There’s independent cinema, and then there’s what Gregg Araki created in 1992.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary this month is The Living End, a wild, fearless, homoerotic road trip movie that, today, is remembered as one of the earliest works to come out of the ’90s’ New Queer Cinema movement.
With a minuscule budget of $20,000, Araki’s film was an indie passion project in the truest sense—there were no permits, no one in the cast or crew was paid, and the police were called on the production on multiple occasions.
“It was this whole crazy adventure and we had nothing to lose,” Araki remembers in a new anniversary interview with i-D. “We just kind of went for it. There was no self-censorship involved and, in that way, it was creatively reckless and free.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
The Living End is the story of shy film critic Jon (Craig Gilmore) and a hunky drifter Luke (Mike Dytri)—both HIV positive—who meet by chance when the latter kills a homophobic cop, setting them off on a breathless, cross-California adventure as they outrun the law.
For Araki, the film was “almost like a journal” that captured the spirit of queer youth and a reckless abandon during the height of the AIDS epidemic. As he tells i-D: “My sensibility is in a different place—obviously, you grow up—but I appreciate that the film captures that period of my life. It was my crazy, random, wild thoughts. That The Living End is a document of that is, for me personally, really cool and something I look back on very fondly.”
Related: And the films played on: 17 essential movies about HIV/AIDS
Then and to this day, The Living End feels like a risk. Its transgressive, its explicit, it doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Take, for example, the moment where Jon and Luke can’t fight the urge any longer and have unprotected sex—it’s a scene that caused a lot of outrage in ’92.
“The reaction to [that scene] was so intense and so strong,” he shares. “It had a very punk-rock attitude, and it was very unapologetic. Gay and queer representation was so limited at the time and, really, almost non-existent. When it screened at Sundance, I remember people were just so outraged. Seeing it today, it seems almost naive and a little bit cute. But it wasn’t viewed that way [then.]”
Araki was a trailblazer in terms of elevating the “gay gaze” to new cinematic heights. Following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol and his own contemporary Gus van Sant, the writer-director had a very intentional approach to how he lensed the male form:
“[van Sant’s] Mala Noche is a film I saw before I wrote The Living End and the way Gus frames his male Adonises is very similar,” Araki says. “I think, to me, it’s a by-product of that time. It was about the revolutionary gay gaze at men and this objectification of men in the way that women have always been. That whole world of men being seen as sex objects and being lit and shot in a certain way was a huge visual influence on me.”
While Araki may see The Living End as “this little, tiny art project that me and my friends did back in the early 90s,” it’s one that gave his own career a massive boost (he’d go on to direct Mysterious Skin, Kaboom, and more) and helped open the door for so many other LGBTQ filmmakers to come.
And by staying true to his vision, Araki created something that was both sincerely independent and defiantly queer.
Related: Gregg Araki on his Starz series ‘Now Apocalypse’: “So now they go to a sex party…”
“It was not meant to offend but, you know, some people did get offended. That was the thing about The Living End that was so freeing—it didn’t need to please everyone,” Araki reflects. “It was free to be itself and if you took offense, if you didn’t get it or you were not on its wavelength, you could opt out. It was not really watered down in any way for a more mainstream acceptance.”
The Living End is free to stream on Kanopy, and is available to digitally rent/buy oniITunes, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Google Play, and YouTube.
bachy
The 90s were a traumatizing period in my life. Losing many friends to AIDS. No effective treatment in sight. Sex as a game of Russian Roulette. It’s taken me decades to recover (any day now).
I remember trying to watch Araki’s film in ’92 and finding it very upsetting… fatalistic. At a time when people were desperate for a shred of hope, Araki glamorized self-destruction.
There is a time for shock value: when society has become robotic and people need to be shocked out of their complacency. But when society is reeling from loss, disease and death, shock value is a transparent bid for attention, like throwing gasoline on a fire just to make things worse. Not one of my favorite directors.
mikhailmaui
The 1980’s were just as if not more traumatic with AIDS than the 90’s. I lost many, many friends in 1983 and 1984, yet, when I viewed this movie (more than once) and while self-destruction may have been glamorized, at the end of the day it is nothing more than a story told with a different perspective. After seeing The Doom Generation (at least six times) I became a huge fan of Gregg. To each their own, as they say.
Cam
His film may have more been about the anger and less about shock value, at least from his viewpoint.
