Interviews with the filmmakers and subjects of two Tribeca short films that ask the burning question: what happens when burgeoning desires and self-identity conflict with cultural norms, faith, and familial pressures?
Featured Image: Tom and Gianni. (Photo: “Elder”. Girlfight Pictures)
Author | Demitra ‘Demi’ Kampakis | Film Editor
The social climate of the 1970s, familial expectations, and religious faith form the thematic thread that weaves together The Parker Tribe and Elder, two similar stories that center on an individual’s struggle with navigating burgeoning desires and claiming a personal identity, as each subject also finds themselves on the periphery of family and society. Both films essentially explore the murky terrain of blossoming (homoerotic) desire for two youths whose path to self-discovery is further complicated by regressive social norms and taboos, familial contention and tragedy, and the conservative ideals enforced by their nuclear clan. Strictly speaking, though Jane Baker’s The Parker Tribe and Genea Gaudet’s Elder differ in narrative format—fiction and documentary, respectively—each film infuses elements of the other genre in a way that highlights the empathy and humanity inherent in their subject’s plight. Whereas The Parker Tribe is a semi-autobiographical dramedy inspired by the helmer’s own childhood, Elder’s documentary approach gets dramatic mileage out of its compelling Shakespearean love saga; rendered all the more tragic through the passion and charismatic cadence of its orator/subject the consolidation of details and events for greater narrative impact, and the pangs of nostalgia invited by the 8mm archival footage interspersed throughout.
Given that queer-themed films were unfortunately few and far between at this year’s festival, the technical quality and emotional heft of these two pictures were a welcome delight, and richly contributed to the slate of films curated for the festival’s Shorts program. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Baker and Gaudet, as well as Elder subject Tom Clark. It seems like that’s more up her alley, on separate occasions to pick their brains on the creative filmmaking process and the personal experiences that inform each narrative. What resulted were conversations that seemed to orbit around issues of faith and religious guilt, parental dynamics, the queer-immigrant experience, and navigating the tricky generational gap between the traditional values of the baby boomers with the progressive ideology exhibited by the Gen-X’ers and millenials that succeeded them.
A TRIBUTE TO FAMILY
Loosely based on Baker’s own experiences growing up in a large Irish-Catholic clan, The Parker Tribe tells the story of 13-year-old Mary “Jo” Parker—a tomboy and the fifth child out of seven—as she reconciles the lack of maternal warmth offered by her emotionally disconnected mother, while being constantly picked on by her immature jock-ish brothers. Yearning for her mother’s love and attention, and frequently finding herself on the receiving end of her brothers’ obnoxious taunts, Jo constantly questions her place among the eccentric personalities and raucous dysfunction that surrounds her. Coupled with the confusion surrounding her burgeoning adolescent queerness—a confusion further complicated by the contradictory social climate at the wake of the 1970’s sexual revolution, a time when orgies were openly and casually embraced yet homosexuality was still ostracized—as well as the occasional responsibility of serving as caretaker for her two MS-stricken brothers, and it’s no wonder Jo frequently retreats to the quiet solitude of her closet for some therapeutic diary writing (an apt metaphor that could easily feel too on-the-nose if not for the fact that it works in the context of Jo’s Cheaper by the Dozen-style living arrangement).
Fortunately, Jo also finds comfort in the relationship she shares with her playful and sensitive father, a man who so clearly loves his children, and does so with his heart on his sleeve. Actor David Koechner inhabits a stoic yet sarcastic and warm paternal presence, and his character helps establish a healthy father-daughter dynamic that nicely foils his wife’s icy, shrewish nature. Amidst all the familial theatrics, it’s refreshing to see the tender rapport between Jo and her father—which provides an emotional anchor and sense of stability that becomes more crucial and precious as our young protagonist is not only left feeling more confused and vulnerable in the wake of her growing attraction for a female neighbor, but is further blindsided by a tragic revelation in the film’s third act.
Although there is a beautifully executed scene that sees Jo kissing the neighbor boy while imagining that she is instead locking lips with his pretty, slightly older sister, the scene is likewise reserved for the third act, and in fact provides the only clear exposition of Jo’s lesbian desires. In fact, much of the film is dedicated to establishing Jo’s relationship with various family members—even while in the closet with the privacy to indulge her own thoughts, she seems to mostly fret over familial matters—and for the most part, Baker approaches Jo’s sexuality with a casual restraint by way of suggestions and references that are patiently doled out. “I wanted to show a kid who you like simply because they’re a kid, someone who values and contributes to her own family,” noted Baker during our interview. “It was important for the audience to join Jo AS she realizes she’s gay—rather than making her queerness immediately evident, I wanted to focus on the process of Jo growing into this knowledge while she learns how to integrate it in her life. She is more humanized as a character if viewers like and invest in her before the ‘reveal’.”
AN ITALIAN LOVE STORY, ‘CIGARETTES AND THORAZINE’ STYLE
“With Elder, I wanted to create a vignette, a self-contained moment in time for viewers to experience,” remarked director and screenwriter Genea Gaudet when I asked what she envisioned for the documentary. Throughout the film’s heartbreaking 13-minute saga, subject Tom Clark recounts his experience as a Mormon missionary who, during a fateful trip to Italy in 1974, meets and falls in love with a handsome Italian communist and avid smoker named Gianni. Although Tom knew he was gay well before the mission, his Mormon upbringing had embedded a deep sense of shame and secrecy fueled by misguided religious righteousness, to the extent that he was taken to a psychiatrist and prescribed Thorazine at the behest of his mother prior to said trip.
