Required for Everybody (3):

• Before Stonewall
• The Celluloid Closet
• The Gang's All Here

One each from the following categories (4):

• A film focusing on gay men
• A film focusing on lesbians
• A film focusing on gays or lesbians who are members of another (e.g., racial or disability) minority.
• A film focusing on the AIDS experience.

Sources of information about gay and lesbian films: The home page for the UMCP Gay & Lesbian Film Collection should be consulted for available films. A number of gay and lesbian films are reviewed at http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Diversity/Specific/Sexual_Orientation/FilmReviews/. The best web source for information about lesbian and gay films is http://www.popcornq.com. Another excellent source is http://www.reel.com/reel.asp (under browse by category, select "gay/lesbian), which will take you to a gay/lesbian page with a variety of sub-category links on the upper right-hand corner of the page). Published gay & lesbian filmographies include Vito Russo, The Celluloid Closet (PN 1955.9 H55R8 1987), Claire Jackson and Peter Tapp, The Bent Lens: A World Guide to Gay & Lesbian Film (PN 1995.9 H55B46 1987), Raymond Murray, Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video, and Jeanni Olson, The Ultimate Guide to Lesbian & Gay Film & Video. (The later two are not in the Libraries but can be consulted in Dr. Suppe's office.)

The following are descriptions of some recommended films. Others will be added as time permits.

Zero Patience

By Canadian filmmaker John Greyson who made Urinal (below). An outrageous and satiric musical-comedy about life in the age of AIDS. The story centers around "Patient Zero" -- Gaetan Dugas, a French-Canadian airline steward who was reported byu health officials to be the man who brought AIDS to North America and helped rapidly spread it with his promiscuous sexual activity. Gaetan returns from the dead to restore his name and solicits the help of 19th-century explorer, now 20th-century museum curator, Sir Richard Burton. But Burton has his own agenda: to gather all the damaging evidence he can on Gaetan and others for an exhibition on contageous diseases in a museum's "Hall of Contagion." Burton's development from a self-centered heterosexual homophobe, open to distorting the truth for personal advancement, to an ACT-UP styled queer in the front-lines of activism is the centerpiece of this amazing story. And if this strange plot is not enough to keep your attention, the film features several bizzare musical routines, inventively choreographed and sporting wittily queer lyrics. These numbers include a duet by a pair of singing assholes and one inside a PWA's bloodstream featuring the Flurtation's Michael Callen as a falsetto-voiced Misss HIV. Audaciously political, filmicly inventive, AIDS/HIV informative and queerly radical. Whit a film like this, who needs special reasons for viewing it. It is an utterly amazing film.

Multiracial Gay &Lesbian

By Canadian filmmaker John Greyson. Less provocative and explicit than the title suggests, this is a documentary-style talk-fest centering on homosexual repression through the ages and more specifically the well publicized entrapment cases and crackdowns in Ontario's public restrooms by a homophobic police force. The film's premise is that several prominantly rumored homosexuals and lesbians from the past (Yukio Mishima, Sergi Eisenstein, Frida Kahlo, Frances Loring, Langston Hughes and Florence Whyle) are misteriously brought together in a Toronto apartment where they hold a series of discussions on the sociology of homosexuality and how to coiunter gay repression. Despite its static and awkward dramatic pretensions, the film is an interesting and literate examination of gay and lesbian history as well as a call for action against discrimination -- which is the reason for recommending it.

Mainly Gay

Based on the autobiography of Quenton Crisp, this is a witty examination of the process of growing up as an effeminate gay in the repressive 1930s and 1940s. It is set in England. John Hurt's portrayal of Crisp is nothing less than superb as he fights back against society's intolerance, ostracism and violence with pointed razor-sharp humor. Reason for assigning: Excellent portrayal of gay life in the pre-Stonewall era.

Historically and politically significant despite (or because of) the pervaiding self-loathing and wallowing self-pity, it continues to ignite contentious debate a quarter centry after its release. The stage-bound, hyperventilating comedy features eight friends who get together for a simple birthday party. What ensues is enough emotion, acid-laced barbs anbd self-analysis to last a normal queer's lifetime. A pre-liberation classic that features many memorable lines, some funny, others not. Dated but hilarious and oftentimes surprisingly offensive to '90s gay sensibilities, the film is nontheless an important step in the depiction of gays in film. Four members of the cast later died from AIDS. Reason for assigning: Excellent portrayal of gay life about the time of Stonewall.

