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(aka "Drifter" or "Two-Way Drifter")
Directed by Pat Rocco
USA 1974
A prolific filmmaker who explored documentary, narrative, and experimental cinema, Pat Rocco captured the essence of queer culture in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when it was still largely ignored by the popular media. Having achieved notoriety in the gay underground, Rocco expected his third feature to cross over to general audiences. A West Coast response to Midnight Cowboy, Drifter observes the odyssey of an emotionally ambivalent bisexual hustler (Joed Adair) as he wanders through a series of relationships with men and women, yearning for a sense of belonging in a Southern California characterized by impersonal pick-ups and sex for hire. Playful and irreverent, Rocco‘s films could also be disarmingly earnest and sensitive and might have found a greater audience had not serious gay narratives remained such a stubborn cultural taboo. As it was, Rocco’s breakthrough film failed to receive commercial distribution, and for decades Drifter remained virtually unseen. Fifty years later, Kino Cult celebrates Rocco‘s magnum opus with a 2K restoration from the original 16mm A/B negatives preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, setting the stage for a reappraisal of Rocco’s eclectic and historically significant body of work. |
Posters
Theatrical Release: May, 1974 (Cannes Film Festival)
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
Review: Kino Cult - Region FREE - Blu-ray
Box Cover |
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CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures: |
Distribution | Kino Cult #6 - Region FREE - Blu-ray | |
Runtime | 1:37:18.833 | |
Video |
1.37 :1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-rayDisc Size: 46,103,622,479 bytesFeature: 31,312,631,808 bytes Video Bitrate: 38.99 MbpsCodec: MPEG-4 AVC Video |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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Bitrate Blu-ray: |
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Audio |
DTS-HD Master
Audio English 1561 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1561 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 /
48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit) Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps |
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Subtitles | English, None | |
Features |
Release Information: Studio: Kino Cult
1.37 :1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-rayDisc Size: 46,103,622,479 bytesFeature: 31,312,631,808 bytes Video Bitrate: 38.99 MbpsCodec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Edition Details: • Audio Commentary by Film Historian Finley Freibert Four Short Films by Pat Rocco:
• Autumn Nocturne (1968, 24:32)
Standard Blu-ray Case inside slipcase Chapters 9 |
Comments: |
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
captures were taken directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.
The 1080P image quality of Drifter is quite good considering it is from 16mm. There are floating vertical scratches here and there but texture consistency and reasonable color balance are very pleasing. There is a touch of banding but no impinging damage. It appears as though the source and restoration yielded positive results. It is rendered on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate.
NOTE: We have added 48 more large
resolution Blu-ray captures
(in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE
On their
Blu-ray,
Kino Cult use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the
original English language. Drifter
has no overtly aggressive effects but does have some funky jazz
("She" by Alan Hawkshaw + Keith Mansfield - played in the opening
/ closing credits and described as the theme to "Drifter") and
the sound is quite clean without egregious weaknesses
in the lossless transfer. Kino Cult offer optional English subtitles on
their Region FREE
Blu-ray.
The Kino Cult
Blu-ray
Fearless and pioneering gay-rights advocate
(notably
protesting anti-gay policy in West Hollywood and beyond) Pat
Rocco was the first filmmaker to publicly exhibit homosexual erotic
films in the United States. His film Drifter, with non-linear
timeline flashbacks, includes male and female nudity, however the
sensitive portrayal of sexuality is neither explicit nor hardcore.
Diverging from his more common 'male nudie' work this would lean to
mainstream-appeal with female love interests; neighbor Klamath (Bambi
Allen) and park-beauty Karen (Inga-Maria Pinson.) Joe Adair plays a
character known as 'Drifter' who, like
Midnight Cowboy's Joe Buck, tries his hand as a wanderlust
bisexual hustler with his hesitancy expressed as seeking a financial
component while rejecting but requiring an intimate connection with his
lovers. Men and women want to be with sweaty, slim, tall and muscular
'Drifter' but he is on a journey of self-discovery realizing he has more
to offer than one-off erotic fantasy fulfillment. It is both a
progressive and earnest psychological portrait of a man meandering to
find his identity and deserved of re-appraisal. Pat Rocco's Drifter
has rarely been seen outside of gaysploitation-content festivals. I was
neither bored nor able to predict where the film was going to lead. The
direction and story construction were far more sophisticated than I
would have anticipated. Included in the Kino Cult
Blu-ray
package (their best yet?) is the Freibert commentary and 4 shorts by
legendary Rocco that you are unlikely to see anywhere else. I applaud
Kino for this
Blu-ray
release that is whole-heartedly encouraged for adventurous and curious
cinephiles. Don't judge this until you have seen it! |
Menus / Extras
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Box Cover |
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CLICK to order from: Bonus Captures: |
Distribution | Kino Cult #6 - Region FREE - Blu-ray |
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