Song of the Godbody (1977) User Reviews

The Perfect Vision of the Male Body

[svankmaj · 19 January 2004]

I weep on the realization that I can never meet James Broughton in person to sincerely thank him for producing a beautiful, honest work on the glory of the male body. Broughton lets the camera go completely, and allows every single inch of his naked 77-year old body to be explored. This sounds like some kind of raunchy film, and yes, a certain male fluid is indeed shown in it, but this short 15-minute film is NOT about sex. Rather, it's about the sheer miracle of the male body, about how such a complex, amazing mass of skin, hair, semen, sweat, sensation, and life can grow from one microscopic sperm. It is both fascinating and indeed arousing to those men who, like Broughton and I, find joy and pleasure in exploring the male body to the fullest degree. Thank you, Broughton, for proving that there are men in the world who share the same glorious, loving vision of a male body that is not overtly powerful nor masculine, but rather, just as beautiful as the female body.

What Gary Morris said about "Song of the Godbody" by James Broughton

[kitten-calfee · 10/10 · 30 January 2013]

"Broughton's poetic skills are often highlighted in the films; such is the case in one of his boldest efforts, Song of the Godbody (1977). Here a male body — no doubt the filmmaker's own, as it is featured in so much of his work — is shown in closeup, a kind of landscape of flesh that the camera lovingly surveys. Broughton's beatific words accompany this exploration: "This is my body, which speaks for itself… This is my body, which sings of itself." The comparisons to Whitman are inevitable and Broughton is in a real sense Whitman's heir, celebrating the male body and male bonding unabashedly, and going further than Whitman in ways made possible in part by Broughton's appearance in the world decades later. What Whitman said, Broughton can say and show." -- Gary Morris, in Bright Lights Film Journal.