Two years later, in 1983, he made the masterful Devotions, also with Singer. Set in San Francisco and featuring a shimmering gamelan orchestra background, the film imagines an ecstatic world in which men are freed from tired, joyless convention. Broughton again appears as the sweet seer, playing a pipe, seducing his players into scintillating tableaux of union. His mostly naked men spend their time in loving embrace, washing each other, caressing, kissing.

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Broughton's wit is never far away from his erotic celebrations: in one scene two men kiss on a rooftop, then slowly don nuns' habits and saunter away in the fading day. Later, a pair of leather queens whip up a soufflé. Without being the least bit polemical, this graceful film, like all his work, shows the sweet rewards that come from living authentically and, above all, joyfully.

Brougton died of heart failure on May 17, 1999 in Port Townsend, Washington, in the arms of his lover Joel Singer and in the company of two close friends. He was 85.

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