Pat Rocco was a pioneering California gay activist and filmmaker, who documented and dramatized LGBTQ life between the years 1967 and 1978. Rocco’s films feature lyrical and deeply romantic narratives, often imbued with provocative political and social commentary, as well as extensive nudity. Although he is one of the lesser-known underground gay filmmakers of the era, Rocco was shooting hallucinogenic homoerotica four years before James Bidgood’s Pink Narcissus was released. He walked the fine line between camp sentimentality and heartfelt romanticism, with a visual style similar to the Kuchar Brothers. His films hold an affection for marginalized outsiders, reminiscent of John Waters’ early work, but with none of the shock value, and far more nudity.
While many of his films are gay recontextualizations of the old Hollywood weepies, or absurdist experimental shorts (like Boy on the Run, in which a jail escapee flees to the woods, strips naked, and bounces ar…
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