Pink Narcissus

USA, 1971. Director James Bidgood. 71min.

With experience in still photography and stage costume design, but no training in film whatsoever, Bidgood shot Pink Narcissus on the cheap in the confines of his bedroom, using Bolex cameras with 8mm Kodachrome and eventually 16mm Ektachrome stock. It took over seven years to make and the result is an epic and bold work. A series of homoerotic fantasies, the film’s singular aesthetic is at once highly camp and deliberately trashy, yet moving and stunningly beautiful. Its charming ‘naivety’ evokes early film pioneers such as Méliès or de Chomon and like them Bidgood was heavily invested in fabricating his own elaborate sets and costumes, as well as his own universe of solutions and tricks. Sadly, the film was not edited by the artist himself who had, by the early 1970s, lost creative control of his mesmerising footage.

With Bobby Kendall and Don Brooks.
Costumes and set design by James Bidgood.

Past screenings

Birds of Paradise – London
Thursday 2 December 2010, 18:45 | The Horse Hospital
Screened alongside Ziegfeld Girl (1941) as a part of a James Bidgood double bill. With introduction by Ryan Powell.

Birds of Paradise – New York
Sunday 17 April 2011, 16:30 | Museum of the Moving Image

Birds of Paradise UK Tour – Glasgow
Sunday 18 March 2012, 19:45 | Glasgow Film Theatre