In 1947 there were very few contexts in which a film could portray one man embracing another. Fireworks (1947) opens with one of these (a soldier carrying a man who appears to be wounded or even dead) but quickly begins to subvert this imagine; drastically changing its implied meaning. The film begs for analysis more than review because, while it is as direct as abstract art can be, it is obscure enough to be daunting.
A man awakes in bed and removes a phallic symbol from beneath the sheets. He begins to get dressed while the camera lingers on his crotch and naked chest. He gathers up photos scattered around the bed and disposes of them in the fire. Through this sequence we began to think of sex. It is not a stretch to imagine the pictures (of one man holding another) to have been masturbatory material now destroyed implying shame and the desire for secrecy.
The man finishes dressing while being framed as a visual mirror of the earlier phallic symbol. This gives a hint into his emotional state. His matchbook is both empty and branded with United States Navy. It is discarded and the man enters the night through a public restroom where he sees a sailor. The sailor removes his shirt and begins to flex his muscles and show off his body, but when asked for a cigarette he is seen to be fully dressed. This implies that the previous shirtless shots may have been the man's subjective view, mentally undressing the sailor as it were.
The sailor reacts violently to the request for a cigarette and it is not hard to imagine that the question was a veiled (or even overt as the movie lacks dialogue) pick up attempt. Remembering the matchbook, we can assume the man has tried this approach before. The violence that follows is brief, suggestive, and ends with the man smoking a cigarette; a classic visual shorthand for the conclusion of sex.
The original sailor leaves, but a new group arrives. They are armed and angry. The violence here is both extended and graphic, yet far more abstract. The man's reaction to the beating is sensual implying, if not outright rape then, at least, a connection to sadomasochistic sex. Using (to my mind at least) the Soviet Montage theory Anger turns milk into a bodily fluid by having the shots follow shots of blood and ecstatic writhing. This, somewhat appropriately, heralds the unsubtle climax where both patriotic symbols (fireworks), and religious symbols (Christmas tress) are converted into phallic symbols as the music swells triumphantly. We are brought back to the image of one man holding another as it is destroyed by the invasion of of now homoerotic symbols.
The final scene shows the man once more sleeping in bed (though this time with a male partner) and suggest that all that preceded was a dream. Here we are recalled to the opening narration we the director talks about dreams expressing emotions that are repressed during waking life, but providing only a "temporary relief."
A man awakes in bed and removes a phallic symbol from beneath the sheets. He begins to get dressed while the camera lingers on his crotch and naked chest. He gathers up photos scattered around the bed and disposes of them in the fire. Through this sequence we began to think of sex. It is not a stretch to imagine the pictures (of one man holding another) to have been masturbatory material now destroyed implying shame and the desire for secrecy.
The man finishes dressing while being framed as a visual mirror of the earlier phallic symbol. This gives a hint into his emotional state. His matchbook is both empty and branded with United States Navy. It is discarded and the man enters the night through a public restroom where he sees a sailor. The sailor removes his shirt and begins to flex his muscles and show off his body, but when asked for a cigarette he is seen to be fully dressed. This implies that the previous shirtless shots may have been the man's subjective view, mentally undressing the sailor as it were.
The sailor reacts violently to the request for a cigarette and it is not hard to imagine that the question was a veiled (or even overt as the movie lacks dialogue) pick up attempt. Remembering the matchbook, we can assume the man has tried this approach before. The violence that follows is brief, suggestive, and ends with the man smoking a cigarette; a classic visual shorthand for the conclusion of sex.
The original sailor leaves, but a new group arrives. They are armed and angry. The violence here is both extended and graphic, yet far more abstract. The man's reaction to the beating is sensual implying, if not outright rape then, at least, a connection to sadomasochistic sex. Using (to my mind at least) the Soviet Montage theory Anger turns milk into a bodily fluid by having the shots follow shots of blood and ecstatic writhing. This, somewhat appropriately, heralds the unsubtle climax where both patriotic symbols (fireworks), and religious symbols (Christmas tress) are converted into phallic symbols as the music swells triumphantly. We are brought back to the image of one man holding another as it is destroyed by the invasion of of now homoerotic symbols.
The final scene shows the man once more sleeping in bed (though this time with a male partner) and suggest that all that preceded was a dream. Here we are recalled to the opening narration we the director talks about dreams expressing emotions that are repressed during waking life, but providing only a "temporary relief."