No Skin Off My Ass
Directed byBruce LaBruce
Written byBruce LaBruce
StarringBruce LaBruce
G. B. Jones
Klaus von Brücker
Distributed byStrand Releasing
Release date
  • 1991 (1991)
Running time
73 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

No Skin Off My Ass is a 1991 comedy-drama film by Bruce LaBruce.

LaBruce's debut feature film provides a template for many of the themes in LaBruce's later movies. Explicit sex scenes between LaBruce's character and von Brucker's are interwoven with a radical political message.

No Skin Off My Ass played at film festivals around the world and quickly became a cult film. Famously, Kurt Cobain declared it his favourite film.[1][2] The film's soundtrack includes songs by several punk bands such as Frightwig and Beefeater.[2]

Plot

A punk hairdresser (Bruce LaBruce), known only as “The Hairdresser”, becomes obsessed with a mute neo-Nazi skinhead (Klaus von Brücker). Jonesy (G. B. Jones), a lesbian underground film director and the skinhead's sister, attempts to bring her brother and the hairdresser together.[3] Throughout the film, Jonesy is also working on a documentary around the Symbionese Liberation Army.[4] The cast also includes Fifth Column band members Caroline Azar and Beverly Breckenridge.

Cast

Production

No Skin... was filmed in Toronto on a budget of $14,000. Most of the cast were people LaBruce previously knew and worked with, helping to keep the cost down: the main cast was LaBruce himself and von Brücker, who were boyfriends at the time, and some of the film's runtime is pornographic footage of the two having sex.[5] G.B. Jones, who LaBruce worked frequently with on projects like the J.D.s zines, also acted in the film.[3]

LaBruce shot and edited No Skin on 8mm black and white film, blown up to 16mm in post-production.[6]

Release

LaBruce's debut, according to him, "correspond[ed] with the burgeoning gay and lesbian film festival circuit and just sort of became a cult film."[5] Despite its enthusiastic reception, LaBruce "never expected it to go outside of underground bars in Toronto or alternative art spaces."[7] The movie has been shown at multiple film festivals and queer community events, including its debut at the 1991 Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival,[8] SPEW: The Homographic Convergence,[9][10] the 1993 Baltimore Lesbian and Gay Film Festival,[11] and many others.

More recently, No Skin... has been screened at the Museum of Modern Art twice,[4] at Outfest Los Angeles in 2016,[12] and at Visionär Film Fest in 2019.[13]

Reception

The film is discussed as "a queer retelling of Robert Altman's That Cold Day in the Park,"[5] a 1969 psychological thriller about obsession. Altman's film is based on a novel by the same name by Peter Miles. According to LaBruce,[14]

Altman de-queered it, so I decided to re-queer it... When I showed the film for the first time in Los Angeles in 1991, somebody brought Miles to my screening and he said my no-budget Super-8 movie was better than the Altman version! He gave me an autographed copy of his novel inscribed: "You got it right."

LaBruce's No Skin is, according to Alexander Cavaluzzo, "the voice of hardcore, tongue-in-cheek dissent with porn-packed political allegories."[3] The film is viewed today as "a homocore classic... a complex exploration of how subculture is articulated through style, and a poignant study in erotic fascination."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Brady, Tara (July 30, 2014). "Bruce LaBruce: 'Sometimes there's a real love underlying fetishism'". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2015-11-26.
  2. 1 2 Diduck, Ryan Alexander (April 17, 2013). "BLaB: A Conversation With Bruce LaBruce". The Quietus. Retrieved 2015-11-26.
  3. 1 2 3 "The Uncompromising Queer Politics of Bruce LaBruce". Hyperallergic. 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2018-07-31.
  4. 1 2 3 "No Skin Off My Ass. 1991. Directed by Bruce LaBruce | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  5. 1 2 3 Harding, Michael-Oliver (2015-05-04). "Can Queer Radical Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce Remain Subversive After His MoMA Blessing?". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  6. ↑ Wissot, Lauren (2017-03-09). ""Porn is Everywhere, Almost Like a Collective Unconscious": Bruce LaBruce on his XConfessions Short Refugee's Welcome | Filmmaker Magazine". Filmmaker Magazine | Publication with a focus on independent film, offering articles, links, and resources. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  7. ↑ "The Saint of Sin: Bruce LaBruce on 'Saint-Narcisse' and the value of shock". Metro Weekly. 2021-06-25. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  8. ↑ Croix, Sukie de la. "Gay Chicago Rewind January 10-January 16, 2013". ChicagoPride.com. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  9. ↑ Lafreniere, Steve, SPEW - The Homographic Convergence - Poster Flats, retrieved 2021-08-31
  10. ↑ Galil, Leor (2021-06-09). "Thirty years ago, a Black queer zine captured the scene that birthed house". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  11. ↑ Hunter, Stephen. "Festival offers more than 48 gay and lesbian films". baltimoresun.com. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  12. ↑ "Outfest 2016 Announces Full LGBT Film Lineup". www.out.com. 2016-07-01. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  13. ↑ Pollard, Madeleine (2019-03-12). "Visionär Film Fest Opens: No Skin Off My Ass". EXBERLINER.com. Retrieved 2021-08-31.
  14. ↑ Bullock, Michael; Labruce, Bruce (5 March 2021). "Bruce LaBruce on Porn and Revolution | Frieze". Frieze (217). Retrieved 2021-08-31.
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