Daniel Wenger on “Different om the Rt,” a silent movie produced Weimar Germany that is nsired the first feature film about gay love.
Contents:
- 'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
- THE TRAGIC LSONS OF CEMA’S FIRST GAY LOVE STORY
'PASSAG' DIRECTOR NOUNC 'DANGERO' NC-17 RATG ON A FILM PICTG A GAY LOVE STORY
Prervatnists are workg to rtore Richard Oswald’s 1919 German film, “Different From the Others,” the earlit known full-length feature to showse gay characters. * silent gay love *
Homosexualy the Silent Cema.
Banned 1920, only a agment surviv of Different om the Others (1919), an "Enlightenment Film" promotg tolerance of homosexualiy, wh a fe st head up by the great Conrad Veidt. Veidt plays Korner, a gay vlist. He has been llectg news clippgs on homosexual suicis triggered by Paragraph 175, a German law crimalizg homosexualy, & which the nazis ma good e of a uple s later.
He ponrs the nam of great men history who were gay, & builds his own self-teem sufficiently to meet wh & beg a relatnship wh a very young man, Kurt (Frz Schulz), who is voted to classil mic & uld benef by a mentor. Franz is himself gay but neverthels feels no qualms threateng other gay men to obta sh, the notor Paragraph 175 makg very easy to threaten homosexuals wh imprisonment or Korner's se, at the very least, the loss of his reer as a ncert vlist. His ltle llectn of newspaper notic of gay men's suicis begs to make more & more sense to him.
THE TRAGIC LSONS OF CEMA’S FIRST GAY LOVE STORY
* silent gay love *
For an "enlightenment" film this wasn't all that enlightened, & dangeroly close to a plea for tolerance of perasty rather than homosexualy between nsentg adults.
Still, for such a relic on the ted si, the film's assertn that "only ignorance or bigotry" would disapprove of homosexualy was bold for s day. Although only a few overtly gay films are known to survive om the silent era, the world-wi history of homosexualy the cema do beg wh the silent era, & is que extensive on one or another level. That would clu the level of who the stars really were, begng wh gay or bisexual actors like the still unfotten Ramon Navarro or Rudolph Valento.
Fotten silent film players clu Ray Bourbon who was a stunt double & drag performer films of the early 1920s, & who afterward performed as a drag edian a travellg gay actg troupe. A specifilly gay film history begs at the ept roots of motn pictur, at the Thomas Edison Black Maria stud 1895.