Retrospective

When I posted here in December about filmmaker William E. Jones’ exhibition at the Swallow Street gallery in London, many commenters wanted to know where and when Jones’ films would play in the U.S. Now, thanks to the always savvy programmers at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City, as well as the support of MIX NYC, a complete retrospective of William E. Jones’ work will open on Friday, February 26th. The program includes his feature length films – the autobiographical Massilon and the ‘Latino Smiths fans’ documentary Is It Really So Strange?, as well as Jones’ incredible gay porn/art house cinema mash-up shorts like v.o. and The Fall of Communism as Seen In Gay Pornography (pictured above). Added to the mix of course, is Jones’ film Tearoom, a real police surveillance film of men having sex in a cruise-y bathroom in the 1960s, and a powerful document of the levels people went to to try and ruin the lives of gay people. The film remains scandalous to this day; the aforementioned Swallow Street exhibition in London was shut down a week early due to complaints from the building’s puritanical landlord. Luckily there’ll be no chance of that happening this weekend. The program runs through March 4th.