How Art Saved John Cameron Mitchell
Shortbus, I screamed. Was I alone in my apartment? Yes. Was the effect felt halfway around the world? It sure was. Because the thing about this movie is, if you know, you know.
Devotees of Mitchell’s work—most famously the 2001 musical masterpiece Hedwig and the Angry Inch, as well as the recent musical podcast “Anthem Homunculus”—are well aware that his 2006 film Shortbus, a frank, queer-as-fuck film about sexuality and loneliness, has been just about impossible to stream for years.
Until now: for the film’s 15th anniversary, Oscilloscope released a new 4K restoration in late January. In theaters across the country, for the first time since the pre-Internet age, fans could delight in the tender, aching heartaches and sexcapades of a group of New Yorkers trying to connect with each other and find a way to cum, often against tremendous odds.
We spoke to John Cameron Mitchell about how much as changed between then and now, from sex to Internet literacy to storytelling itself.John Cameron Mitchell: It’s funny Henry, I just had someone say to me, “How dare you invent Grindr,” in Shortbus.
