Cruel, Usual, Necessary (2024)

A documentary on film director Silvio Narizzano. Written, photographed, edited and directed by Daniel Kremer (OVERWHELM THE SKY). Silvio who? Unfairly designated as a one hit wonder, his most well known and successful movie was GEORGY GIRL (1966). Born in Canada but considered a British director, Narizzano was a contemporary of directors like Ken Russell, Nicolas Roeg and Mike Hodges but the auteurs never embraced him because he never had a signature style ..... or did he? Kremer makes an excellent case for Narizzano as an important and undervalued film maker. A Catholic homosexual, Narizzano's films are full of subtle religious and gay subtext. He made nine feature films and two movies for television. His debut film was FANATIC (retitled DIE DIE MY DARLING in the U.S.), a "hag horror" film with Tallulah Bankhead that has subtle echoes of Tennessee Williams' SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER. The success of GEORGY GIRL had Hollywood courting him and he made his only American film, a western called BLUE (1968) which was such a failure that Hollywood never asked him back. As the movie passes through his filmography, it illuminated the subtext (which had eluded me) of the films which I'd seen although it was there right under my nose. It made me want to seek out more of his work which, alas, is hard to find. I've seen six of his films and some of his TV work like COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA (1977) with Laurence Olivier and an episode of Miss Marple (THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY). In the last years of his life, he gave up directing for religious studies.