A Single Man in San Francisco

Don’t you just love city cinemas to provide that unique movie-going experience? The AMC at 1000 Van Ness did not disappoint. It is a landmark high-rise 1920s building brimming with San Francisco eloquence and history. For decades it housed a Cadillac distribution center, later a music studio and iconic 1950s showbiz radio station KFRC. Nowadays the upper floors of this building are occupied by movie theatres, with the top floor affording a stunning city view of downtown and the Civic Center. The building could not be more emblematic of California – the car, showbiz, cinema.

Few things at the time being other than my cousin’s dog (and dear friends!) can make me pine for Los Angeles, although Tom Ford’s debut film A Single Man succeeded. The attention to wardrobe is, as one might expect of the fashion designer, exquisite and the décor and sets, the sixties campus, the “glass” house, beach bar and the automobiles are stellar. Colin Firth, looking extraordinary like a vintage Michael Caine, finally gets to put his trademark stiff Englishness to good theatrical use in his role as Professor George Falconer, a British university professor in California in the grips of an existential depression upon the loss of Jim, his beloved partner of sixteen years.

The film excels at ambiance, and this alone makes this a captivating work of cinema in way comparable to the period 1960s television drama, Madmen. This is camp at is most subtle brilliant best, and incidentally it is of noteworthy that the decade has become the era-of-choice for nostalgic trips into the postwar era.

Despite (maybe in part because of) the character’s stiffness, there is a very tangible pathos in the angst experienced by George as he embarks on his self-willed last day on earth, tinged with subtlety and a realism which makes this film one of the rare examples of a movie adaption that is equal to the work of literature.

My one quibble with Ford’s creation, and this is quite a big one, is the permanently over-aesthetized photography. While this works beautifully in the trailer, it is often excessive and at times pretentious. The extensive flashback scene between Jim and George in the deserted beach plays like a spot from Jean-Paul Gautier. In fact, it is the lack of harmony between the visual styles which irks the most; often the color hue will vary within the same shot, and whatever the artistic merit this gives the impression of a director still unfamiliar with his medium.

For a first time directorial effort, however, this is a truly fantastic film and it will interesting to see if Mr. Ford can bring other stories to the silver screen. And on a slightly provocative note, when next will a heterosexual love affair be able to compete with the beauty, style and rawness we have become accustomed to in gay cinema?