The Pillow Book (1996) is a British art house film written and directed by Peter Greenaway. The full-length drama feature covers the story of Nagito (Vvian Wu), a model and writer who, through exposure to calligraphy on the body as an expression of love, garners a fetish for body painting and becomes obsessed with finding a lover who can perform this on her. The character of focus is the other main role, Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a British translator living in modern Hong Kong who becomes a lover of Nagito’s.
At first blush, Jerome is a pretty good male bi representation — especially for a film from the ‘90s. He is open and honest about his attractions being a supportive partner and lover, volunteering both his body as a form of pages for Nagito to write her book upon to present to a publisher, as well as being willing to learn new languages so he can translate her works to the world.
However, The Pillow Book has other plans for Jerome that hit the mark of bad bi tropes. He ends up cheating on Nagito with the male publisher, flying into a spate of jealousy when she turns him away, and then accidentally dying by suicide as a ploy to get her attention, a la Romeo and Juliet. Even after death, great disrespect is done to his corpse, which we will not go into detail on here.
Though McGregor is straight, he has remarked multiple times on how The Pillow Book is one of the favorite films he has ever done. From The Guardian:
[Greenaway] told me that there was a lot of nudity in it. His films are so vibrant and vivid, and yet he was the most upright, dark-suited Englishman. I’d imagined a kind of crazy professor-type guy.
‘Are you prepared to be naked?’ ‘Yes. It’s never been a problem before.’ ‘Are you prepared to have any part of your body photographed and shown?’ ‘Err, yes.’ ‘You’ll have to simulate sex with a woman.’ ‘That’s not a problem.’ ‘You’ll have to simulate sex with a man.’ ‘That’s not a problem.’
I think I may have been the only actor in Soho who said yes to all of them. I don’t know. But I got the part, and I was so glad I did. It remains one of my favourite movies that I’ve been in.
In a discussion on Fresh Air with Terry Gross:
You know, my second film was an amazing picture called “The Pillow Book” with Peter Greenaway and it was a film about a girl’s sexuality. It was about sex. And in that film I was called upon to be naked a lot and I was called upon to have sexual scenes with the actress and with the actor who played my boyfriend in the film and none of that was gratuitous or uncalled for because it was what the story was about. It was a film about sexuality. And it’s a really beautiful film.
While there are sparse examples of male bisexuality on film in the ‘90s, the character of Jerome is at best a mixed bag as far as representation — he is open and honest and supportive but ends up picking off a lot of negative boxes before dying halfway through the film. As far as male bi representation, proceed with caution.