Rock Hudson's Home Movies

If Mark Rappaport is, as i might very well argue, the singular most perennially underrated and ahead-of-his-time filmmaker of what might now be close to half a century (!), this is nothing if not an ideal case study. Which is to say, had he waited (at most) ten years to digitally compile these (almost without fail, hilariously ironic) Rock Hudson clips rather than be forced to resort to degraded VHS quality, we'd be talking about an unanimously-hailed essay film masterpiece.

Inventive and intriguing concept but ultimately incredibly disappointing.

Thanks to Mr. John Waters for the rec.

Rappaport cleverly combines footage from Rock Hudson's films with a witty monologue of an actor speaking as Hudson to create an amusing case for the way Hudson's film actually conveyed Hudson's homosexuality. Whether the film actually is serious about this or not, I appreciated the skill, creativity and wit in assembling the footage. Rappaport also comments on the difficulty of being gay and uses the footage to make points about AIDS.