Bruce LaBruce
Encyclopedia
Bruce LaBruce is a Canadian
writer, filmmaker, photographer and underground gay porn director based in Toronto
, Ontario
.
, and wrote for Cineaction
magazine, curated by Robin Wood
, his teacher. He first gained public attention with the publication of the queer punk
zine
J.D.s
, which he co-edited with G.B. Jones. He currently writes and photographs for a variety of publications including Vice, Nerve.com and BlackBook
magazine, and has made a number of films which merged the artistic techniques of independent film
with gay
pornography
.
He has also previously been a columnist for the Canadian music magazine Exclaim!
and Toronto's eye weekly
, and he was a contributing editor and photographer for many years at New York's index magazine. He has also been published in Toronto Life
, the National Post
and The Guardian
. His movie, Otto, or, Up With Dead People debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. L.A. Zombie was banned from the Melbourne International Film Festival
in 2010 because, in the opinion of Australian censors, it would have been refused classification. However, the film was subsequently able to screen at OutTakes, a New Zealand
lesbian and gay international film festival, in May 2011.
In March 2011, LaBruce directed a performance of Arnold Schoenberg
's opera Pierrot Lunaire
at the Hebbel am Ufer
Theatre in Berlin
. As one no doubt assumes, this iteration of the opera included gender diversity, castration
scenes and dildos, as well as a female to male transgender
Pierrot.
Bruce LaBruce studied film at York University
in Toronto.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
writer, filmmaker, photographer and underground gay porn director based in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
.
Biography
LaBruce was born Bryan Bruce in Tiverton, OntarioTiverton, Ontario
Tiverton is a community located in Ontario, Canada. It is near the shore of Lake Huron on Highway 21 between Port Elgin, Ontario and Kincardine, Ontario.Tiverton is incorporated in the Municipality of Kincardine.- History :...
, and wrote for Cineaction
CineACTION
CineAction is a Canada-based film magazine, published three times a year, edited by an editorial collective that included critic Robin Wood...
magazine, curated by Robin Wood
Robin Wood (critic)
Robert Paul "Robin" Wood was a Canada-based film critic and educator. He wrote books on Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman, and Arthur Penn and was a member, until 2007, of the editorial collective that publishes the magazine CineACTION!, a film theory collective founded by Wood and...
, his teacher. He first gained public attention with the publication of the queer punk
Queercore
Queercore is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk. It is distinguished by being discontent with society in general and its rejection of the disapproval of the gay, bisexual, and lesbian communities and their "oppressive agenda"...
zine
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
J.D.s
J.D.s
J.D.s is a queer punk zine founded in Toronto by G.B. Jones and co-published with Bruce LaBruce, that ran for eight issues from 1985 to 1991....
, which he co-edited with G.B. Jones. He currently writes and photographs for a variety of publications including Vice, Nerve.com and BlackBook
BlackBook Magazine
BlackBook is an American arts and culture magazine published 8x a year. Founded in 1996 as a quarterly publication, BlackBook has now expanded to a circulation of roughly 150,000. The magazine covers topics ranging from art, music, and literature to politics, popular culture, and travel guides....
magazine, and has made a number of films which merged the artistic techniques of independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
with gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
.
He has also previously been a columnist for the Canadian music magazine Exclaim!
Exclaim!
Exclaim! is a monthly Canadian music magazine that features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with special focus on Canadian and cutting-edge artists...
and Toronto's eye weekly
Eye Weekly
Eye Weekly was a free weekly newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was owned by Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, and was published by their Star Media Group until its final issue on May 5, 2011. The following week, Torstar launched a successor publication, The Grid.-...
, and he was a contributing editor and photographer for many years at New York's index magazine. He has also been published in Toronto Life
Toronto Life
Toronto Life is a monthly Canadian magazine about entertainment, politics and life in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Toronto Life also publishes a number of annual special interest guides about the city, including Home Decor, Stylebook, Eating & Drinking, Real Estate and Weddings. Established in 1966,...
, the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. His movie, Otto, or, Up With Dead People debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. L.A. Zombie was banned from the Melbourne International Film Festival
Melbourne International Film Festival
The Melbourne International Film Festival is an acclaimed annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded in 1951, making it one of the oldest in the World....
in 2010 because, in the opinion of Australian censors, it would have been refused classification. However, the film was subsequently able to screen at OutTakes, a New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
lesbian and gay international film festival, in May 2011.
In March 2011, LaBruce directed a performance of Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's opera Pierrot Lunaire
Pierrot Lunaire
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' , commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 , is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg...
at the Hebbel am Ufer
Hebbel am Ufer
The Hebbel am Ufer is a theater and international performance center based in Berlin, Germany. It was founded fusioning 3 theaters in Kreuzberg, Berlin:* Hebbel Theater, now called HAU1...
