The Boys of Bel Ami
by Howard Roffman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Howard RoffmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-30
ISBN: 3861874776
Number of pages: 226
Publisher: Bruno Gmunder Verlag
Book Reviews of The Boys of Bel Ami
Book Review: The Best to Date of Bel Ami's Picture Books of Nude Males
Summary: 5 Stars
It is surprising, as I find, that the wonderfully and skillfully photographed young male nudes of the Bel Ami series of books seem to have so little popularity in English Canada (no longer regularly available even from that paragon of gay literature distribution, Little Sisters in Vancouver, from the few times that I have checked that firm's WWW site in 2005 and 2006), but, thankfully, Bel Ami's products remain fairly easy to find in such major gay-populated Québec cities as Montréal. (Bel Ami, on its own WWW site, includes some items that are unavailable even on the various national Amazon sites.) The youthful men, in their teens and early twenties, photographed very often in full frontal nudity, are equisitely lithe, graceful, lovely, and agreeably or outright impressively "well-hung", each memorably good-looking in his own way that varies from one to another, some "lean and lanky" while others more sleekly and/or heavily muscled in a more forthrightly macho way, still others, by contrast, more endearingly pretty (sweetly juvenile, lovely, and tender), yet others just a bit raffish or lovably gangly rather than so classically handsome as many are, yet all of Bel Ami's lads being memorably appealing.
This book, also known by a longer title, "Howard Roffman Meets the Boys of Bel Ami", takes a memorable selection by George Duroy (who was filming these lads for one of his moving images projects) of Bel Ami's achingly beautiful young males to on what Howard Roffman, the photographer, refers as "eight glorious days [in 2004 at an holiday spot in] ... the lush seaside resort city [of] Capetown, South Africa" where they appear singly, as couples, and in groups, often interacting variously as posed or behaving spontaneously for the camera, by turns affectionately, and/or playfully, usually delectably "buck naked" (but occasionally lightly and sexily partially clad). These photos make an even greater impact in their larger format in the hardback edition than they do in the paperback reprint of smaller page size.
Whether one prefers Roffman's book or Benno Thoma's also copiously large collection for Bel Ami, entitled "Around the Globe" (which features among Thoma's naked lads some of the same male models in Roffman's book) probably is largely a matter of taste, e.g. a preference for mostly colour photography (Thoma's) or entirely black-and-white camera work (Roffman's), or for the sensibility of one photographer over the other's; both books and the young men posing mostly nude therein, are exquisitely lovely examples of erotic photography at its best.
While I prefer some of Bel Ami's youths in its various films and books to others of them (e.g., my very favourite being slenderly sinewy Ken Christy, of winsomely soulful gaze, whom I like to call "the Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy 'kid look-alike'", whose photos appear only occasionally in some of the books and in at least one video, but, alas, not here in Roffman's "The Boys of Bel Ami" or in Thoma's "Around the Globe"), all have their undeniable charms. One hopes that the market for these books, for this one and others, especially those in the original series (there being a "new generation" of Bel Ami models that, to me, in general, is, on the whole, marginally less appealling) is not so poor that they all will disapper from print, as seems to be the fate of the various Bel Ami videos. All of the Bel Ami series, not least this title, deserve a gay man's attention and will generate sheer wonder at the beauty of the naked male form in the full flush of youthfully post-pubescent early maturity, posed and photographed splendidly.
There is a welcome avoidance in Roffman's "The Boys of Bel Ami", as there is also in Benno Thoma's "Around the Globe", of raw, lasciviously explicit, downright raunchy "action" photos that abound in (and too frequently mar) the often potentially equally serene beauty of young male models as such guys often have posed in more pornographic output of other producers, the sort of sheer lewdness Bel Ami (at least its books) rightly shuns. Nonetheless, there are some photos of the models in both books showing them with enticingly full erections, yet avoiding undue vulgarity. These guys often look to be on the verge of launching into anal or oral sexual penetration one of another, but the camera tastefully catches their affectionate play short of that, albeit barely at times!
Summary of The Boys of Bel Ami
The time has come - the Bel Ami boys met Howard Roffman; two of the most famous names of homoeroticism came together and created a new classic of male photographic art. Roffman has successfully captured emphatic black-and-white images of the boys of Bel Ami, who are obviously having a wonderful time showing off. After the incredible success of our large-format original publication, we've decided to present this work in a newer, more manageable format. Don't let this feast for the eyes pass you by.Artists, A-Z Books
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