Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton

Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay tells the compelling story of one of America's unsung heroes, gay rights activist Harry Hay. A significant contributor to the struggle for lesbian and gay rights in the U.S., Hay created the country's first successful gay rights organization, the Mattach...

USA, 2013, 82 Minute Running Time

The world scandalized James Broughton, a sartorial-minded pre-Beat filmmaker and poet, so he, in turn, scandalized it. In "Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton", directors Eric Slade and Stephen Silha detail Broughton’s courage and impertinence in reject...

James Broughton's most famous film, "The Bed." One that featured the ground-breaking full-frontal (yet innocent) nudity that this experimental filmmaker was known for. In part because of its audacity and courage in portraying bodies, "The Bed" became an instant hit all over the West Coast, recei...

A series of naked tableaux vivants that glorify the human body.

In his book Making Light of It James Broughton wrote, "Naked human bodies in movement have always entranced me. In attempting a pseudo-documentary of undressed humanity I took inspiration from the pioneer studies of Edward Muybrid...

Devotions explores many ways men can express love for each other. Most commonly described as, "Men in pairs, mostly naked, perform various sensual acts together."

In James Broughton's words, this 1983 film of his is "a vision of a world where men have abandoned rivalries in favor of camaraderie."

A spiritual odyssey into a dreamscape where a poet hero sets forth to rescue the bride of his soul.

"Dream wood alludes to several myths– Hippolytus, Apollo, Sisyphus, and Narcissus are seen passing in the background of different scenes, but these allusions become witty intrusions into the oth...

James Broughton wrote, "Shocked by a century of ceaseless war-making, I wrote a poem pleading for a world of peace-loving comrades. When we attended a large men's gathering in Colorado Joel photographed random scenes of the group activity. These we later organized into a flow of images to accomp...

This 11-minute erection is shot with a camera developed to film the atomic bomb explosions in the South Pacific. Because of this, James Broughton considered this film his ultimate statement of "Make love not war." The film rings with James Broughton's poem, "Hermes Bird."

Broughton explains...

Learn about San Francisco theater, a Conscientious Objector camp, Orion Broughton at work, Armistead Maupin's courtship, David Del Tredici's inspirations for setting poetry to music, two more of James Broughton's films ("Dreamwood" and "The Golden Positions"), and various memorials for Broughton.

From Rumi to Carl Jung, from Madeline Gleason to Maya Deren, Keith Hennessy puts James Broughton's work in context in a fast-paced lecture created for Big Joy.