The Very First Lgbt+ Film Was Shown Exactly 100 Years Ago This Year
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FEATURE GAYS ON FILM THE VERY FIRST LGBT+ FILM WAS SHOWN EXACTLY 100 YEARS AGO THIS YEAR. XAV JUDD LOOKS AT HOW THE LGBT+ COMMUNITY HAS BEEN REPRESENTED IN A CENTURY OF CELLULOID SPRING 2019 | @pridelife | /Pridelifemagazine | PRIDELIFE.COM | 085 FEATURE 20 MUST–SEE LGBT+ MOVIES Moonlight – 2016 Director: Barry Jenkins The coming–of–age drama outlines three stages in the life of Afro–American Chiron Harris. At first, as a kid growing up in a rough neighbourhood in Miami; as an adolescent, unsure about his sexual orientation; and finally to Atlanta and a rendezvous with an old flame. Another Country – 1984 Director: Marek Kanievska CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: ALGIE THE MINER; ANDERS ALS DIE In a public school in the 1930s, two ANDERN; CABARET; THE LEATHER outsiders try and cope with the rigours BOYS; ROCK HUDSON; DOG DAY and regimentation of daily life. Guy AFTERNOON; A STREETCAR NAMED “Marlon Brando, DESIRE; VICTIM Bennett (Rupert Everett), excoriated for his homosexuality, wonders about his James Dean and place in a repressive, culturally and socially hierarchical UK, while Tommy Montgomery Clift Judd (Colin Firth) is another scourge of the anachronistic British elite, a Marxist. were all schooled in Bent – 1997 Director: Sean Mathias the Method” Max (Clive Owen) is a promiscuous non– heterosexual who’s forced to flee 1930s Berlin. Eventually sent to Dachau concentration camp, initially he denies ince its inception in the 1890s, the homosexuality on celluloid before this feature depictions of violence and prostitution – in order by MGM for not renouncing his sexuality - and example, his handkerchiefs are fragranced he’s “bent”. Then he falls in love with an seductive wonder of cinema has had the was released, but these were always stereotypical. to offset falling audience numbers during the ushered in a set of tenets that effectively with gardenias. Such bowdlerisation of the openly–gay prisoner, Horst (Lothaire capacity to thrill us, engender tears and For instance, in 1907, French pioneer Georges Great Depression. One example of this desire to disallowed the depiction of homosexual source material reached even greater heights in Bluteau), and gradually manages to take instil laughter. However, perhaps it Méliès made L’Éclipse du Soleil en Pleine Lune cause a stir was in The Sign of the Cross (1932), characters on the silver screen The stringent relation to Charles R. Jackson’s novel, The Lost pride in his own sexual identity. Swasn’t until exactly one century ago in 1919 when (The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon) in where it is implied that emperor Nero has a slave restrictions of the Motion Picture Code (the Weekend (1944) - the gay persona was German production Anders als die Andern which the two celestial bodies are represented by boy who is also his lover. Hays Code), which although created in 1930 completely whitewashed. In the book, it’s Boys Don’t Cry – 1999 (Different from the Others) hit the silver screen male actors’ faces. Well, when the impish star However, such disparaging enactments of weren’t enforced until four years later, had come suggested that the protagonist, Don Birnam Director: Kimberly Peirce that our community had something we could moves right behind an effete-looking moon, the “queerness” in early-1930s Hollywood were not about because many had seen the aforesaid (Ray Milland), is an alcoholic, closet homosexual Hilary Swank plays Brandon Teena, a truly identify with. This tragic romance is latter seems to be really enjoying himself. without a touch of irony. Firstly, since openly gay upturn of brutality and lewdness in late-1920s haunted by a same-sex liaison at college; yet all Nebraskan trans man who starts dating regarded to be the first pro-gay movie. To mark Across the Atlantic in Hollywood, which actor William Haines was a top-five box-office star and early-1930s cinema as depraved. Indeed, a references to problems with his orientation were Lana Tisdel (Chloë Sevigny), who is this landmark, we examine how homosexual men produced its first movie in 1910, in Algie, the from 1928 to 1932. Secondly, as the initial four sanctimonious church had threated to organise entirely edited out of Billy Wilder’s 1945 movie. unconcerned when she finds out about have been portrayed on celluloid since that that Miner (1912), the titular lead is an effeminate, years of the 30s witnessed the Pansy Craze. This boycotts of certain features deemed unsuitable, A new breed of matinee idol blazed a trail his true sexual identity. However, a couple time mainly in the British and US film industries. flowery individual who minces around for comic was a period in American history when and some branches of government had across the cinematic landscape of 1950s America. of her buddies, ex–cons John and Tom Anders als die Andern was important because effect. Such negative characterisations were also homosexual subculture went