ZEITGEIST FILMS

December 15, 2000 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

on the airoff the press

Gay skating champion Rudy Galindo no longer on thin ice

by John Graves

Openly gay, Hispanic figure skating champion Rudy Galindo talked to USA Today's Christine Brennan about his amazing comeback since finding out he was HIVpositive last year and his commitment to HIV and AIDS causes. After illness and depression over discovering his HIV status resulted in disappointing performances last year, Galindo gathered his energy and commitment to life and trained all summer to once again become proficient in the triple jumps and triple axels that made him the champion that he is.

Galindo told Brennan, "I throw all my energy into skating and forget I have HIV. I'm feeling great. It's fun to be out there for the audience. People say, 'Look at him. He's

HIV-positive, and he's skating well and having fun.' Brennan reports Galindo skated in 34 of 36 cities on last Spring's John Hancock Champions on Ice Tour.

Wilde didn't die of syphilis

USA Today reports a research team from University of South Africa has determined that Oscar Wilde did not die of syphilis as was believed since his death. Instead, in a study published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, the researchers determined Wilde was felled by a chronic ear infection that spread to his brain. The researchers said the syphilis claim has persisted without supporting medical evidence because it fit in with the bigotry of those who persecuted and prosecuted him for admitting he was gay in his infamous trial.

Gay offerings light up Cinematheque

Water Drops on Burning Rocks

by Anthony Glassman

The Cleveland Cinematheque has a long history of bringing films to northeast Ohio that normally get lost in the shuffle: independent films, retrospectives of great directors, foreign films that would never see the light of day in America's multiplex mentality. On virtually every bi-monthly schedule is some gem that illustrates the contributions of gay filmmakers to world cinema. In December, the Cinematheque is giving us two such films.

Criminal Lovers and Water Drops on Burning Rocks, both directed by French auteur Francois Ozon, are set for their Cleveland debuts in mid-December.

Crminal Lovers is reminiscent of the two Freeway movies, in which classic fairy tale motifs are the setting for modern tales of dysfunction. In Ozon's film, a young couple, Alice (Natacha Reignier) and Luc (Jeremie Renier) kill one of their classmates, and run off to the woods to bury the body. They are captured by a woodsman (Miki Manojlovic), playing the part of the witch in this surreal take on Hansel and Gretel. The woodsman likes his boys fat and his girls skinny, so he feeds Luc and leaves Alice, the instigator of the violence in the film, trapped in the cellar.

The woodsman takes Luc into his bed and, while very domineering, is far more tender to the boy than Alice ever was. The madness escalates to a shocking, if incomprehensible, ending. Watch the movie, you'll know what that means.

The Cinematheque's second offering from Ozon is a real treat for aficionados of gay film. Ozon directs an adaptation of an unproduced play by German queer uberdirector Rainer Werner Fassbiner, Water Drops on Burning Rocks.

The setting is Germany in the 1970s. Leopold (Bernard Giraudeau), a middleaged man, seduces Franz (Malik Zidi), a fairly innocent 19-year-old, and they promptly become a couple. In the space of ninety minutes, we see their relationship

grow and unravel, as Leopold repeats the mistakes of his past, and Franz looks for unconditional love and complete control.

Towards the end, we meet Anna (Ludivine Sagnier), Franz's former fiancee, and Vera (Anna Thomson), Leopold's enigmatic exgirlfriend. Their arrival at the couple's apartment days apart signals the begin of the final spiral into depravity, madness, and death.

The play was unintentionally autobiographical. Friends of Fassbinder's have said that in his youth, he resembled Franz, but as he got older, he turned into Leopold.

"Franz and Leopold are both unhappy," Ozon said in an interview. "Franz loses his identity in Leopold's desire, while the Pygmalion Leopold continually repeats the same process. He admits that he tires quickly, that he loses the taste for things after the exaltation of novelty."

"As Fassbiner often said, 'Love doesn't exist. There is only the possibility of love.'

The movie is a tale of sex and power, and bedroom one-upmanship unrivaled in cinema today. No one seems to be able to get what they want completely, but none of the characters are able to keep from trying. Perhaps if there was some sort of ultimate surrender, a giving-in to the hopelessness that surrounds them, there could be a modicum of happiness, but that doesn't seem possible in the milieu of the film.

Both films are fascinating studies of people. Ozon, like Fassbinder before him, deals with issues of homosexuality matterof-factly; they aren't really issues at all. Some of the characters are gay, that is all.

Ozon's earlier offering Sitcom made a bigger deal out of the characters' foible. Of course, in a movie where a pet rat makes everyone insane, that's to be expected.

