Ralph Dunn? | The Pursuit of a Gentleman / 2009, reedited 2012

sunday in the park

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ralph Dunn (director?) The Pursuit of a Gentleman / 2009, reedited 2012 [12 minutes]

 

As a man, dressed in denims, wearing a backpack, enters into the woods, most viewers might imagine that this is to be a film about hiking, perhaps a lovely tour of rural countryside or a large city wilderness such as Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.

 

    In most respects, it many seem that to some of its audience even after it’s 12-minute run, but as any gay man almost immediately perceives, the gentleman—who is as young as he may at first have seemed—who keeps stopping and turning back to look at the camera and presumably the cameraman following him is not simply on a leisurely stroll into the wild.

      As he slowly meanders through the maze of winding paths in this park, turning back every so often almost as if to reassure himself the camera is still following him, he pulls out a cigarette and reaches up to a branch of one tree to pull down a condom left there. Almost any gay man who has experienced a wide range of gay sexual practices will recognize that this park is the perfect place for the art of early Sunday morning cruising. Here men all ages, gay, closeted, heterosexually married, can tell themselves, their mate, or wives that they are going out to get some exercise and somewhat righteously wander through nature in search of others like them who just might want to share in the dangerous pleasures of outdoor sex.

 

     Our suspicions are quickly confirmed as we watch not only our titular gentleman lure the follower into more and more dense thickets and isolated spots, but we begin to notice other men wandering about alone, equally meandering along the paths and also occasionally turning back to look at the others who have just passed. It is something like a huge dance in which these men move about in space looking and waiting for a suitable partner while simultaneously pretending, perhaps both to themselves and the others, that their true intention is simply to take in the pleasure of the constantly chirping birds and crickets.

  

    The camera and cameraman pans the territory, blurring the spaces between these gentlemen as they momentarily stop and ponder their next movements through the forested space. Eventually, the very preponderance of such lone males becomes almost something comic, as we begin to perceive just how many elderly men have left their beds or couches on this beautiful morning to share in the splendors of the natural world, all them coincidentally wandering into rugged territories—although always close to the well-worn paths—which might be a true hiker’s nightmare.

      We never see any of the figures coming together, have absolutely no evidence of sexual activity or such desires being even on the minds of these wandering elders. But at the end, the pursued gentleman turns back, moving in the direction of the man with the camera. Has he given up the game of leading and is now ready to shift into the role of pursuer? The film goes black.

  

     This film appears to be entirely real, completely unmanipulated. There is no “coding,” not even any control of the film’s seemingly meaningless “events.” Yet, I might argue that a viewer-interpreter such as me might be described by those who cannot make any sense of this film other than it representing some anonymous Sunday hikers (and even that particular day is something admittedly I have imposed upon this film) might surely argue that I am simply “reading in” or imagining what is really taking place.

      Strangely, this is perhaps the best example of a coded film—despite the fact that there has been no conscious coding involved—imaginable. Totally transparent, the film for heterosexual individuals might standardly be read simply as “stroll through nature,” ignoring what others like me read as clues: the condom left hanging on a branch, the self-conscious posturing of the gentleman being pursued, and the very fact that he and others are being actively pursued. This brilliant work about gay cruising might almost be the perfect example of how to demonstrate to a classroom of young film students how coding can be accomplished with the very slightest of efforts.

     From the comments on YouTube about this film, one straight person, however, has apparently been able to perceive the gay subtext, his comment reading “We pray for you”—unless he’s simply cheering on the gentleman in his search for woodland sex.

      Although the film lists no director it appears with other short films on a site organized by Ralph Dunn, who may be behind the work’s creation.

 

Los Angeles, November 25, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2023).