![]() According to Wikipedia, he officially came out as a gay man in 1988. ![]() I’m not exactly sure what the official status of John’s sexual identity was in 1983. The camera and editing in the video are characteristically busy and frenetic, with the distinct Mulcahy touch of clever synchronizations between the editing of the film and the musical beats and rhythms of the song, especially in transitional moments. There are scenes in wide boulevards along the water, on the beach, in front of grand hotels, and other glamorous locales. The setting is the French Riviera, Cannes and Nice, places where people with lots of money go. To me, he looks doped up, or perhaps hung over, hiding behind sunglasses, listless and flat underneath expensive clothing. It consists primarily of shots of Elton lip-synching the song as a dancing troupe repeatedly swarms and surrounds him. The video features an “Elton on vacation” motif. I found the song sterile and tuneless, all effects and machines with no warmth or soul or humanity like John’s earlier songs, and I just couldn’t relate to the video’s elitist vision of the world. It was heavily overplayed, just on all the damn time. I never liked this video when it was popular, despite its homoerotic imagery. The video was directed by Russell Mulcahy-he did almost all of Elton John’s videos, a gay man directing another gay man for a channel on which homosexuality did not yet officially exist. It has many gay inflected moments, yet the video’s gayness is muted by blunt heterosexual representations as well. This video is a mixture of European cosmopolitanism, high-end leisure, and almost-naked bodies covered in thick, brightly colored make-up. I think he played one of the traffic policemen dressed in leg warmers and a leotard.” ![]() Bruno Tonioli, who’s a judge of Dancing with the Stars, was one of our dancers. … We had leather boys, and mimes, and kissing clowns. My costume designer was in charge of body-painting all the boys. ![]() Elton was a regular guest of the Negresco in the 1980s and purchased a villa in Mont Alban, near Nice, in July 1997.“Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’ was super, super, super gay. Despite a 12 million euro renovation in 2010, the former majestic ballroom looks little changed today and serves as a fine example of Nice’s Belle-Époque architecture. Classified as a historic monument by the French state, special permission was granted to film insde the huge glass dome of the hotel’s Salon Royal. ![]() The landmark Negresco hotel in Nice is also briefly featured. At one point, during the filming of the video, Russell Mulcahy fell off Cannes pier and into the sea below, ending up walking through the Carlton Hotel looking like “a wet rat” Largely ad-libbed and created on the spot, the video was a huge success and it is perhaps no surprise that the hotel now has a suite named after Elton John. Seen prominantly 36 years earlier in To Catch A Thief, the hotel takes on a whole new role in this music video as leotard-clad dancers and girls in leg-warmers jump around the Boulevard de la Croisette. In the video, Elton pulls up in his Rolls at the iconic Carlton Hotel Cannes, the luxury 338-roomhotel, built in 1911 which dominates the Cannes seafront. Described as “super, super gay” by its direcor, Russell Mulcahy, the video is a colourful romp through the streets of Cannes and Nice, and pulls no punches with its obvious homerotic overtones. Elton John’s video for I’m Still Standing (1983) quickly put paid to that notion and stormed to number 4 in the UK charts. As a hotbed of crime and intrigue, one would be forgiven for thinking the Cote d’Azur is, indeed, “a sunny place for shady people“, as described by author Somerset Maughan in 1941. ![]()
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