An iconic designer gives in to pleasure in this psychedelic biopic of Yves Saint Laurent
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, with French auteur Bertrand Bonello’s acclaimed The Beast in select theaters now, we’re revisiting his 2014 fashion biopic Saint Laurent.Not that there are many comprehensive records or scientific studies in the matter (and if there are, we would love to take a closer look at them), but there has always been a close historical relationship between queerness and prominence in the arts.
The mere act of being considered an outcast or an “other” by the majority of society seems to create a gravitational field that pulls us towards the arts and dive into them in a fuller way.Subscribe to our newsletter for your front-row seat to all things entertainment with a sprinkle of everything else queer.It’s no coincidence that one of the gnarliest and most obvious links between art and queerness is the pain and suffering that lies underneath them both.
The act of existing in the world as a queer person is intrinsically tied to many forms of hurt, large-scale within society or intimate within ourselves.
And so much of the world’s great art stems directly from pain; where there’s art, there is the suffering artist—an age-old trope of someone that gives their all for their craft.
