Open Tonight
'Open' is the latest film from Teddy Award-winning director Jake Yuzna. The film follows two love stories. The first story is based on the story of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, leader of the bands Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle, and features a couple who have plastic surgery to combine each other’s features in a process they call pandrogyny. While recovering from surgery, one member of the couple meets a young intersexed person and go on a strange road trip. The second story centers around a transman and a biological gay man who fall in love. Before heading off to tonight’s screening of his film at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, Jake took the time to answer some pondering questions from BUTT.
Adriano: What made you pick the subject of the film?
Jake: It originally started when I was helping to run a queer film festival in Minneapolis called the Flaming Film Festival. We showed a lot of pornographic – or ‘sexplicit’ – work and I met a lot of transmen, which got me interested in the idea of what would happen if I was to fall in love with a transman and have a child. And I’ve always been fascinated with Genesis P-Orridge, so I thought about having this pandrogyny element.
Is intersexuality or pandrogyny something you’re personally or sexually interested in?
I’m interested in people that, either by choice or by force, fall out or feel excluded or aren’t part of the larger whole.
That doesn’t really answer my question…
I can never know what it feels like to be born intersexed but I definitely deeply admire the people who have to deal with it. And pandrogyny is a beautiful and poetic physical manifestation of love. It would be incredible to meet someone who I was so in love with that felt as if we where one being. But I thought you were actually going to ask me if I slept with a transman…
I kind of did.
That’s the silliest question.
Why? It was the first that came to mind.
Let’s just say that I can envision myself at 40 married to a woman with kids. Right now it’s not looking very likely, by it’s possible. I like to keep my sexuality open.
What was Genesis P-Orridge’s involvement in the making of the movie?
When I first decided I want to do something about Genesis, I contacted he/r and said I want to a movie with pandrogynous characters. S/he wrote me back and said, ‘Sure, come on out to New York, I’d love to talk to you about it.’ So I went and when s/he first opened the door, I was very excited and nervous. There are many wild stories about Genesis and you have no idea how much of it is truth and how much is fiction until you actually meet the person. But s/he was so warm, kind, and inviting. Not to mention down-to-earth and really invested in helping me. S/he’d call me up for days afterwards and ask if I had enough ideas, so s/he was really engaged. And then it was time for me to go do my thing, but one of the scariest parts of making the film was sending the final version to Genesis. The making of it took years and so much had happened since I’d first met he/r. Lady Jaye had passed away during the making of the film!
What do you do as a pandrogynous person when your partner dies?
It seems she uses the term ‘we’ now, more and more. My guess would be that, in some way, Genesis feels that Jaye’s still around, just in a different state. But I haven’t talked with he/r about it directly.
I thought the sex scenes in the film were kind of sweet and hot. Did it help that you used to work on porn sets before? Or did you try to get away from that as much as possible?
I did most of my porn work after shooting this. But I love shooting sex scenes. They’re so easy.
What kind of porn did you work for?
Fetish and gay mostly…and maybe there was some lesbian and trans in there, too. I started in Minneapolis and then did some in New York.
What exactly was your job?
Depended on the shoot, but mostly I did lighting and camera. It was all camera practice mostly. I also learned how to make fake cum. That’ll probably come in handy some day.
You have some family ties to the movie industry, right?
Well, my uncle Brian Yuzna directs and produces films. Horror films, mostly. He did Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
What have you learnt from your uncle?
I have never lived in the same city as he has, or worked with or for him. But when we’ve crossed paths professionally he has given me guidance. Its all been very practical, business minded advice which has been incredibly helpful.
If you were reborn as a famous movie monster which one would you want to be?
Hmm. Dracula maybe? I’d like to have a lot of time to work on projects. I also mainly write at night. That would be nice. My idols as a child were villains from James Bond films, Cobra from G.I. Joe, and all these megalomaniacal dark army sorts. Dracula is maybe the closest to that.