Generally dismissed as big-budget Barbrarama, The Prince of Tides is actually one of the most important gay films of its time. In 1991, the gay cinema radar was laser focussed on “New Queer Cinema” and ACT-UP/Vito Russo style concerns, so, despite its stellar cast and good box office, the film skipped the homo-zeitgeist. Also, the fame of its megastar director inevitably drained attention away from the film's other merits and significances – the appearance of Streisand’s outrageously long fingernails became the film’s most discussed element. Yet The Prince of Tides is a fine film and a pertinently "gay" one, plotted around male rape and masculinity, featuring a key post-AIDS gay film character, and a gay actor playing the troubled, sensitive son of one of the ultimate gay icons.
The Prince of Tides – a condensed adaptation of the novel by Pat Conroy – tells the story of Tom Wingo (Nick Nolte), a family man from the Deep South who travels to New York City after his troubled sister Savannah attempts suicide for the umpteenth time. Savannah’s psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein (Streisand) hopes Tom can shed some light on Savannah’s impenetrable depression. For her part, Susan is stuck in a loveless marriage, of which her son Bernard (Jason Gould – Streisand’s real son) is the mixed up and miserable product. Tom and Susan’s meetings lead to friendship, then to love, with Tom lending Bernard some much needed fathering, and Susan helping Tom heal the still-festering wounds of his childhood. Conroy's weighty book is rendered here as, primarily, a love story.
Streisand copped a lot of flak for developing the Susan/Tom thread of the story at the expense of most of the others in Conroy’s densely populated book. Zeroing in on the director’s famed arrogance and vanity, many critics felt she couldn’t resist making the film all about herself and her pet topics (therapy, sad childhoods, importance of self-love), but Barbra's focus on events in New York City was actually a wise one. Filming the whole massive novel, bit by bit, would have made for a disastrous, fast-forward telemovie melodrama where each character got ten minutes screen time, max. Other plotlines come in and out through telephone conversations, or quick cutaways to other locales and Streisand should have been praised for her judicious choices, even though, as some critics noted, it made for some final scenes that were a bit too similar to The Way We Were. Also, The Prince of Tides is lovingly filmed in a palette of golds, oranges and pinks and contains passionate performances from its talented cast (including outstanding child acting).
It’s also a crucial film in the post-AIDS history of gay screen characters. George Carlin plays Savannah’s roommate, Eddie Detreville. Eddie first appears in the film bursting through a door defending his territory, Dirty Harry style, brandishing a gun and mannish-ly yelling “Move your ass an inch motherfucker and you can kiss it goodbye!” at a startled Tom, who’s entered Eddie's apartment unannounced and knocked over a vase. Once Eddie realises the “intruder” is his old friend Tom, he slips straight into gay mode, dropping the piece to his side, and musically saying “Tom! You should have told me you were coming!” before swishing around the flat and rearranging a potted plant, dropping quips and double-entendre left right and centre. He tells Tom that the blood stain on the carpet – which we infer came from Savannah’s wrists – was “hell to get out”.
Eddie’s perfectly comfortable being the roommate of a suicidal, schizophrenic poet. He can throw humour at horror, and is sufficiently “loopy” himself – an arty inner city misfit like Savannah. There’s a clear inference here – the film was made in 1991 when AIDS was at its blue flame – that wherever you find death, madness and doom, you’ll find a couple of gays nearby. A party Eddie throws in the apartment is filled with oddballs and queers and their professional add-ons, such as therapists (Susan is a guest). One snaky leather-capped guy makes a move on Tom, before being shooed away by a protective Eddie. Tom and Susan create an oasis of normality in the centre of the party by slow dancing and talking about their marriages. Later in the film, Eddie makes another appearance (carrying flowers) and mentions that he’s been out of town a lot (where? why?) and soon after that barges in (carrying groceries in another nod to The Way We Were) on post-coitum Tom and Susan, asking if he’s “interrupted something vile” before commenting that he’s glad to see they both got laid, then offering to make them refreshments.
We can view Eddie Detreville two ways.
The first is to see him the Russo way: a peripheral nelly mammy along for the ride as a foil for the hetero main characters. The character of Eddie is loaded with every Celluloid Closet cliché in the book, including his witty repartee, his housewifey love of flowers, carpet cleaning and groceries, and his crazy parties and love of dancing and just generally leading a flippant, decadent life. He doesn’t end up dead and isn’t a killer, but as this movie is about finding love for yourself and others, and as every single character – including Savannah – finds some sort of happier new space except Eddie, who is apparently single and who doesn’t emotionally or psychologically evolve through the film, we can argue that within the context of The Prince of Tides, he is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Many gay critics went to town over Eddie’s stereotypically passive turn in the film.
On the other hand, we can see Eddie as an island of stability in an otherwise bloody and passionate film about violence, sexuality and the duplicity of emotion. In a film where “After you’ve stopped bleeding I’d like to take you to dinner” passes for mood-lifting, flirtatious dialogue, and where each and every character (bar Eddie) is totally emotionally retarted by their gnarled psyches, Eddie is the only one who seems to have worked out a way to cope with it all. He’s the only character in the film at peace. Could Eddie be the Prince of the title? The turbulent tides that tear every other character asunder have no impact on regal Eddie. Why else would Tom, haunted by the spectre of sodomy and thoroughly provincial, be so comfortable around manramming, hyper-urban Eddie? Susan too calls Eddie a friend, and Eddie’s bustling, bacchanalian parties and frequent trips away suggest some wizard-like creature who travels on a higher socio-spiritual plane.
Either way, Eddie acts as crucial ballast against the male rape that is central to Tom’s story. Without friendly, asexual Eddie, we might have a film that contains a whole slew of straight characters torn to pieces by an invasion of homosexuality. Also, Eddie is a flamboyantly gay character in a stridently heterosexual milieu. Braver to be that, I think, than the gay brats in The Living End et al, daring to be themselves and be out and proud when, well, everyone around them, and their film, is as gay as. In my opinion,Eddie is a spot-on barometer of just where gay people fitted into the mainstream in 1991. You decide.
Onto Bernard, Susan’s son, a talented violinist (like his father) who Tom introduces to football. Bernard isn’t bratty so much as he’s bitchy, a vindictive little tosser who can’t cope with being the gifted son of very rich parents. At first, Bernard throws like a girl, and can’t catch a football. As the movie progresses, Bernard morphs into a star athlete, his playing field prowess balanced by a real skill on the violin. Unattached to his parents, Bernard is escorted to his departing train by defacto father Tom, the failed man of the narrative. It’s a touching union of two males struggling to do all that’s expected of them, without losing touch with who they think they are or who they may like to be. (Apparently, during the filming, an infuriated Streisand yelled at her actor/son to “Walk like a MAN! Walk like a MAN!” as he strolled, in an obviously unmanly way, along a train station platform.)
The Prince of Tides is a motherlode of early-nineties masculinity, homosexuality and the dark threat of anal invasion. A terrific cultural time capsule, it’s one of the most under explored "gay" films ever made (how unusual).
Additionally, The Prince of Tides features Barbra as porn sex kitten, languorous in grey sweats and tube socks, or dead sexy in micro-mini business suits, her every appearance heralded by a swell in the music score. Look for the scene where she breaks Nolte’s nose by throwing a dictionary at him, a victory of words over brute strength if ever there was one. The underwater children scenes are unexpected and beautiful, as is the film, overall.
Related Reading:
The Silence of the Lambs
Philadelphia
Interview with Camille Paglia
Barbra Streisand Official Website