Upon meeting Gianni, Tom felt a fire ignite within him, a mental invigoration that was just as must a result of being in love, as it was the decision to end his Thorazine “treatment” (and ultimately, the former led to the decision of the latter). However, the bliss was short-lived, as Tom’s missionary responsibilities eventually forced him to relocate elsewhere, leaving behind his soul mate. With heavy eyelids faintly fluttering in tandem to his heartbreak, Clarke visibly translates the anguish, despair, and self-preservation-fueled cognitive dissonance that accompanied his dread in knowing that he and Gianni would soon be separated (as Clarke notes in the film, despite Gianni’s pleas that they stay in Italy together, he wasn’t at the point in his life where he could feasibly cut off all ties to his family).
Liberated from shame and secrecy by heartbreak and ready to consummate his love, Clarke was finally no longer able to deny his passion and feelings for Gianni, and recalls the poignant reckoning he made with God on the last night the lovers were together; “I’ve asked you to take away these thoughts, feelings and desires and you haven’t—so I’m gong to do what I need to do, and you do what you need to do.”
Elaborating on that resonant moment in the film during our phone interview, Tom conveyed how that exchange was life-changing for him, a moment of spiritual clarity and liberation. Yet, a twinge of self-effacement can also be detected in that message, and when I probed Tom on this interpretation, he further opened up about the nature of his self-identity. “Although I was born in the States, I grew up in Italy—so culturally speaking, I consider myself more of an immigrant. Unlike Americans, Italians don’t regard homosexuality as the principal form of one’s identity. It’s a topic that isn’t openly discussed often, not because of shame, but because there isn’t a need to fixate or sensationalize. Fundamentally viewing someone within the framework of their sexual orientation is very much an American construct—so although I proudly embrace the fact that I am a gay man, and acknowledge the various ways in which my gay sensibilities are manifested, I nonetheless have a tenuous relationship with my homosexuality. In that sense, I hold a more casual, European approach to being gay wherein I view it as an auxiliary aspect of who I am—a ‘man who happens to be gay,’ rather than a ‘gay man.’
Elder’s Shakespearean poeticism is further enhanced by the documentary’s rich visual tapestry, as Gaudet infuses contemporary shots of the Italian landscape with actual Super 8 archival footage taken by Clarke at the time. With a grainy authenticity made only possible with actual film, these cinematic artifacts capture a wistful, temporal nostalgia that is equally visceral and melancholic. Had the documentary been solely comprised of contemporary footage, a slight disingenuousness would linger, as if to constantly remind us that this is all still a recollection removed from the past. Yet because we actually get to see Gianni and Tom interact (through photos and videos), and because we are literally peering into the visual lens of Tom’s experiences, we as viewers are transported back in time both spatially and emotionally.
“I think because the love story embodies that moment in time, I never felt that the film should be any longer. Its self-contained nature as a vignette allowed me to condense the narrative while still painting a complete picture. It’s like the difference between a novel and a short story,” remarked Gaudet during our interview. A filmmaker with extensive experience working in docu-series and music videos, Gaudet remains artistically loyal to the documentary format and seems to be most pointedly applying techniques from that genre in creating a story. “With my style of documentary filmmaking, I definitely borrow from the narrative. I’m completely fascinated by the vignette-narrative documentary-hybrid that’s been happening for a few years now. So I think I can easily see myself crossing over into that, should the story lend itself to being told as a fiction. But I’ve always been completely enamored by non-fiction, so I think if I did that it would probably be based on a true story type thing.”
TO BE CONTINUED
Interesting to note is how both THE PARKER TRIBE and ELDER don’t offer clear resolutions to their characters’ journeys. In a sense, each protagonist feels like outsiders—the black sheep—of their own family, yet there is never a grand gesture of ‘coming out’, or the external repercussions that ensue, and the lack of closure shrouds both films in a “to be continued” ambiguity that seeks to emphasize the organic experience of how falling for another can catalyze one’s personal odyssey of self-awareness and self- definition regarding identity, one that doesn’t necessarily have a defined endpoint. Baker and Gaudet don’t feel the need to neatly tie a bow around their characters’ experiences—opting to ask more questions than providing answers—and their films remain a truer reflection of life as a result.
With prior experience writing and directing theater, Jane Baker hopes to continue to direct behind the camera, where she can offer her unique personal voice, details to physicality, and improv skills. She is in the works to adapt The Parker Tribe into a ten-30 minute length-episode format web series—with 3 episodes currently written and the entire first season already sketched out. She wants the series to be less formulaic and more adventurous, and envisions it to “equal House of Cards in temperament and mood.”
Fascinated with gender and sexuality, Genea Gaudet plans on making her next documentary an advocacy piece, and has begun brainstorming several possible topics. Among them is the exploration of the idea of flat-rate brothels in which she will interview sex workers, a paternity documentary that will examine how the courts have been biased towards women in custody battles, and a bio-doc on a transgender lute player.
