#Christopher Gable

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[aloneandforsakenbyfateandbyman]

The Boy Friend (1971)

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THE MUSIC LOVERS (1971) dir. Ken Russell Composer, conductor and teacher Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky is a closeted homosexual who would do anything, selfish or not, to disguise that fact during a time when his sexual preference would have cost him the one thing that he truly loved: his music. Tchaikovsky's solution is to marry, but unfortunately he chooses Antonina Miliukova, a (allegedly) nymphomaniac girl whom he cannot satisfy. His marriage is plagued by both his struggles to retain his newfound career and his lustful desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky. (link in title)

[catullus101]

Christopher Gable & Rudolf Nureyev in Kenneth MacMillan's Images of Love

Royal Opera House, 1964

[angevinyaoiz]

Haha thanks for appreciating my art! 

Yeah, it’s funny because I think Henry II/Young Henry is objectively some of the BEST lesser known Dadson dynamics out there that’s sadly underexplored—you have political bedsharing, “the son and the father are one,” Co-Crowning ceremonies (There should be more dadson AUs that steal the concept of associative kingship) bodies and souls bound together, guilt, shame, divorce, the Love and Fear of faetc etc… 

the only unfortunate thing Is that dadson is generally not something I get super excited about personally. >_< I can see the visions and recommend them but it’s not really what gets me going….I’ll leave that to the pros (tho I DID have some art concepts here and there in mind but who knows if I’ll ever get to it..)

Anyways, back to the main subject—for memory lane look at these, the very FIRST art I did of him I’m pretty sure! Alongside Frederick Barbarossa and Richard. You can tell I was just working directly off random ref images without knowing anything lool

Also this one! Early art. Where he’s extremely shota. I still think this is cute, but it doesn’t look like HIM to me.

I still like these pieces…I had fun with them. I miss putting him in the historically inaccurate green caftan

Philip’s design overall has been an interesting process! I think my initial designs for the Plantagenets have refined over time, but they more or less stayed the same from the beginning, while his was kind of an evolution. It’s a bit hard for me to look at my old Blondelippe art because it’s so different from how I think about and draw him now, lol.  I was initially influenced by a few things:

there were a couple of fanarts/drawings of a Philip that was blonde, so I ran with that .

I think I might have initially mixed up art with that of Philip IV Le Bel, who has had portrayals where he’s a Pretty Blond

In some medieval artworks especially in later centuries, there are portraits of him that look blonde but only because of the stylistic conventions.

Also, my initial fandommy delusion interpretation of his character (when i was mostly dabbling from the TLIW stuff only) was influenced by the certain BL and shoujo archetype that pops up that usually consist of blonde, french-coded characters with childhood sexual trauma who are also guarded and conniving and sometimes straight up evil. so I thought it would be fun to run with that, and also be an obvious visual signifier that I was working in more a Yaoi Delusion state than a Realistic Historical state.

I ended up kind of veering away from this as I started to do more research and realized I was a lot more interested in reading about historical details. I was less familiar with Philip, but I had fun reading and getting to know his character I think a lot more in a way that I liked. My art is influenced by my aesthetic fujo preferences, but I also like a sense of background knowledge and consistency in my brain. For me I wanted the Philip, both the historical philip and the rpf dolly i’ve reconstructed, to feel more specific to me. There are already plenty of conniving blondes out there (I didn’t want people to mistake it for an APH France…lol) so kind of designing him as brunette with the goofy, severe bangs (influenced by his statues, and by the 19th century portrait) was a fun design. It also worked a lot better for black and white comics, like in “In Exchange for Honor,” And as well serves as a nice visual contrast since I draw the brothers + Henry usually as all varying degrees of blonde/redhead… THAT’s for Yaoi aesthetic reasons lol

I’m actually not sure if there IS any info on his hair color in real life, and tbh I guess i’m not interested in that (also he balded so it becomes irrelevant). I think it’s fun because I can draw him very pretty for my delusions if I want but also has a kind of dorkiness to him that I think is extremely important to lean into. I also feel like, I wanted a design that could look distinct and cute, but also could look more Adult if I wanted to, I draw him a kid a lot but I wanted the vibes to translate into older designs as well.

