Coming Unbuttoned

by James Broughton

This witty and impudent confession is the work a pioneer independent filmmaker whose adventures among the famous and the infamous extend from New York circles of the '30s to the avant-garde antics of San Francisco in the '60s and '70s. Born a gleeful poet in a solemn family, James Broughton survived military school, Stanford University, the merchant marine and journalism before his passion for cinema and his dedication to poetry crystallized in 1948 with his first book and the first of his many films. In the '50s he worked in London and Paris; and for many years he occupied a special place in the San Francisco Bay Area as a performer, playwright and professor. In the course of his lively odyssey Broughton shares intimate memories of Anais Nin, Alan Watts, Robert Duncan, Maya Deren, Jean Cocteau, W.H. Auden, Pauline Kael, Kenneth Rexroth, Robinson Jeffers, and the poets of the Beat Generation. Broughton has turned eighty but his writing is as sassy and agile as a young Pan's.

Genres: Poetry

155 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1993

About the author

James Broughton (November 10, 1913 - May 17, 1999) was a pioneer of experimental filmmaking, a central player in California's creative literary scene, a bard of sensuality and spirituality, an invigorated gay elder, and a preacher of Big Joy. His life's work was an attempt to discover the contradictory nature of his humanity and its roots; the result was a poetic and artistic life that inspired many. Broughton's advice to filmmakers: Follow your own weird.

Broughton was part of the San Francisco Renaissance. He was an early bard of the Radical Faeries as well as a charter member of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence serving her community as Sister Sermonetta. His life story is told in the forthcoming feature-length documentary, "Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton," set to be released in 2013-2014.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Ken White decided to found Query Books, I was thrilled by his project to republish great queer books that had gone out of print, to ensure that present and future generations could enjoy them. So when I heard that the first one was out, I rushed to my local queer bookstore to buy it -- just in time to read it on my plane flights to Ohio today. Of course, I knew I would like it, but was still surprised because of the amazing cast of characters he knew, it boggles the mind. Also intrigued by how very frank he is about many things, and yet some things go by without so much attention -- but of course you expect that in memoirs, it can be part of the charm. So, if you are interested in poetry, theater, experimental film, and/or Twentieth Century queer life, don't miss this book.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 B8755c 1993

[Andrew Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pure delight. I could have spent twice the length of this book with the author. The poem, at the end, about meeting his lover when he was sixty-one and his lover 26 is particularly moving.

The early sections about his childhood and his on-going relationship with a guardian angel - who always appeared a few years older than him - is fascinating. There is lots of gossip about famous names with whom he worked and had friendships. Often time has forgotten the characters but in some cases his testament is fascinating - for example Allan Watts. He holds nothing back.

What a pity it is hard to get hold of his books and his poetry

[Thomas Tavis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fresh new publisher Query Books’ inaugural title, an expanded and beautifully redesigned new edition of James Broughton’s out of print 1993 memoir, “Coming Unbuttoned” provides a new generation of readers enhanced insight into the world of this rambunctious, pansexual poet and filmmaker - as well as a bit of extra juice for those of us who read it the first time around.

James Richard Broughton (1913 – 1999), though widely travelled, spent most of his life in, out and around San Francisco. Here he made most of his 23 films, wrote many of his 21 books, and set type for his and Kermit Sheets ‘ Centaur Press.

It was in San Francisco, while in his earliest teens, that Broughton, caught playing dress-up in his mother’s gowns and jewelry, was sent off to military school in Marin County, where he experienced his sexual awakening, recounted in significantly more explicit detail in this Query edition by virtue of the inclusion of a previously expurgated draft chapter.

Also set in San Francisco and also new to this edition is an expanded chapter describing Broughton’s mid-1940s collaboration with Sidney Peterson on Broughton’s first foray into cinema, the film “The Potted Psalm,” evocatively set in Laurel Hill Cemetery even as the graves were being removed to make way for a shopping center (drawn to ruins, Broughton would film “The Pleasure Garden” in the devastated remains of London’s Crystal Palace seven years later).

But curious as the back stories of his artistic endeavors are, the core appeal of “Coming Unbuttoned” is the gossip, and there’s plenty of it.

Broughton seems to have rubbed elbows (and /or other bits and parts) with a boggling range of fascinating personalities. He fathered a child with film critic Pauline Kael, dropped acid with Alan Watts, participated in the Bay Area literary salons of poets Robert Duncan and Kenneth Rexroth (“his demeanor was that of a crotchety cactus”), pub crawled with Dylan Thomas, consorted in Paris with Brancusi, Cocteau, Genet and Giacometti, met Alice B. Toklas (“wearing a hat the size of a parasol”) at the premiere of “ Four Saints in Three Acts,” discussed publishing the diaries of Anais Nin (“she visited them regularly in the vault of the Bank of America in San Francisco”), and hung out at Robinson Jeffers’ Tor House in Carmel … to name but a few of his celebrated companions.

“Coming Unbuttoned” abounds in anecdotes and apercus. And Broughton proves himself a charming, frolicsome raconteur - perhaps taking after his father, a man whose wife somewhat grudgingly remarked "could charm the pants off a snake."

Thomas Tavis: Librarian-at-Large, San Francisco, California