ShiningSex
Girl…settle down. It was not glamorizing self destruction. It was showing THE TRUTH. There were (and still are) a bunch of ignorant queens in our community who are careless or think they have no future. There was that mentality. I was a teen in the late 80s early 90s and lost many friends due to AIDS including my boyfriend. It’s a f*cking movie. Not all movies have to be positive or uplifting. Go watch crap like The Notebook for that. Great films are provocative, pushes boundaries, and show you no matter how unpleasant live can be. So all LGBT films should be uplifting and not negative??? How boring. Films like “The Living End”, “Frisk”, “For a Lost Soldier”, “BPM”, “Taxi Zum Klo” “Stranger by the Lake”, “Bent” are great films because they are not afraid to show us different sides/stories of our community.
Doug
I’ve followed Gregg Araki since he made “The Living End.” I also liked “The Doom Generation” but I still think his best film by far has been “Mysterious Skin.” I feel like he’s lost his edge since 2004 and his films and t.v. shows have become pretty mainstream now.
Winsocki
Gregg Araki…. I remember The Living End and was hooked to see every film Araki came out with. I found Araki films challenging and not commercial which was great. Yes, I was in the height of AIDS epidemic and I bet 33% of my friends and friends of friends passed or were affected. Some still positive and alive and I am talking gay men approaching 70. Shock value today is commercial and boring at times. All media trying to get your attention. So many actors in Araki films I truly enjoyed watching. Power to the People Right On.
lykeitiz
About a year ago I showed “The Living End” to a friend who had never seen it. He’s in the age group you mentioned (almost 70). He was very quiet and just said he “didn’t hate it”. I think secretly though, it brought up bad memories of the era, which I guess proves it’s still an effective movie today.
Kangol2
I think Gregg Araki is a very talented filmmaker and has included lots of shock in his films. The Living End’s sex scene definitely pushed boundaries for that era, but to me, far more shocking is the ending of his later film, The Doom Generation. I won’t give it away fully but let’s just say a threesome goes very, very wrong, neo-Nazis get involved and…well, it was so disturbing I’m surprised it isn’t discussed more. He’s definitely pushed the boundaries more than once in his career.
Ganybyte
The Living End was a revelation to me. It showed me the anger and fear over the limitations forced on me at the time that I really hadn’t even understood until that movie.
It was my freshman year of college and I saw it with a few other queer friends, all of us obsessed with safety and frankly terrified of sex. I don’t remember any of us being outraged by the sex scene itself, but I do remember it left me feeling jealous and angry about the binary choice between constant paranoid safety or the freedom recklessness depicted. It is so crazy to me now that so many of us (me included) saw normal, natural sex as essentially criminal behavior. And I think the Living End captured the necessary insanity of that moment in time perfectly.
ShiningSex
I saw it in theaters when it came out. His best work and great film!!!!
rand503
I saw the film when I was still deeply closeted and a total virgin. It was probably my first real ‘gay film’ that I ever saw. I was simply astounded at the honesty and realness of it all. I found it exhilerating, but also troubling. The sex scene didn’t bother me, because they were both poz, so it wouldn’t have made much sense to have safe sex thrown in. We all know guys who didn’t practice safe sex even if they were neg — it wasn’t smart, but it was what happened.
As for it being self-destructive, I didn’t see it that way at all. Two guys who are poz, and no hope for a cure, living out a sort of Thelma & Louise fantasy of live life to it’s fullest when you can and on your own terms. That’s empowering and exciting at the same time.
still_onthemark
Why would anyone be “outraged” at two HIV+ guys having unprotected sex? They’re already HIV positive. Yeah, I remember there was a lot of blather back then about “reinfection” by “new strains” but that turned out to be a lot of hooey.
youarebetterthanthat
I work in medical research. One risk is what is now called “HIV superinfection,” and it’s a real thing. Just look it up on Wikipedia: “HIV superinfection (also called HIV reinfection or SuperAIDS) is a condition in which a person with an established human immunodeficiency virus infection acquires a second strain of HIV, often of a different subtype. These can form a recombinant strain that co-exists with the strain from the initial infection, as well from reinfection with a new virus strain, and may cause more rapid disease progression or carry multiple resistances to certain HIV medications.”
Mattster
HIV is not the only sexually transmitted disease, then or now. Getting hepatitis or gonorrhea with a compromised immune system makes a bad situation far worse.
youarebetterthanthat
There’s actually a much better interview from just three months ago. Just search for, “Pioneers of Queer Cinema: The Living End | Gregg Araki, Gus Van Sant and cast” on YouTube.
mz.sam
The Living End was Araki’s most raw and best ‘GAY’ film of his entire watered-down Queer filmmaking career.
Diplomat
Excellent show. Loved every minute of it. Now onto the Doom movie.
Preppy1000
Saw it multiple times when it came out in 1992. I was 20 and out and it perfectly captured the mood and feel of the times. I now have it on DVD where it was restored and looks great!