Eoghan McQuinn | Staccato / 2016

applause, applause

by Douglas Messerli

 

Eoghan McQuinn (screenwriter and director) Staccato / 2016 [23 minutes]

 

Thomas Cryoden (Craig Grainger) is rehearsing quite endlessly for a concert he is performing at the family manor Falgirth for the major critics of the day in Eoghan Quinn’s costume drama that takes place in late 19th century Ireland.

     Although seemingly all his attention is paid to his practice—except for the series of teas and luncheons with occur with great regularity. But, in fact, most of his focus is actually being directed to the new gardener Sean (Kevin O’Malley) his mother has hired. Indeed, the two are having a sexual affair, with all discretion, of course, which seems to mean that in public Thomas must mock the inept gardener who sends nearly all of wages to his poor, dying mother, while when they are in bed he sacrifices his upper crust disdain and body to simple lust.

      But such worlds, based on class structure, are inherently cruel and mean at heart. Thomas’ sister Elizabeth (Marian Rose) knows perfectly well that Lady Croydon did not hire Sean, but that her brother—at the very moment that his mother, in a fit of religious abstinence, is about to lay off many of the staff—had gone into town to hand pick the new gardener. And she suspects that the new hireling has already found way to her brother’s bed, particularly when at lunch Thomas skips dessert and retreats to his room.

     His mother (Pauline O’Driscoll) pretends to be listening to his music but hears only her son’s diffidence and disrespect for her values, ordering him to make good on his concert, and forcing him to endlessly practice.

     Sean, worried about his mother, sick with pneumonia, escapes for a day to go see how she’s doing, only to discover that the weekly wages he has been sending her to that she might survive have never arrived, Thomas having ordered the maid, Moire (Sophie Merry) to hold all letters with the outside world for fear that Sean might desire to return to it.

     Upon Sean’s return to the manor, he refuses to continue to be Thomas’ whore, and pushes him away as he attempts to kiss him. Finally, the maid steals even the invitation to Thomas’ recital he has sent to Sean. When Elizabeth, who has heard that the gardener’s deathly sick mother has not received any of her son’s wages, fires Moire on the spot, despite the fact that the servant was ordered to do so by Thomas.

       Meanwhile, Thomas is growing nervous and disconcerted, much afraid that we will disappoint his imperious mother once again. The august audience arrives and gathers in the music room. Even Sean makes his appearance. Thomas’ performance appears to go off without a hitch.

       Afterwords—cinematically presented while the concert music is still being performed—we observe Thomas and Sean once more, stripping away one another’s clothes in preparation for sex, but this time Sean takes dominant position, midway through the fuck presenting his lover with a small piece of printed paper, a “notice of death,” before proceeding to stab him with a garden fork.

       The camera returns to the music room for the end of the performance, silence prevailing after the last chord, the audience standing in mute applause.

 

Los Angeles, September 12, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).