Criminal Lovers will be playing at the Cinematheque on Sunday, December 17. Water Drops on Burning Rocks will play Saturday and Sunday, December 16 and 17. The Cinematheque is located in the Cleveland Institute of Art, 11141 East Boulevard, 216-421-7450.

Ellen hosted awards

Ellen DeGeneres was picked to host the 2nd annual Directors Guild of America Honors which were held December 10th in New York City. DeGeneres showed her comic genius when she was able to keep host Jay Leno and the Tonight Show audience in stitches by cracking jokes about her break-up with Anne Heche when she appeared on the show not long after the relationship ended.

Eric McCormack: Gay expert?

Actor Eric McCormack, who plays Will, the gay lead on NBC's hit sitcom Will & Grace, told US Weekly that, even though he is straight in real life, people regard him to be an expert on gay issues. A male fan asked McCormack for advice on how to tell his parents he was gay when the actor went to the opening of designer John Varvato's new store in New York City recently. McCormack told the man to just send his parents a tape of last season's Thanksgiving episode in which Sean Hayes' character Jack came out to his mother.

Vilanch on Goodman

Actor John Goodman, who plays Butch on this season's surprise hit Normal, Ohio, was the subject of a cover feature interview by Bruce Vilanch in the December 19th issue of The Advocate. Goodman told Vilanch at the time of the interview (only 2 shows had aired) that it would be a long time before his character would have a love interest. However, TV columnist Peter Johnson reports Saturday Night Live alumnus Dan Aykroyd has taped an upcoming episode of the show in which he will fill that role. Goodman also told Vilanch he drew on personal experience to develop his character. "When I first moved to New York I moved in with a gay man," Goodman said. "He put me and my girlfriend up for a couple of years put up with us too—and he was not the stereotype at all."

Don we now our Gay apparel

At one time, holiday shows with lesbigay themes were nowhere to be found at this time of year. Last week Showtime began airing the very gay cable film Holiday Heart, starring African-American actor Ving

a FBI agent who was taking a walk with him. The FBI agent became the prime suspect when the detectives learned the wife had realized she was a lesbian and was having an affair with another woman, a writer. In the real-life case, the ex-wife was having an affair with novelist Patricia Cornwell. Cornwell acknowledged the relationship in court. In the Law and Order case, the FBI agent was innocent but pleaded guilty to protect their daughter. She did it because she discovered her mother was having the lesbian affair and was upset at the thought of the family breaking up.

Showtime wins with Queer as Folk

Queer as Folk's first episode garnered big ratings for Showtime according to a report by John Dempsey in the December 6 Variety. Dempsey said the hour-and-a-half premiere, "scored the best rating for a series premiere on the cable channel in three years. The 4.5 rating in cable homes is also 80% higher than the rating for the Sunday-at-10 time period a year ago and almost double the network's current prime time average."

Xena gayer than ever

I previously expressed some fears that the producers would try to "straighten out" Xena: Warrior Princess in its last season. Well, so far it seems, those fears were groundless as the series seems to be exploring and expanding on the love relationship between the two warrior women more than ever. The most recent episodes, a three-episode story arc based loosely on Wagner's "Ring Trilogy," was the gayest story line I've seen to date, with women declaring their love for other women all over the place! In a flashback, a Rheinmaiden, guardian of the mythical Rheingold, sees Xena and falls in love with her, before Xena kicks her butt and steals the gold.

Later, the Valkyrie Brunhilda, sent to find Xena to retrieve the Rheingold for Odin, falls in love with Gabrielle. She thwarts Odin's plans by turning herself into an impenetrable shield of fire around a sleeping Gabrielle, which can only be pierced by Gabrielle's "true love," who turns out to be none other than Xena.

Xena then wakes Gabrielle up with a kiss on the lips, just like in Sleeping Beauty.

Rhames as a lonely drag queen who opens Gaywaves off the net for now

his heart when he opens his home to a battered woman (Alfre Woodard) and her daughter.

Art imitates life on Law and Order

Two weeks ago, NBC's Law and Order ran an episode based on a real-life case that resulted in the "outing" of a well-known writer. In the show, police investigating the street shooting of a movie actor discover the real intended victim was a friend, the wife of

Finally, for those of you who have tried unsuccessfully to listen to Gaywaves on the web, our site is undergoing a rebuild that should be complete in the near future.

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, an LGBT public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7 pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contribute to this column.

Meet the founders of Western Reserve!

The CENTERS PRIDECARD

Hey Andy, Did you hear that the other brewery

is following Art Modell and moving to

Maryland?

Yeah Gavin, but we're still brewing and bottling right here in Cleveland!

And we're also pretty busy giving back to the community with our activities with more than 60 local charities.

I guess that's why Medical Mutual gave us their Pillar Award for Community Service.

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