A Very Natural Thing
A Very Natural Thing is a 1974 film about a gay man named David who leaves a monastery to become a public school teacher by day, whilst looking for true love in a gay bar by night. It was one of the first films about gay relationships intended for mainstream, commercial distribution. The original title of the film was For as Long as Possible. It was directed by Christopher Larkin and was released to lukewarm reviews in 1973 and given an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America.
After a season of loneliness, David meets a divorced photographer named Jason Bo White at the 1973 Gay Pride rally which began the film. David and Jason go to Jasons apartment and talk. In Jason, a divorced dad, we meet another member of the gay community, one who was living a heterosexual life prior to coming out. He still socializes with his exwife, who goes with him on photo shoots. On a parental visit with their toddler son P.J. Jason tells his exwife that he is now seeing someone with whom he would be spending the upcoming Labor Day holiday. It appears that in Jason, David has found someone willing to pursue a romantic, committed relationship with him. Jason takes pictures of David while telling him things to say other than cheese, and the film ends by showing the two men together splashing naked in the surf on Cape Cod.The film was seen as the gay response to Love Story 1970, the movie famous for the phrase, Love means never having to say youre sorry. Similarly, Mark tells David, Love means never having to say youre in love, and a montage of the two men rolling down a leafcovered hill, quietly lying together at home, and being in love mimics a montage of the heterosexual couple in Love Story. Both movies argued for an unconventional alternative to traditional marriage, despite a commitment. David tells Jason that he is committed to him, but that this commitment is based on wanting to be together, not having to be together. The ending is very optimistic, which was out of the ordinary for gay relationship films until then. Earlier films were dominated by tales of gays and lesbians being outcasts of society, mentally disturbed or committing suicide later films were sadly dominated by the emergence of AIDS. A Very Natural Thing thus represents a short period in time where gay liberation flourished, and filmmakers could explore relationships in much the same way that films with heterosexual characters did. ........
Source: Wikipedia