Name: Queer in Color: Puce Moment (1949) and Desert Fury (1947)
Start: 2023-03-31T19:00:00-05:00
End: 2023-03-31T22:00:00-05:00
Location: Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

Queer in Color: Puce Moment (1949) and Desert Fury (1947)

The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern Universityis an engine that drives questioning, experimentation, and collaboration across fields of study, with visual arts at the center. Located on Northwestern’s lakefront campus in Evanston, The Block engages audiences from across the Chicago region with exhibitions, films, and programs that spark critical thinking and creativity.A collection of more than 6,000 works fuels teaching, learning, and research across the university, supporting a rotating exhibition program grounded in Northwestern’s curriculum. Welcoming over 40,000 visitors each year, The Block works in collaboration with artists, scholars, students, and community partners to present art and ideas that inspire reflection and dialogue.F﻿ree parking infoThe Block is free and open to all.

The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

Two films from the 1940s that employ bold color to figure themes of camp, spectacle, and queer desire.

Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University

<h3>Friday, March 31 - 7 PM</h3><h3>Queer in Color: PUCE MOMENT (1949) and DESERT FURY (1947) </h3>(VARIOUS FILMMAKERS, 1960-1964, APPROX 105 MIN, 16MM AND 35MM)Films:PUCE MOMENT(Kenneth Anger, 1949, 6 min, color, sound, 16mm courtesy of Canyon Cinema)DESERT FURY(Lewis Allen, 1947, 96 min, color, sound, 35mm courtesy of Universal Pictures)A﻿bout the program:Pioneering gay filmmaker Derek Jarman once asserted that “colour seems to have a Queer bent”; the two films in this program prove how right he was. Avant-garde and queer cinema legend Kenneth Anger’s PUCE MOMENT (1949) is a fragment of an unfinished film, a swooning and plotless tribute to Hollywood decadence that luxuriates in the chromatic pleasures of wardrobe, makeup, and décor. DESERT FURY (1947) has a bit more going on narratively—but, as critic and LGBTQ film historian David Ehrenstein once wrote, “plot alone can&#x27;t deal with the morass of images and sounds that calls itself DESERT FURY.” Lewis Allen’s film follows sultry rich-girl dropout Paula (Lizabeth Scott) as she falls under the spell of gangster Eddie Bendix (John Hodiak)—much to the consternation of her mother Fritzie (Mary Astor) and Bendix’s curiosuly overprotective henchman Johnny Ryan (Wendell Corey). Small-town scandals erupt, family secrets tumble out, and wardrobe changes ensue. The film’s complex web of desire plays out under a lurid Technicolor sun, which illuminates passions often consigned to the deep shadows of mainstream cinema. Made within two years of one another, Puce Moment and DESERT FURY emerged from opposite ends of a spectrum of cinematic production running from amateur to high artifice—but between the two, we can glimpse the vibrant horizons of queer film culture in the decades to come.

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Queer in Color: Puce Moment (1949) and Desert Fury (1947)

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Queer in Color: Puce Moment (1949) and Desert Fury (1947)

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