quentin crisp: an englishman in new york

John Hurt reprises his role as Quentin Crisp in the soon-to-be released and somewhat unimaginatively titled An Englishman in New York. Following his portrayal of Crisp in the British television's outstanding biopic of 1975, The Naked Civil Servant, this second slice of Crisperanto charts the Sultana of Sodom's subsequent relocation to the New York of his dreams, the intial fêteing by early 80s Manhattan celebrities both uptown and downtown -- two distinctly different scenes at that time -- and his fall from grace as a potential LGBT mascot after making the notorious "AIDS is just a fad" declaration. While (unintentionally) cruel and unfortunate, it surely ranks with "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" which is commonly misattributed to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Soon after, he finds his natural -- and even employable -- station in life: reviewer and cineaste.

I have not seen this film yet but have spoken with someone who has seen the preview. Crisp is the buckle-slippered, effete historian (well, he was in his 70s) disseminating his immediate surroundings like an anthropologist from a bygone epoch: floor-bending HI-NRG, amyl-nitrate and the emergence of gay 'clones' -- The Gingham Borg -- in yellow construction hats, raunching it up in a fiesta of technicolour hankie-flailing before the curtain began to fall. There was no Great Dark Man. But there was a Great Dark Disease. And Hurt should know -- he played one to startling effect in Alien (1979).

However, what irks and rings untrue in this depiction of a deflated Crisp in his later years is the 'revelation' that he habitually sent cheques to Elizabeth Taylor in contribution to her AIDS foundation. Whilst charity is always commendable, this has to be a constructed Hollywood fiction to redeem Crisp to an alienated LGBT audience -- with whom he had very little in common in any case -- eliciting a sympathetic re-appraisal of an eccentric and  inconvenient Bohemian who was not 'Winfrey-friendly'. Box office. But, America loves redemption. A revolting habit, in my opinion. Thus he is 're-made'. Crisp was always candid even to the point of self-ruin and his stoicism and his truth -- if not survival -- lay in a complete rejection of sentimentality. I believe that takes immense strength. Essentially it is this, not the maquillage and the ballet pumps that transformed an itinerant, penniless and un-pensionable Chelsea queen into an international cause-cèlébre.