The centerpiece of the IFC Center’s premature James Franco retrospective, an “experimental’’ oddity, appears to be a largely staged making-of documentary about Franco’s supposed efforts, with gay co-director Travis Mathews, to re-create 40 minutes of hard-core footage director William Friedkin claims he cut from his notorious thriller “Cruising’’ (1980) to avoid an ‘X’ rating.
Franco recruits his avowedly straight actor friend Val Lauren to take Al Pacino’s role as an ostensibly heterosexual NYPD undercover officer who infiltrates the Greenwich Village S&M bar scene to catch a serial killer of homosexuals in “Cruising.’’ The film was widely condemned at the time for its stereotypical portrayal of gay men.
There’s only about 10 minutes of re-created “Cruising’’ footage, including some shadowy shots of explicit sex acts, in “Interior. Leather Bar.’’ It largely consists of Franco musing about depictions of homosexual activity on film. As well as gay cast members speculating whether Franco will take off his clothes and perform in explicit footage. He doesn’t.