Theatre in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. As one no doubt assumes, this iteration of the opera included gender diversity, castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
scenes and dildos, as well as a female to male transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
Pierrot.
Bruce LaBruce studied film at York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
in Toronto.
Selected films
- Boy, GirlBoy, GirlBoy, Girl is a short experimental film directed by Bruce LaBruce.Boy, Girl stars G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce and was made in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1987. It is an experimental film which, aside from the two stars, features segments filmed from television of Mary Tyler Moore from the Elvis...
(1987) - Bruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy's Home MoviesBruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy's Home MoviesBruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy's Home Movies also known as Home Movies is a short experimental film by Bruce LaBruce and Candy Parker.Made in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1988, it is filmed in colour and black and white on Super 8mm film and is 12 minutes long.The conceptual premise of the film is that...
(1988), co-directed with Candy Parker - No Skin Off My AssNo Skin off My AssNo Skin Off My Ass is a 1993 comedy-drama film by Bruce LaBruce.Filmed in black and white, this is LaBruce's debut feature film, in which he plays the role of a punk hairdresser with Klaus von Brücker as the skinhead with whom he is obsessed. G.B...
(1993) - Super 8½
- Hustler WhiteHustler WhiteHustler White is a 1996 film by Bruce LaBruce and Rick Castro, a satiric black sex comedy about gay hustlers and their customers in Santa Monica, California. It stars Tony Ward and LaBruce in an addition to the Queer Cinema canon, which is also an homage to classic Hollywood cinema...
(1996) - Skin FlickSkin GangSkin Gang, directed by Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, follows the various sexual and violent escapades of several skinheads. The film raised a great amount of controversy when it premiered in 1999, as many viewers were disturbed by its violent and sexual content, and many critics within the gay...
/ Skin GangSkin GangSkin Gang, directed by Canadian filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, follows the various sexual and violent escapades of several skinheads. The film raised a great amount of controversy when it premiered in 1999, as many viewers were disturbed by its violent and sexual content, and many critics within the gay...
(1999) - The Raspberry ReichThe Raspberry ReichThe Raspberry Reich is a 2004 film by director Bruce LaBruce which explores what LaBruce calls "terrorist chic", cult dynamics, and the "innate radical potential of homosexual expression". It is about a contemporary terrorist group who set out to continue the work of the Red Army Faction , also...
(2004) - Otto; or Up With Dead PeopleOtto; or Up with Dead PeopleOtto; or Up with Dead People is a 2008 Canadian and German queer cinema horror film. The film was directed by Bruce LaBruce and stars Jey Crisfar, Marcel Schlutt, Nicholas Fox Ricciardi and Gio Black Peter.- Plot :...
(2008) - L.A. ZombieL.A. ZombieL.A. Zombie is a 2010 queer cinema zombie film. The film is written and directed by Bruce LaBruce and stars gay pornographic actor François Sagat. The film premiered in competition at Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2010.-Synopsis:...
(2010)
External links
- http://www.blackbookmag.com/Public/index.asp?Page_ID=19&AQ_Magazine_Date=Current&AQ_Magazine_ID=827
- BruceLaBruce.com
- In Focus with Bruce LaBruce by Shane Tanner
- http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080227/SC2470202/80226025 by Courtney Fathom Sell
- Eye.net contributors: Bruce LaBruce
- Director Bruce LaBruce on his new film The Raspberry Reich
- Arts: Bruce LaBruce on glbtq.comGlbtq.comglbtq.com is an online encyclopedia that presents detailed biographies of notable gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. It was named one of the "Best Free Reference Web Sites" in 2005 by the American Library Association....
- New York Times Review of No Skin Off My Ass
- A short biography and astrological chart from "Astroqueer"
- Official Myspage page for "Llik your idols", a documentary about the Cinema of Transgression featuring Bruce Labruce
- Bruce Labruce's Myspace page
- Bruce LaBruce's zine J.D.s at ZineWikiZineWikiZineWiki is an open-source online wiki devoted to zines, fanzines, small press publications, chapbooks, and independent media. It covers the history, production, distribution and culture of the small press.-History:...
- June 2009 Interview with L.A. RecordL.A. RecordL.A. Record is an independent music magazine originally published weekly as a broadsheet poster. The poster usually depicts a local Los Angeles musicians and according to the magazine editors is meant to recreate an iconic album cover. In March 2008, it began publishing as a monthly magazine with a...
- Christian Vagt: Photos of Bruce LaBruce