Watch: James Franco Explains Why He Explored Gay Sexuality in ‘Interior. Leather Bar.’
This Saturday night, James Franco and filmmaker Travis Mathews (“I Want Your Love,” “In Their Room”) debuted their doc/narrative hybrid “Interior. Leather Bar.” to a captive audience that was either slightly confused or completely excited.
The film does its best to recreate the 40 lost minutes of William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 thriller “Cruising” — footage excised from the film that’s assumed to be scenes depicting sex in the leather bars in which Al Pacino’s detective character goes undercover. “Interior. Leather Bar.” is much about the actual process of recreating those scenes as it is about the qualms the actor playing Pacino, Franco’s friend Val Lauren, has about acting in the film.
Many in the audience wondered aloud why Franco wanted to delve into the themes in the film; others were celebrating how well it explored the American discomfort with non-normative sexualities. Check out the video below of the film’s Q&A to see how the filmmakers found each other and how the project came to fruition. (You’ll also hear where Franco got his winter sweater.)
Franco is also here at Sundance with the kink.com documentary “kink,” which he produced, and as Hugh Hefner in “Lovelace.” As a director, Franco is also working on a Cormac McCarthy adaptation “Children of God” and a film adaptation of Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying.” Mathews is getting ready to release his third “In Their Room,” the London edition of his documentary series that explores the lives of queer men in their most intimate spaces.
