Editing Querelle (section)

== Release ==
Released after the death of the director, ''Querelle'' sold more than 100,000 tickets in the first three weeks after its release in Paris, the first time that a film with a gay theme had achieved such success.<ref name=White615-616 /> On [[review aggregator]] [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film has an approval rating of 65%, based on 17 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 6.30/10.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/querelle|title=Querelle|publisher=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> Writing for ''[[The New York Times]]'' critic [[Vincent Canby]] noted that ''Querelle'' was "a mess...a detour that leads to a dead end."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/29/movies/fassbinder-s-last.html|title = Fassbinder's Last|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 29 April 1983|last1 = Canby|first1 = Vincent}}</ref> Penny Ashbrook calls ''Querelle'' Fassbinder's "perfect epitaph: an intensely personal statement that is the most uncompromising portrayal of gay male sensibility to come from a major filmmaker."<ref>{{cite book |author=Penny Ashbrook |editor=Gilbert, Harriet |title=The Sexual Imagination: From Acker to Zola |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |year=1993 |page=[https://archive.org/details/sexualimaginatio0000unse/page/87 87] |isbn=0-224-03535-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/sexualimaginatio0000unse/page/87 }}</ref> Edmund White considers ''Querelle'' the only film based on Genet's book that works, calling it "visually as artificial and menacing as Genet's prose."<ref name=White340>White, Edmund. ''Genet: A Biography''. Alfred A. Knopf 1993, p. 340</ref> Genet, in discussion with Schidor, said that he had not seen the film, commenting "You can't smoke at the movies."<ref name=White615-616 />