QUEER
Italy, Usa, 2024 Director Luca Guadagnino Starring Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Andra Ursuta, Michael Borremans, David Lowery Running time 135′
Luca Guadagnino was a teenager when he first read ‘Queer’, William S. Burroughs‘ second novel, written in 1952 but only published in 1985 because it was considered too scandalous and controversial, too full of homosexuality. For over thirty years, the Oscar-nominated director for Call Me By Your Name (2017) has wanted to make a film based on Burroughs’ novel, considered one of the fathers of beat literature. Still, it was only while he was busy filming Challengers (2024) that he finally had the chance to start working on an adaptation of the work for the screen. When in Boston, Guadagnino proposed the book to screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, who began writing the screenplay while they were still working on Challengers.
Queer, now in competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, is set in 1950. It is the story of William Lee, played by an exceptional Daniel Craig, an American in his early forties expatriated to Mexico City. William spends his days mostly alone until he meets Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a young student with whom he falls infatuated. Initially reluctant, Eugene eventually gives in to William’s advances and begins to delude himself that he can finally establish an intimate connection with someone. Between sexual impulses and drug addiction, Queer is, according to Guadagnino, a homage to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger: ‘I have seen Red Shoes at least 50 times, and I think they would appreciate Queer’s sex scenes, which are numerous and quite scandalous“. From the short semi-autobiographical novel in which Burroughs transposed his friendship with Adelbert Lewis Marker (1930-1998), a US Navy serviceman discharged in Mexico City, Guadagnino made what he considers to be his most personal film but also his most explicit, daring and abstract, suspended between fantasies, hallucinations and reality. Queer has been shot almost entirely at Cinecittà Studios, where the art direction team rebuilt Mexico City as it was in the 1950s. The film also stars Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman and Henrique Zaga. Luca Guadagnino is also the producer of Queer together with Lorenzo Mieli for Fremantle Group’s The Apartment. The film’s music is by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, winners of two Oscars for the soundtracks of Soul (2020) and The Social Network (2010).