Brought into the prospering family business (a tannery) by his father-in-law, Pierre spends his days in comfortable ennui and his nights in sexual frustration (revealed in a jaw-droppingly strange and clever dream sequence), which he hopes to cure with his comely new secretary (Nicole Kalfan), his contemplated pursuit of whom builds to a giant wind-up toy of ludicrously intricate complications.

NEWYORKER: Le Grand Amour

The most self-aware of the gay men in this picture revel in the ironies of their social and sexual identities, and Livingston makes us appreciate the comic grace and the strange wisdom of that approach.

NEWYORKER: Paris Is Burning