Beefcake

Bob Mizer had a dream: to capture young male bodies in snapshots and film. It is the 1950s and while there are plenty of female pinup-pictures there are none of men. Mizer starts the magazine ”Physique Pictorial” and soon develops a whole industry, more magazines, film companies, model agencies and thousands of men dreaming of sucess lining up to stand in front of Mizer’s camera. But the sucess turns dark when Mizer is charged for crimes against the First Amendment for taking obscene photos.Thom Fitzgerald went through thousands of photos and film footage from Bob Mizer’s studio. He also studied Mizer’s diary, letters and transcriptions from the trail where Mizer was accused of leading a double life: one as the romantic-idealistic photographer and the other as a ruthless agency-owner.In the film the trial scenes are depicted in black and white, while the story about Mizer’s productions was made to look like the original photos from the 1950’s. We follow the naive Neil, one of Mizer’s discoveries, as he suddenly finds himself in a world of tanned and athletic men with dreams of a glamorous life.The film also includes interviews with some of Mizer’s models, which also contributes to create a picture of a photographer ahead of his time.