San Francisco following World War II, Broughton began making experimental films. He became known for his avant-garde shorts Mother's Day, Loony Tom, The Happy Lover and The Pleasure Garden.

Broughton described himself as androgynous, which he considered a wholeness not a lack of identity, and was married twice, had two children and continued to have long-term relationships with men.

Broughton's other films include: The Bed, Hermes Bird and Devotions.

Related Resources:

Laughing Pan:  James Broughton

 
BY GARY MORRIS

Excerpt:

Every movement has its muses. James Broughton probably would have copped to being a muse, or perhaps more accurately, a smiling spirit guide to pleasurable realms beyond the norm. It’s less likely he would have considered himself a leader of any movement. That in spite of the fact that by all accounts the West Coast experimental film scene was mostly his creation with two short films, The Potted Psalm (1946) and Mother’s Day (1948). Broughton is simply too individual for categorization, even when the evidence for labeling him this or that is overwhelming. But the lure of labels is too strong, so for the sake of shorthand, and with apologies to Broughton, let’s call him poet, avant-garde film artist, and Dionysian gay sage...

A Man in Full Flower:  The Poetry of James Broughton

This site hosts several online poems by James Broughton, including:

Free to Die Laughing:  James Broughton

From an Interview with Martin Goodman

Excerpt:

The American public does not know poets exist. That Americans have no knowledge of nor appetite for poetry is symptomatic of the impoverished prosiness of their lives.

On other shores it is a different matter. Being identified as a poet in France or Denmark or India one is greeted with gracious respect. When my landlady in a Neapolitan village learned I was a poet, she insisted I have the best room in her house and forever addressed me as “Dottore di litteratura.”

Today the U.S. is farther from being nourished by poetry than it was a hundred years ago, when books of poems were best-sellers. On her sewing table, my grandmother had copies of Tennyson, Longfellow, Omar Khayyam, et al., in soft leather bindings with bookmarks for favorite passages.

In the world of poetry there are would-be poets, workshop poets, promising poets, lovesick poets, university poets, and a few real poets. There are poets with leaden feet, tin ears and tangled syntax. Rarest of the real poets are born poets. They are the oddballs, not the professors.

Obituary: James Broughton, avant-garde filmmaker

From the Los Angeles Times

Excerpt:

...He considered himself "first and foremost a poet," naming Bach, Blake, Mother Goose, Shakespeare and Yeats as among his greatest influences. Alan Watts, the late Buddhist scholar and philosopher, once called him the uncrowned poet laureate of San Francisco...

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