GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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The Celluloid Closet HBO Video, 1995 Director/Screenplay: Narration
Starring: Unrated, 102 minutes
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What
We Learned At The Movies
Not all of my readers own a DVD player, so let's start with the film itself before discussing the extras. The Celluloid Closet (1995) is a very entertaining documentary that chronicles the often tainted depiction of gays and lesbians on the silver screen. It is based on Vito Russo's groundbreaking 1981 study, which he updated in 1986. Unfortunately he did not live to write a third edition to reflect queer cinema's current accomplishments as he died from AIDS complications in 1990. The filmmakers, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, are also responsible for The Times Of Harvey Milk, Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt, and the recent Paragraph 172.
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Reviewer's Note 2007: I've become aware of a lot of Vito Russo bashing, especially online, from more and more gay critics. I am presuming that these are mostly younger writers who, I think, need a reminder again that queer films were not as visible then as they are now. Vito Russo died from AIDS complications in 1990 so there will never be a third or fourth edition of his 1981 The Celluloid Closet, revised and updated in 1986. He did not live to see how new queer cinema exploded a couple years later, after his death. Okay, the book is sometimes dated. But then, by the same token, so are Pauline Kael's collections of film criticism from the 60s and so is the classic French film magazine from the 50s, Cahiers Du Cinema - whose writers included Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard. The Celluloid Closet was the first of its kind. When I first purchased it in 1987, there were no other books devoted to this subject. The amount of research (not to mention the number of films he had to watch) that went into The Celluloid Closet is staggering and it laid the groundwork for all queer film criticism to come. Okay, he does protest too much regarding some films but you have to look at them in their proper context. For example, Cruising came out when there were no positive depictions of gays and lesbians onscreen. Russo was part of the protests during the filming. Were they over-reacting as many contemporary writers accuse? No, they weren't - even if it seems that way now. Gay bashings went up after Cruising played. My partner counseled gays at the college where he taught, and he got panicky calls from many young men asking if that is going to be what their lives will be. It would have been different if Will and Grace had been on TV for years before a film like Cruising hit the screens, but it wasn't like that in the 70s. We had Three's Company instead. Only fags existed onscreen. Hence the anger throughout The Celluloid Closet. If those of us from the "Old Guard" were always asking if a film was good for gays it was because the majority of the movies out there weren't good for gays. We were hairdressers, we were psycho killers. It was a different time. And the book reflects that time. Though Russo does make a few mistakes, it is a valuable reference book. He can also be faulted for shortchanging a lot of European cinema - Fassbinder's films, for example, are never even mentioned in the text. Despite these faults, it is still, to my mind, the definitive book on the subject... at least up to 1986. It's up to new writers to write about the rest. I've tried, myself, to write about as many as I can in Outcome and they're all here on this site. Russo's book is a good gateway to our cinematic history and it helps, in order to ground new writings, to know our past and what came before. Then you are aware of what traditions a new work upholds and what new ground it may be breaking. If you don't like Russo's politics, if it's too 1980s-ACT UP for you, then just read about the movies and learn where we have come from. After you read about films like The Detective, Scarecrow, Reflections In A Golden Eye and The Fox, you might start to understand his "whining."
More on Rob Epstein
and Jeffrey Friedman: See also Click here for
more on Vito Russo
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Extensive
research goes into the making of a documentary, even if much of it never
makes the final cut. It is not uncommon for hours of interview footage
to be discarded. A special edition DVD, therefore, is the ideal format
for viewing a documentary when its audience hungers for more information.
The Celluloid Closet has just
made its debut on DVD and its extras are worth checking out even if you
have already seen, or own, the film on videotape. 
The
film version roughly follows Russo's structure and themes. Utilizing film
clips and interviews, tied together by Lily Tomlin's narration, The
Celluloid Closet takes the viewer through various stages
of Hollywood history from the screaming nellies of 1930s musicals to the
more finely drawn characters of today. It describes how the infamous Hays
Code eliminated all mention of homosexuality from the silver screen and
how several creative directors managed to fool the censors. Relaxing the
code in the 1950s brought out characters like the predatory lesbian. Finally
the 60s begat the self loathing homosexual who kills himself, later followed
by gay pyschopathic killers and ludicrous stereotypes that were always
the butt of insensitive jokes. 
Younger
filmmgoers today have the opportunity to see films like 
The
Celluloid Closet both entertains and educates. It is, in
turns, hilarious, shocking and sad. Many of the film clips contain blatantly
offensive stereotypes that become almost campy in their utter silliness.
The clips are often brilliantly edited together for comedic irony. For
example, we have the (unintended?) queer subtexts in many Western films
- director Howard Hawks was either asleep or oblivious when he made 1948's
Red River with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. (If you've never
seen Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge in 1954's Johhny Guitar,
you will roar with laughter at the clip that they show.) Not to mention
that priceless scene from 1959's Ben Hur where Steven Boyd makes
eye contact with Charlton Heston while sharing a wine toast - this is
followed by Doris Day singing "Once I Had A Secret Love." The cannibalistic
death of the "evil" homosexual Sebastian in 1959's 
But
the filmmakers do more than just assemble film clips. Most of the accompanying
commentaries are both biting and insightful. Many voices are heard as
such gay luminaries as Quentin Crisp, 
The
humor vanishes while films such as 1980's 
The
Celluloid Closet's
101 minute running time moves briskly and smoothly, and is a wonderful
and perceptive introduction to this subject. But, for those who are serious
students of the genre, it is too brief and many important films are missing.
European cinema is ignored, and many important figures omitted. And that's
where the DVD comes into play. The new DVD is a must for anyone who is
interested in queer cinema history. First, and foremost, there is an hour
of un-used interviews that didn't make the final cut. Among them are commentaries
from filmmakers 
There
is also a full length commentary from the directors and Lily Tomlin. The
commentary is very illuminating and makes clear why certain films, like
1969's Midnight Cowboy for example, were removed for time and pacing
concerns. But it is also notable for the way in which they all talk freely
and openly about their lives. Lily Tomlin has been criticized for years
for having never publicly come out but it is obvious from listening to
her on the disc that she is hiding nothing about her personal life with
Jane Wagner. 
Also
worth noting is that the commentators' friendships with Vito Russo extended
back to the 1970s and the portrait of the late author is both humorous
and touching. The disc, in fact, has changed my entire perception of Mr.
Russo. I have owned the second edition of his superb book ever since 1987
and have always assumed, from his writing, that he was a very angry man.
Yes, he was also one of the founders of ACT-UP and he had no patience
for gay films that copped out, but the man that emerges on this disc (through
a short filmed interview and a fascinating full-length lecture that occupies
a second separate audio track) is an articulate and very funny
man who laid the groundwork for all serious studies of queer cinema that
would follow. Russo's spoken commentaries, additionally, blow away the
narration that