mainstream due to considered censoring or banning them. To stave The impossibly handsome Marlon Brando, James think differently. the sympathetic story centres on Paul Körner evident in The Soilers (1923) and A Wanderer of Prohibition; this 1920-1933 nationwide alcohol off either of these eventualities, the major Dean and Montgomery Clift were all schooled in (Conrad Veidt), a virtuoso pianist who gets the West (1927), where a “sissy” archetype is a foil ban resulted in bars and clubs in many cities studios initiated the new rules as a form of self- the Method, so gave raw, nuanced performances Dog Day Afternoon – 1975 involved with Kurt Sivers (Fritz Schulz), a to the supposedly more masculine gun-toting (Chicago, New York, San Francisco, amongst regulation. As a result, scenes of childbirth, in which they weren’t afraid to show their Director: Sidney Lumet spirited younger man he’d been giving music cowboys in the picture. others) eager to maximise profits from selling miscegenation and sexual perversion etc, could vulnerability. All were at least bisexual, and Based on a true story, Sonny Wortzik lessons to. Unfortunately, their happiness When Al Jolson uttered the immortal line illicit booze, adopting a laissez-faire attitude in not be shown. Non-heterosexuality was regarded conceivably their orientation partly informed (Al Pacino) holds up a New York bank to becomes doomed when they’re blackmailed. “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet” in The Jazz Singer respect of their clientele. Thus, a new bohemia to be in the latter category, so any trace of our their choices of roles. Each of them starred in get the money for his partner to have a When considered in social context, the fact this (1927), the earliest feature-length film to use emerged as a previously underground LGBT+ community was either buried so deep in subtext features where there was a strong homosexual sex change, and ends up holding the monochrome gem presented LGBT-relations in sound, it ushered in a new era: Tinseltown community mingled with straight people for the you’d practically need a PhD in semiotics to subtext: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Rebel staff hostage. a positive light was iconoclastic, as gradually moved away from silent pictures to first time in various entertainment venues, and figure it out, or totally expunged. Without a Cause (1955); and Suddenly, Last homosexuality was outlawed in Germany at the talkies. Nonetheless, there was no shift in the because some of these establishments hired drag Indeed, in Dashiell Hammett’s book The Summer (1959) respectively. This final picture was Todo sobre mi madre time (as it was in most of the Western world up portrayal of non-heterosexuals as clichés, apart queens (“pansy performers”) – Ray Bourbon, Bruz Maltese Falcon (1930), it couldn’t be written based on Tennessee Williams’ 1958 play of the (All About My Mother) – 1999 until at least the late-1960s); and, actually, from the fact that we now had campy accents Fletcher and Gene Malin were the most notable. more explicitly that one of the bad guys, Joel same name, in which the lead character’s cousin, Director: Pedro Almodóvar Magnus Hirschfeld, the famous sexologist and such as in actor Benny Rubin’s performance in The Pansymania trend ended in 1933 to a Cairo (Peter Lorre), isn’t straight, as he is Sebastian, is a voracious queer who procures When Manuela’s (Cecilia Roth) son dies in gay and transgender rights advocate, (partly) the musical-comedy Sunny Skies (1930). degree due to the repeal of Prohibition which referred to as “the fairy” and “queer”; but not to young men. The film’s scriptwriter, Gore Vidal, a car accident she heads from Madrid to produced this movie as a riposte to Paragraph 175 Eventually, these stock gay personas were also meant a lot of speakeasies closed, but also as a fall foul of the censors, although still effeminate, wanted to portray this as explicitly as he could but Barcelona to track down his father, a – the 1871-enacted provision that had made non- given a degree of danger so as to be in tune with more authoritarian morality had been sweeping in John Huston’s 1941-directed film version, the was forced to water down the intended narrative. transvestite called Lola (Toni Cantó) who heterosexual acts illegal in Germany. an industry that desired more shock-value across the US. It was a Zeitgeist that put paid to non-heterosexual traits of the character as played Indeed, in the documentary The Celluloid Closet never knew he existed. There had been a few earlier depictions of subject matter – e.g. increased numbers of the film career of Haines - in 1933 he was sacked by Peter Lorre are smothered in subtext – for (1995), he laments: “I have never seen such a time 086 | PRIDELIFE.COM | /Pridelifemagazine | @pridelife | SPRING 2019 SPRING 2019 | @pridelife | /Pridelifemagazine | PRIDELIFE.COM | 087 FEATURE 20 MUST–SEE LGBT+ MOVIES Moonlight – 2016 Director: Barry Jenkins The coming–of–age drama outlines three stages in the life of Afro–American Chiron Harris.