‘Couldn’t believe I was seeg ’: Home movi offer rare glimpse of gay life St. Louis 1945 | STLPR

Contents:

• 16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN
• THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’
• ‘COULDN’T BELIEVE I WAS SEEG ’: HOME MOVI OFFER RARE GLIMPSE OF GAY LIFE ST. LOUIS 1945

16 MT-SEE CLASSIC GAY MOVI FROM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN

The noun ‘homosexualy’ was first ed the late-19th century, but the tras that we prently associate wh that word have likely appeared for thoands of years. As we e closer to the prent, queer history be a rerd of proximate events (such as Stonewall, AIDS and the murr of Harvey Milk) more regnisable unr the terms of today’s gay subjectivi.

Get the latt om the BFISign up for BFI news, featur, vios and filmmakers have long worked to show how homosexualy is neher morn dulgence nor historil aberratn. In Lookg for Langston (1989), Isaac Julien dreams of a Black, gay utopia spired by Jam Baldw and the eponymo Langston Hugh. Different om the Others (1919)Co-wrten by Atrian filmmaker Richard Oswald and sexologist Magn Hirschfeld, morn father of the study of human sexualy, the German silent film Different om the Others exriat societal homophobia Weimar Berl.

Wh sights centred on Paragraph 175, the provisn the German penal that crimalised homosexualy, tells the tragic tale of Pl Körner (Conrad Veidt, later seen The Cabet of Dr Caligari and Casablan), a talented gay vlist blackmailed after ught elopg wh a male stunt. As Oswald and Hirschfeld reflect the film’s tertl, his story is part of a long and sad historil leage, of gay men penalised for their very nature.

THE GAYT MOVI THAT AREN’T ACTUALLY GAY, OM ‘BARBIE’ AND ‘BURLQUE’ TO ‘VENOM’ AND ‘ROAD HOE’

He speaks as if liverg a fiery sermon, clarg that homophobia belongs to “the same sad chapter of human history as the Inquisn”. Gay USA (1977)A year after the 1969 Stonewall rebelln, the prott was marked wh the first gay Pri march the US –  Chigo, San Francis and New York. Shot by 25 sttered mera crews the summer of 1977, Gay USA ptur the eighth Pri march, takg place simultaneoly across a number of ci the US.

‘COULDN’T BELIEVE I WAS SEEG ’: HOME MOVI OFFER RARE GLIMPSE OF GAY LIFE ST. LOUIS 1945

It’s a fascatg social document: rarely are we afford such a ndid look at gay life the post-Stonewall and, ed, only 4 years after the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn had formally pathologised homosexualy. Nighthawks (1978)Nighthawks is a fascatg cultural artefact, pturg a very specific moment Brish queer history: ’s 1978, 11 years after the Sexual Offenc Act 1967 crimalised homosexual acts, and jt 3 years prr to the advent of HIV/AIDs. Though narrative fictn, Ron Peck employs an athetic style evotive of documentary realism, evokg the reali of the closet for English gay men the late 1970s.

As a historil document, then, serv as a transatlantic unterweight to William Friedk’s Cisg (1980); though the latter has been cricised as an exploative slasher, also renrs the very specific historil perd ntled between the early thro of gay liberatn and the onset of the AIDs epimic. Set agast the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance, Isaac Julien’s film is as much a celebratn of Black gay love as is of prospery, or a reclamatn of the Black, gay lerary tradn hherto supprsed.

Shot black and whe, the film is abundant wh geo chiaroscuro, evokg parisons to Jean Ge’s 1950 gay classic Un chant d’amour (que explicly wh the smokey-mouth motif). Already rich wh homoerotic subtext, the play dramatis the relatnship between the English monarch Edward II (Steven Waddgton) and his favoure, the moner Piers Gavton (Andrew Tiernan). Here the ferred queerns of the real-life monarch alc wh the ep homoeroticism of Marlowe’s play, the characters’ homosexualy renred explicly by Jarman.