A big part that stands out to me reading about the historical Philip is the contrast between how Serious and Sacral the Frankish kingship is how important Philip was as the god-given heir blah blah blah, but also with how WEIRD he was. Making serious and laudable logistical decisions and policies one moment, but also making baffling and confusing decisions in his personal life and relationships. He’s kind of a mess in a fun way, it leaves a lot for the imagination (and evil imagination) to wonder wtf was up with him. In a way, even though the TLIW richphil dubcon backstory is Completely Made Up, to me I feel it doesn’t feel completely out of place thematically, since to me there’s something inherently sus/erotic about the status of purity/sacralness and the transgression from childhood vulnerability that is necessary to emerge into true power…Anyway I could write more Yaoi Essays but this post is meant to be about aesthetics.

It is impossible to escape the influence of TLIW Timothy Dalton in attitude, even if not in aesthetic, since he is probably the only major portrayal of Philip in the anglosphere I can think of. I feel that influence definitely comes through unavoidably, although I also try to round him out a bit when I write him. TLIW!Philip (in both movies and all plays) is showing him behaving at a very specific point in time; he starts off being condescended to, then exits the film smug and unscathed. It’s a big contrast from even modern Philip portrayals like in Confessions de l’Histoire where he’s more of a whiner and Richard’s punching bag.  

In The Devil’s Crown, Christopher Gable in The Devil’s Crown is a bit more subtle, and follows a more subdued and calculating Philip who grows into his person over time. I like him a lot because he’s very stiff and formal compared to Henry and Richard’s expressive gesticulating, but he holds a lot of disdain and rage inside him.  I think his portrayal in TDC definitely has influenced me a lot, I love how he glowers at Richard during all their encounters. It’s both very serious but also kind of cute…Also I’m entranced by his ballet photos. In a way they kind of cycle all the way back to that ethereal kind of “getting bewitched in the woods” unnerving shoujo feeling that I was originally getting a whiff of originally.

FUNNY ENOUGH, I feel I even still get some influence from….Solomon’s Crown of all things.. I make fun of it of course for its uwufication but for all my haterisms natasha kind of cooked with leaning into the weirdly ageregressiony Pure Special Little Boy feeling that pops up fetishistically in that book (in denial of course), the only difference for me is that I feel like that fetishistic aspect can be used deliciously for Evil (“purity” can be weaponized, after all) character traits rather than making a character Boring as hell

[junkyardbluebox]

Caption This!

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The Boy Friend (1971)

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Christopher Gable & Twiggy - The Boy Friend, 1971.

[byneddiedingo]

Christopher Gable and Twiggy in The Boy Friend (Ken Russell, 1971)

Cast: Twiggy, Christopher Gable, Max Adrian, Bryan Pringle, Murray Melvin, Moyra Fraser, Georgina Hale, Sally Bryant, Vladek Sheybal, Tommy Tune, Brian Murphy, Graham Armitage, Antonia Ellis, Caryl Little, Glenda Jackson. Screenplay: Ken Russell, based on a musical play by Sandy Wilson. Cinematography: David Watkin. Production design: Tony Walton. Costume design: Shirley Russell. Music: Peter Maxwell Davies; songs: Sandy Wilson, Nacio Herb Brown, Arthur Freed. 

Nothing succeeds like excess. That seems to have been Ken Russell's motto, well displayed in The Boy Friend. As I watched it, I thought the first parody of Busby Berkeley's kaleidoscopic production numbers for Warner Bros. musicals was brilliant. The second was entertaining. The third was ... well, maybe the law of diminishing returns had set in. The original stage musical was a campy sendup of the kind of musical comedies that P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, and Jerome Kern used to create for the Princess Theatre and later in the 1920s: tuneful light romances with silly plots. But for the movie, Russell superadds a campy sendup of the backstage movie musicals of the 1930s, borrowing plot and even dialogue from 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), hence the Berkeley parodies. I first saw The Boy Friend around the time of its first release, and enjoyed it. But watching it again now, I found myself looking at the clock after the first hour and a half passed. The version I had seen in the theater was the one MGM had cut by 25 minutes; the restored version runs an exhausting two hours and 17 minutes. That said, there is much to enjoy about Russell's movie, especially the vividly colored production design by Tony Walton and costumes by Shirley Russell (the director's wife). The presence of the great Tommy Tune in the cast is also a plus. The Sandy Wilson songs are pleasantly hummable, and the interpolation of two songs by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed that were featured in Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) is nice. But a little camp goes a long way, and piling camp on camp can be tiresome, especially if the camp is done the way Russell does it: with a smirk rather than a wink.     

[gatutor]

Christopher Gable-Twiggy "El novio" (The boy friend) 1971, de Ken Russell.

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Films Watched in 2024: 58. The Boy Friend (1971) - Dir. Ken Russell

[angevinyaoiz]

I shall have a worthy rival, just like your father