Skin and Bone (film)
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| Skin and Bone | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Everett Lewis |
| Produced by | Claudia Hoover Gardner Monks |
| Written by | Everett Lewis |
| Starring | B. Wyatt Alan Boyce Nicole Dillenberg Garret Scullin |
| Music by | Geoff Haba Mark Jan Wlodarkiewicz |
| Cinematography | Fernando Argüelles |
| Editing by | Everett Lewis |
| Distributed by | Alliance Films Corporation Jour de Fête Films Strand Releasing |
| Release date(s) | June 22, 1996 |
| Running time | 110 minutes |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Skin and Bone is a 1996 drama film. It played the film festival circuit in 1996 and 1997 before its limited American theatrical release in 1998. The film features a number of songs by the queercore band Pansy Division and includes a cameo by David Arquette playing a client (Arquette would the same year play a hustler in the film johns).
[edit] Plot summary
Skin and Bone follows the stories of three Los Angeles-area hustlers, Harry, Dean and Billy, and Ghislaine, their pimp. Harry (B. Wyatt) is the most experienced of the three. Despite his experience he's managed to delude himself into believing that he's not a prostitute but an "actor" providing "fantasies." He is in fact trying to pursue an acting career but has been unsuccessful. Ghislaine (Dillenberg) relies on him to help her train new recruits, including Dean (Boyce) and Billy (Scullin). Harry services male and female clients and always acts as a "top;" many of his male clients hire him to beat them.
Billy is somewhat goofy and absent-minded and repeatedly finds himself mistaking the wrong man for his client. In one such instance he ends up falling in love with the guy and they plan for Billy to get out of the business and start a life together. Tragically, Billy mistakes another man for a client in a public restroom and that man stabs him to death.
Harry goes on a casting call for a cop movie. The casting director asks him if he will do nudity, clearly implying a casting couch scenario. Harry says he's an artist and loses the role.
Dean is performing as a "nude cleaner" for a client. Dean learns that the client was paralyzed in combat and is still longing for the boy he fell in love with in the Marines, who was killed. The client can still achieve an erection and Dean has sex with him.
Harry is at an appointment with one of his regulars, a uniform fetishist who's called "The General." Usually he has Harry beat him but for this session, unknown to Harry, he's arranged something different with Ghislaine. After showing Harry a picture of himself in which he closely resembles Harry, the General orders Harry to strip. When Harry hesitates, the General attacks him from behind, binds his hands with tape and rapes him.
Harry has his acting agent set up an "interview" with a casting director. He lets the casting director fuck him. Following the interview, Harry goes over to Dean's and finds him sitting alone burning himself with a cigarette. He tells Harry that he ran away from home after his father, to teach him a lesson, had him arrested at age 14 for shoplifting a candy bar. Dean was put in a cell with a number of men who took turns raping him.
Harry gets cast in a small role as a cop and on the set so impresses the producers that they offer him a part in a series.
Ghislaine calls Harry and sends him to the local morgue with $2,500 to bribe an attendant. At the morgue Harry sees Billy's body and figures out that the money is so Ghislaine can acquire it for a client. He confronts Ghislaine and accuses her of setting up Billy's murder. Harry tells Ghislaine he wants out and he wants to take Dean with him. Ghislaine agrees, as long as Harry and Dean perform one final scene.
The scene is a cop/prisoner scenario which starts out with the cop beating the prisoner then the prisoner overpowering the cop, binding and beating and finally shooting him. Harry plays the cop and Dean the prisoner. Harry, bound and gagged, spots Ghislaine switching his gun (loaded with blanks) for another gun but can't get Dean to understand the danger. As Ghislaine and the client watch and the client tapes the scene, Dean pulls the trigger and kills Harry.
Six months later, Dean is living on the streets. Ghislaine finds him and convinces him to return to work.
The film is broken up into color and black and white sequences, with black and white usually denoting that the scene involves one or more of the hustlers engaged with a client. The black and white scenes always indicate that one or more of the characters on-screen is fantasizing, and it's not always the client having the fantasy. Interestingly, when Dean has sex with the paralyzed client the scene is in color. There are some inconsistencies on the color/black and white scheme. For instance, Harry has an S/M scene that's all in color. Harry has a number of fantasies about a woman he formerly knew (and who apparently is dead) and those are occasionally in color. In the final scene, Harry and Dean are in black and white but when the client and Ghislaine are shown watching they're in color, raising the question of exactly who is having the fantasy.
