May 12, 2000
Picking fruit
Critics add to voters' choice of the 20th
century's top queer films FRUIT MACHINE
by Michelle Tomko
On April 3, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced the results of its quest for the top 20 queer films of the twentieth century, as determined by a popular vote by 23,000 members of the LGBT community. Voters for the list either logged on to the GLAAD web site to cast their choices or voted at GLAAD events and queer film festivals nationwide.
In an effort to gain some critical response to this list, the Gay People's Chronicle solicited opinions from two sources: David Wittkowsky, executive director of the Cleveland Film Society, and Thomas Waugh, author of The Fruit Machine, due to hit shelves on May 11.
"I think it's pretty disappointing. I'm a little bit depressed by it," said Waugh about the top 20 list. "There's some interesting aspects of it. I would have hoped for a little greater range in the audience's taste and interest. I mean, all those Hollywood films there. Looks like this gay and lesbian festival movement that is touted in the press release [GLAAD sent with the list] has been a complete failure in expanding audience tastes."
"Lists like this always invite critical evaluation," added Wittkowsky. "Though it's important to recognize that these are the films that 23,000 gay and lesbian filmgoers voted to be the best. It's not a list of the most important queer films as selected by some panel of scholars. Mostly, I think this is a really solid list of very good films, though I'm surprised to see that a film like Jeffrey was selected over much better films like Priest [U.K., 1994], The Sum of Us [Australia, 1994], or Get Real [U.K., 1998].”
Both men agree that what is definitely missing from the list are older films, documentaries, and foreign films.
"Three quarters of the films are from the nineties, as if there wasn't any gay cinema before the nineties," said Waugh.
He admits that his favorite genre of queer
films is from the Stonewall era. "There was this feeling of breaking through, of pioneering, and I would have liked to have seen some of those films still meaning something to today's audiences. Films like Sunday, Bloody Sunday [1971] or Midnight Cowboy [1969] or Andy Warhol films or even something like Word is Out. It's incredible that no one remembers Word is Out or even The Times of Harvey Milk."
"I'm always one to give documentaries their due," offered
Wittkowsky. "So, here are a few candidates for a Best Queer Documentaries list: Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives [1978], The Times of Harvey Milk
TWENTY YEARS OF WRITINGS ON QUEER CINEMA
THOMAS WAUGH
[1984], Paris is Burning [1990], Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker [1992], Silverlake Life: The View From Here [1993], Wigstock: The Movie [1994], and The Celluloid Closet [1995].”
"There are a number of slightly older films from the early days of the Queer Cinema movement that aren't shown here," he added. "Films like Desert Hearts [1986], Lianna [1983], and Parting Glances [1986], a personal favorite.”
"Not to mention the European art films of the sixties and seventies that were so important," said Waugh. "The Germans and the Italians, [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder and [Luchino] Visconti. These youngsters who
The century's best LGBT films
Voters in a survey by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation picked these as the 20th century's top 20 queer films.
1. The Adventures of Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert (1994)
2. Beautiful Thing (1996)
3. Torch Song Trilogy (1988) 4. Philadelphia (1993)
5. Longtime Companion (1990)
6. Gods and Monsters (1998)
7. The Crying Game (1992)
8. The Birdcage (1996)
9. Jeffrey (1995)
10. In & Out (1997)
11. Bound (1996)
12. The Color Purple (1985)
13. My Beautiful Laundrette (1986)
14. Maurice (1987)
15. Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997) 16. The Wedding Banquet (1993)
17. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) 18. The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995)
19. La Cage aux Folles (1978) 20. Boys on the Side (1995)
think that nothing happened before 1980, who voted on this thing, aren't even aware of those films."
"Of course, I'm annoyed that there are no Canadians," he added.
"There are many foreign works or artier films which probably had a very small audience," said Wittkowsky, "and thus not much of a chance in making it to the top 20. Among my favorites would be Edward II [U.K., 1991], Taxi Zum Klo [Germany, 1981], For a Lost Soldier [Netherlands, 1992], Proof[Australia, 1992], Madagascar Skin [U.K., 1995], Law of Desire [Spain, 1987], A Corps Perdu [Canada, 1988], and Steam: The Turkish Bath [Italy, 1997].
Now a professor of film studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema at Concordia University in Canada, Waugh has been critiquing theatre for the past twenty years. He was contributor to the Toronto gay paper The Body Politic. His new book chronicles his writings on queer cinema beginning in the late 1970s. He is also the author of another book Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall
Waugh described how he got into his career as a critic. "I
Foreword by John Greyson
only professionally got into film at the advanced age of twenty four. I've been a film fan for years and had a very kind of special obsession with movies. It didn't occur to me that it had something to do with my sexual identity. I started out as English major and I thought, 'I don't really want to do this,' so at the graduate level, I got into film studies. This was in the early seventies right after Stonewall. That was a very exciting time to be doing that."
The films of that period inspired him to write The Fruit Machine. “I began to feel that there was so much work from the seventies and the eighties that was being forgotten. I realized that I had been writing for these obscure community magazines for so long and that I was really proud of this work. This is really a chance to recycle all those hours I spent doing film reviews on an old typewriter back in the days before we had computers." Ironically, Waugh's book and GLAAD's list will be in release within a month of each other, and they have very little overlap.
"I guess the only film that I talk about at length on that list is Maurice," Waugh said. "I always figured there was enough people out there talking about In and Out and The Bird Cage that I really didn't need to. I feel much more motivated to rescue more marginal films from oblivion and try to persuade people to go out and see them. I don't want to compete with the Advocate."
Waugh noted that pre-Stonewall gay directors would add gay content to mainstream films.
"I think it absolutely exists. With people like Eisenstein, I'm very interested in how the closet operated in the film industry back in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. The most
eye for the male body. If you talk about
closeted lesbian directors like Dorothy
U
closeted of gay directors can't suppress their "would have hoped for a little greater range in the audience's taste and interest.”
Arzner, the same thing is going on with her
treatment of the female stars of the day, like
Rosalind Russell and Lucille Ball."
Only four of the films in the top twenty
center around women. In two of them, The Color Purple and Boys on the Side, lesbianism is in a subplot. Waugh doesn't think that should keep them off a list of queer films. though.
"I know lots of women who love the female friendship circle that's in that film [The Color Purple] and really respond to it.” Continued on page 10
-David Wittkowsky