“Keep the Lights On”: A gay breakthrough, and a great movie

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:00:00 +0000

When we first meet Erik (Danish actor Thure Lindhardt), the New York documentary filmmaker at the center of Ira Sachs' gripping relationship drama "Keep the Lights On," he's got his hand down his pants and is describing himself to a stranger on a phone-sex line. (It's 1998, so yes, such things still exist.) What he says is pretty accurate -- 5-foot-11, blond and handsome, "masculine" -- although we never get to confirm the "six-and-a-half inches, uncut" part. While "Keep the Lights On" is plenty explicit on the subject of gay sexuality, it’s not an NC-17 picture and has relatively little nudity.

That's quite an introduction to a character, especially considering that Erik is evidently based on Sachs himself, an indie-film stalwart best known for the 2005 Sundance prizewinner "Forty Shades of Blue" -- in which Rip Torn delivered a memorable performance as a Memphis music producer based on Sachs’ father. As the filmmaker discussed in a recent New York Times interview, while he has lived an openly gay adult life his films (including the 2008 “Married Life,” with Patricia Clarkson and Chris Cooper) have primarily concerned heterosexual relationships. There’s not necessarily any contradiction or hypocrisy to be found in that, but there’s also no doubt that “Keep the Lights On,” as its title suggests, is a work of self-revelation and even of nakedness.

Salon.com > Keep the Lights On

“Keep the Lights On”: A gay breakthrough, and a great movie