I never wanted the nudity to be just for show. And the other parts where you see the nudity is more like seeing the reality of who these characters are. For that, I never felt like “Oh, I need to show the actual moment.” And that, I think makes it more erotic. From being unsure, uncomfortable, to accepting, to enjoying, to the end.
We really want to be able to see the full experience that Manuel is going through. I told him, your face is gonna sell it all. That’s how we discussed it with Jonathan who plays Manuel. There, I wanted to showcase more the experience. Especially in that climactic blow job scene with Manuel and Max. I think, for me, there’s always a difference between the experience and the reality. The one sexual scene - the blowjob scene - you kind of don’t see it. That said, whenever things are very sexual, they’re not very sexy. So these characters find escape, or find a way to express themselves in these kinds of mediums. The effects of not having that father there or having a father there who wasn’t really supportive in some way. So I kind of made that the thread throughout. But in this scenario what we were interested is their issues with their fathers. You never think of them in terms of how they get to this position to making these videos. Because a lot of people just see them as these objects of sexual desire. Using the backdrop of the porn industry, this gay-for-pay side of the adult industry, with the hustler and the sessions and all that, I was interested in finding out like who are these guys who go into this business. Especially in these scenes where they’re in bed talking about life and their situation. And that’s when I thought, I think this will fit with this. But in watching Breathless, or watching Persona, I saw these scenes where people just talk to each other, they’re talking about their lives, whatever comes to mind. And then with a lot of the other characters, it’s just trying to figure each other out. They’re trying to figure out what this relationship is now. And it was just these two people trying to get to know each other but not in a very emotional kind of way. In writing it, it was a very short script. And I think in writing Daddy’s Boy, it all of a sudden came together. I just got immersed in that whole cinema of the late 60s. My cinematographer Ryan introduced me to a lot of Bergman, and Godard, and then I started watching a lot of François Truffaut’s films.
“Whenever things are very sexual, they’re not very sexy.”Īs a Latino, as a gay filmmaker, I’m at the moment very influenced by the French New Wave stuff. On How The French New Wave Inspired Daddy’s Boy While that earlier film homed in on sexual identity and minority representation, Daddy’s Boy feels less beholden to the drama of these characters, presenting instead a collage of character portraits of men adrift in the city.Īhead of the film’s debut at Cinequest in March, we hopped on the phone with Armando to talk about his cinematic influences, how What It Was gave way to Daddy’s Boy, and what he hopes audiences take away from the film. His previous film, What It Was, which played the festival circuit in 2014, focused on a bisexual Latina actress in New York and tackled issues of family and female desire. It’s definitely a change of pace for the California-born director. It’s one of the many moments in the film that’s as much a celebration of the male form as well as an attempt to rethink what it means to be a man. In between conversational scenes between men by the Chelsea piers, in lonely hotel rooms, and in park benches, Armando offers us musical interludes where we see a bearded male dancer (James Koroni) rehearse shirtless in heels, lovingly exhibiting and admiring his movements in the mirrors around him. In one scene, for example, two brothers reminisce about their father’s disapproval over finding one of them dancing in their mother’s heels, a practice the grown up young man still enjoys. And while there’s plenty of suggestive male nudity the film is - as its title suggests - more interested in staging a poetic meditation on fatherhood. Set in New York City, Daddy’s Boy offers an almost timeless and placeless meditation on same-sex attraction. Described as a “Latino French New Wave” film, Armando’s camera follows “four young men leaving boyhood behind and shedding more than just their clothes and inhibitions,” a vague synopsis that nevertheless tells you all you need to know to experience it.
That he approaches this issue within a black-and-white film that pays homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and features scenes in gay porn studios and male burlesque photo shoots makes his latest feature film all the more intriguing. Thankfully, director Daniel Armando is interested in thinking through that type of macho masculinity. Titling your film Daddy’s Boy takes some balls.