James Bidgood: Pink Narcissus

Pink Narcissus (1971)

The official movie promotional poster in Japan

Pink Narcissus (James Bidgood, 1971)

𝐏𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐬 (𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟏)

Pink Narcissus (1971) // dir. James Bidgood

Born on this day 91 years ago: pioneering homoerotic filmmaker and photographer James Bidgood (28 March 1933 – 31 January 2022). His crowning achievement is Pink Narcissus (1971), which I’ll always associate with London’s long-defunct, much-missed Scala Cinema. It’s one of the essential homoerotic classicks (sic) of underground cinema (alongside Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour, Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising and Andy Warhol’s My Hustler) all homosexualists should see at least once. Simultaneously avant-garde and kitsch, for Bidgood Pink Narcissus was an obsessive labour of love: made on a shoe-string budget, seven years in production (from 1963 to 1970), all filmed entirely within the confines of his own compact Manhattan apartment (even the “exterior” street scenes). The hot neon shocking pink and blue-hued photography is exquisite (French pop art duo Pierre et Gilles swiped this whole style for their own camp sensibility). Beauteous leading man Bobby Kendall (pictured) was a teenage runaway when Bidgood scooped him up; he never made another film but possessed perhaps the greatest, noblest and most poetic male ass ever captured on film second only to Joe Dallesandro’s. Pink Narcissus ensures Bidgood artistic immortality.

Bobby Kendall

James Bidgood: Pink Narcissus

Bobby Kendall in Pink Narcissus, 1971, dir. James Bidgood

PINK NARCISSUS

(1971) dir. James Bidgood

Pink Narcissus (James Bidgood, 1971)

pink narcissus inspired • shop

Bobby Kendall as Pan | Pink Narcissus | dir: James Bidgood | 1971