The most notorious film from the late-1970s, early 1980s assault of Hollywood inflamed homophobia, this hyperventilating police thriller united the gay community at the time of its release and a boycott of the movie. The film is set in the leather bars, cruising areas and sweating, pulsing discos of Greenwich Village where a psychotic is killing gay men. Al Pachino as a straight cop who goes undercover as a leatherfag. Reasons for assigning: While an instance of Hollywood homophobia, it does provide a surprisingly accurate portrayal of the fast-paced hypersexed, promiscuous character of post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS gay culture.

Directed by Bill Sherwood, this wonderfully rich and seductively appealing film is considered to be one of the best gay films of the 1980s. The action takes place with a 24-hour period and centers around a gay New York couple about to temporarily separate as one is transferred overseas. Their attempts to keep the relationship strong (made tense when Michael's former lover develops AIDS) and to understand each other is the core of this simple but wise comedy-drama. The supporting cast of mainly gay friends who throw a farewell party are all finely drawn, creating familiar types for gays, not gay stereotypes. But despite the solid cast it is Steve Buscemi who steals the show by giving a bravado performance as Nick, a young rock singer dying of AIDS. While not suspenseful or complicated in plot, the film's strengths lie in its simple and honest moments-- a loving embrace or a telling confession. Sherwood, who died of AIDS in 1990, has fashioned a joyful, knowingly gay love story. Reason for assigning: A realistic portrayal of post-AIDS gay life.

Mainly Lesbian

One of the great and infamous lesbian "breakthrough" films of the '60s, this story of an aging lesbian who loses her job and her young lover is a shrill, even grotesque expose on lesbian lifestyles. Beryl Reid is magnetic in her portrayal of George, the loud and agressive cigar-chomping dyke whose girl chasing ways (she even accosts a cab full of nuns) and domineering personality drive away all who care. The triangle of lesbian stereotypes include butch George; the predatory, sophisticated middle aged dyke; the kittenish but neurotic femme. An entertainly dated tale of love and loneliness that treads a strange line between comedy and senstationalist, perverted drama. In possibly a first for mainstream films, some scenes were shot in an actual lesbian bar, the Getaway Club. Despite the stereotypes abnd heavy-handedness, this lesbian soap opera is a "must see" for all cinematic queers.

An ernest if amateurish drama of simmering female sexual desire and equally strong denial. A refreshingly intimate lesbian romance that works as a love story despite being a talky and didactic soap full of typical lesbian stereotypes. "They should have called it 'Lesbianism for Beginners with Added Psychobabble' ... but it's fabulous anyway -- packed with tension and angst, labored breqathing and hovering lips, torment by tantalization." -- Megan Radclyff, Time Out. Reason for assigning: Good portray of various lesbian stereotypes.

Considered by many to be the best mainstream fiction film about lesbians, it was one of the first films to deal with, in a sensitive manner, a lesbian relationship. The film features strong characterizations of an uptight English professor who falls in love with a free-spirited sculpturess/casino worker and great acting. Reasons for Assigning: Truly a landmark film in its positive and very realistic depiction of a love affair between two attractive and intelligent women. It offers a human-scale, tender treatment of two women in love.

A film by anarcho-feminist filmmaker Lizzie Borden. A wry comical and nonjudgmental tale set in a high rise brothel. A day in the life of the shrewish madam anbd her "girls" as seen through the eyes of Molly, an aspiring photographer who lives with her black lesbian lover and her lover's daughter. Borden, reflecting on Molly's lesbianism, said of her, "She didn't dislke men, but she didn't need them." and "If a woman decides she's rather have sex with a man three times a week instead of working 40 hours a week in a Xerox store ... I believe we should be allowed to make these choices."Reason for assigning: Excellent, controversial film, that is decidedly nonjudgmental in its portrayals of women and lesbianism.

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