Nighthawks (1978) could be described as the least controversial gay film of all time, not because it is tame or impotent, far from it, but because nobody seems to have seen it. Unlike Brokeback Mountain (2005), easily pigeonholed by the prudish and macho as ‘that gay cowboy film’, which seemed to provoke an uproar with its vigorous bloke-on-bloke scenes, Nighthawks enjoys no such disdain. The film is an uncomfortably real account of homosexual routine. It is not over-romanticised, love springing like erections at the most unexpected of times – it is in fact the opposite.

Nighthawks follows the day-to-day life of a painfully average Londoner: school teacher by day and gay nightclub cruiser by night. In the cool afternoon light of the classroom, he faces the gaze of his young students in desperate need of education but typically resistant to his efforts. In the contrasting neon of the nightclub, it is other types of gaze that dominate: gazes of requited sexual desire, or just as often, gazes of contempt at the desperation of club courtship. This animalistic ‘hawking’ is for lead character Jim usually successful. We are shown the edgy small-talk of the ensuing night, the uncompromising approach to the sex itself, and then the lack of promise implicit in the following morning, where Jim drops off his latest bit of rough-and-tumble before heading back to school. This cycle, in my opinion a much more honest representation of real life, is repetitive, loveless, achingly structured and a long way from the Hollywood romance of Brokeback. This is perhaps why Nighthawks seems to have been ignored by straight audiences. The film rotates, over and over, with satisfaction never a priority for director Ron Peck. This keen reflection of real-life experience comes through again in the electro-romp soundtrack, now cringingly dated but reflecting well a world of Mercury-moustaches, groin-thrusting and a few dozen gay men kitted out in Bruce Springsteen’s wardrobe.

To its credit, Nighthawks feels extremely independent. Many of the actors and actresses are non-professional and at times speak as if unscripted, interrupting each other, making conversation awkward. Though purposeful, this tone is often slow and verging on unwatchable. Certain longer scenes stretch into boredom as the talent of the young actors is sometimes not quite engaging enough. Though the lives of these characters are themselves laborious and draining, it is difficult to balance this alongside audience enjoyment. In this sense, Ron Peck is again uncompromising in his dedication to the truth. The question for viewers, especially straight, neoliberal viewers thirty years on, is whether there is enough there to latch onto.

Nighthawks and its sequel Strip Jack Naked have just been screened at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, where it was introduced by modern icon Matt Lucas, and has just recently been released on DVD. Of course since the 70s, there have been huge changes in the spheres of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender cultures. The film has had a profound, though seemingly inconspicuous, contribution to these changes and could continue to do so. The film is genuine, British, approaching documentation. However, it seems that it is the romanticised Hollywood view of homosexuality that makes straight cinemagoers feel like they ‘understand’. While every liberal culturecock may love the way films like Brokeback cinemize gay life, it is yet to be seen whether they can deal with the reality: that gay life can be just as routine, boring, as desperately normal as the sexual chases heteros also force themselves to endure.

Words > Joe Bedford