Thoughts on Thor Arnold and Lee Nolan's eleven year friendship with Freddie

Did somebody say a TV report?...LOL

Don't worry stevendabudgie (aus Deutschland), I've made the same mistake a few times.

I learned that you must only click "reply" once and wait. Sometimes it seems like your
message did not go through, but be patient before you click reply again.

Thor and Lee,
It's so special to be able to learn your perspective, critiques and feelings regarding THE movie about your Friend!!! Very few people will have that special insight. I can't even IMAGINE what it must be like to be in your n Lee"s shoes!!!! You sharing private thoughts with all of us=PRICELESS!!!!!
Here"s some thoughts I have had.....some have been ruminating around my crazy brain for a while; some are triggered by the movie....
What viscerally bothered me about Rami playing Freddie (beside the bug-eyes,not his fault of course) was that they didn't give him warm brown eyes!! I read on the net that actors sometimes have a difficult time wearing contacts....but what about CGI????? Idk....but of all the truths I could temporarily suspend.....this one stuck with me.(considering I'm in dental....one might think it would be the horrfic prosthetic teeth.......go figure!!)
Since you and Lee were actually at Garden Lodge. How do you think it was represented visually/framed art, furnishings, etc??????? According to all written/oral accounts, Freddie was extremely proud of his art treasures!!!! Jim Hutton reported that one of the last things Freddie wanted to do was go downstairs to view his beloved collection.
Do you have Any gut feeling that Freddie may have suspected he MAY be ill around the time of Live-Aid......I know what Phoebe states about the spring of 1987......i'm inquiring about your intuition?????
I can't help but wonder How many who have seen the movie...did the first thing I did when I returned home...and that was to YouTube the actual Live-Aid Queen portion, and see it thru a new lense....even though I have previously watched it on my DVD and YT DOZENS if not Hundreds of times??!! The Best 20 minutes of Queen and Freddie......EVER!!!! Do you think Mary will give an opinion of the film???
And lastly, how do you think/feel it would have gone with Jim Hutton IF Freddie hadn't of been ill?????? Do you think Freddie might have married and had children, like Elton has done?????????
Sorry this is so long......thanking you in advance for your and Lee's response!!!

Oh yeah.....i watched Munich T V special....but all I understood was FM, America and Chicago!!! Lol....maybe I can get one of my German patients to translate for me!!!!!!

OMG...THAT MUST BE INTERNAL ERROR...CUZ I DID NOT HIT REPLY 3 TIMES!!!!

SORRY!

Thanks Thor! It is a nice clip, and I was so glad to see you all there, Loved the picture, you all look so happy and relaxed.

Thor, thanks for your reply to me. It made me feel a lot better. I would like to have seen the same things you were looking for about Freddie, but I went into it knowing I would not. I also struggled for a while before the movie with Rami's appearance. Frankly, I think Freddie was one of the most beautiful men I've seen, so I knew no one would be able to approach that ideal I have in my mind. Once I got used to seeing Rami's pictures all over social media, I was able to accept him as Freddie. I've also watched several interviews where he shows enormous respect for Freddie. I thought the music was incredible. I saw it in an IMAX theater and it was as if I was experiencing the music live as it pounded through my whole body. I wanted Freddie's sexuality to be treated honestly, and I felt they did the best they could with the rating they had. I respect your views on that issue. I am going again next week, with another friend who likes the music, but really doesn't know much beyond that so I'm excited to share my obsession.


I really don't mind being in the minority here with my views, I simply didn't want to start a war of some kind, nor to be treated like the village simpleton. I've told you before that I'm fairly involved politically and it has been very stressful for two years now. I want my Freddie obsession to be my escape into joy. I don't mind sharing varying opinions at all, and I'm open to seeing something from a fresh standpoint. I just crave civility.

Hey Katydyd,
That's why you are so wonderful. Thank you for that. Go enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! I'd be interested in what your friend thinks
about the Freddie persona that is displayed. I know they will love the music, you'd have to be from Outer Space not to.

I know what Phoebe said but it is being called a biopic and many still act as if it's a documentary.

Personally, I loved it. Thought all but Roger were balls to the walls accurate. I was bothered that his look never changes much throughout the movie. And aside from historical inaccuracies, it's amazing.

I get the need to Hollywood up things but also puzzled that "right out of Hollywood" things like bad lovers like Bill Reid, the Death On Two Legs/Sheffield saga and Brian falling ill during the first US tour we're oddly left out.

I'm just thrilled Queen is getting all this attention and finally have a movie on them.

And I hope it leads to many more live releases and archival ones too. There's still a lot in those vaults!

New Queen fans don't care about live releases or demos or extended versions or any of that... look at 'Let Me In Your Heart Again'... woah, so bad. Queen are totally controlled by their record labels and Jim Beach talks them into this crap. I wish Brian and Roger would honor the Queen fans that actually enjoy hearing their stuff aside from Greatest Hits tracks!

Queen do nothing to promote their 82-91 stuff.

Brian Wilson promotes Pet Sounds all the time. It reminds me of Queen promoting their 70's stuff. They surround themselves in an old era and are glad to be remembered by it.

I am trying to think of the chronology and path of real Freddie vs. movie Freddie.

Movie Freddie:

Confused about his sexuality, splits up with Mary, gets sucked into the gay party and drug scene, regrets his partying ways, gets diagnosed and decides to settle down.

The problem with the movie version is that aids works as a catalyst for him settling down but real life Freddie had been searching for a meaningful lasting relationship longer. The fact that he was simply getting older and, as most people, got tired of the party life. Aids is of course significant in many ways, I would think, both the fear and also losing friends, but not the sole motivation for changing his lifestyle which was a part of a much longer process.

The movie is so easily viewed as a morality tale about the promiscuous gay lifestyle. I would dare any heterosexual man (of which I am one) to say that he wouldn't have lots of sex if it was easy, free from the fear of pregnancy and you didn't know about any serious STDs while at the same time society didn't accept you committing to a long term relationship. If you were a rock star in that kind of situation of course you would have sex all the time, hetero rock stars have sex with a lot of a girls even though they know about STDs, the risk of pregnancy and live in a society that not only accepts long term hetero relationships but also celebrates and even reward you for them.

The historical coincidence of aids, which could have started earlier or later, gives bigots such fuel for their condemnation that it is sickening to see how they use it. The movie, accidentally I hope, plays into the hands of these people. I would rather have liked to see a commentary about how the establishment, especially the Reagan government, tried to ignore aids instead of researching it and fighting it. It really took hemophiliac kids to get them to react since they were seen as "innocent" victims while gay people were "guilty" of having forbidden sex.

So, yeah, missed opportunity.

And yes, I've seen people who've seen the movie wondering about who infected Freddie or if he infected Jim. As is if being the one who infects someone is guilty while the one who is infected is innocent instead of realizing that both people are victims of the disease. Reminds me of "And the band played on..." a well meaning movie which seemed to blame "Patient Zero" for the crisis.

Thank you to Thor and Lee for your fascinating memories of your time with Freddie

I understand that you are or have written a book about it, do you have more details on that?