Brief Encounter: Sex and Intimacy in Andrew Haigh’s "Weekend"

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the representation of gay male intimacy in Andrew Haigh’s "Weekend" (2011), a film about a brief encounter between two men. The thesis stages a second brief encounter between Haigh’s film and Lauren Berlant’s writing on feeling. Where Berlant’s ideas are originally worked out in relation to the genre of melodrama and the female complaint, I translate her ideas about intimacy and cruel optimism into the space of ordinary gay life as represented in Haigh’s film.