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Small Town Gay Bar (Director: Malcolm Ingram, USA, 2006): This film was part of the June 2007 release from Ironweed Film Club, and features two short films as well that I haven’t yet watched. I missed this when it played originally at this year’s Inside Out festival, so was glad to see it on DVD so soon.
While my own experience with gay bars has been pretty limited, I understand that they serve a vital social function within the community, serving as sanctuaries from a world that is very often hostile to gay people. The situation is even more dire in the rural South, where prejudice has been tolerated and even encouraged for a long time. This small film keeps its focus tightly on a very specific area, northeastern Mississippi, and on the patrons of a bar called Rumors, located in tiny Shannon, population 1,726. In rural communities where everyone knows everyone else, it’s not unusual for gay people to stay “in the closet” and so the bar becomes the only place where they can actually be themselves. However, since Mississippi is in the middle of the “Bible Belt,” the bars are often targetted by conservative church groups and forced out of business. Part of the film covers the history of gay bars in this part of the state, and Crossroads, once located in larger Meridian (pop. 39,000), seemed to be just the sort of place that conservatives would want to close. As one former patron put it, the sense of desperation was so strong that it became a sort of circus, a place where “anything went” and so local law enforcement found a way to close it. Happily, this same former patron bought the property and reopened it as a much more congenial place, recognizing that people were being forced to drive several hours to Memphis for lack of a local place to go. I found myself reminded very much of British pub culture while watching the film, where the bar is not only a place to drink and meet romantic partners, but a hub of information and a surrogate family. Ingram’s film does a great job of capturing a sense of place and of the very unique people who populate it.
Perhaps the only weakness I found in the film was in its choice of counter-voices. Reverend Fred Phelps (of GodHatesFags.com fame) was born in Meridian, so I can see why the filmmaker wanted to feature him, but giving this nutbag so much screen time was unnecessary. Ingram also interviewed Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, another extreme organization with their headquarters in nearby Tupelo. While this generated lots of sparks, I was rather hoping to hear more from local regular people and even local pastors instead of people whom the majority of Americans would view as raving lunatics. As well, it would have been interesting to hear why the patrons of Rumors and the other bars haven’t just given up and moved to larger cities where they could live more openly.
As a side note, I was intrigued when I heard so many Toronto bands on the soundtrack (Metric, The Hidden Cameras, Broken Social Scene) and guessed, rightfully, that director Malcolm Ingram was indeed from Toronto. I’d love to hear what drew him so far from home to tell this story.
Official site for the film
(7/10)
Tagged as:
Documentaries,
DVD,
DVD Clubs,
homosexuality,
Inside Out,
Ironweed
Bob and Jack’s 52-Year Adventure (Director: Stu Maddux, USA, 2006): Bob Claunch and Jack Reavley met in the early 1950s when both were stationed with the army in Germany. This charming film charts the course of their love affair over the next half-century and beyond. Despite the rather unimaginative title, the film deftly weaves together archival photos, audio recordings (both men worked for Armed Forces Radio and later bought a radio station together) and present-day interviews to tell a remarkably conventional love story that, because it involves two men, makes it all the more remarkable.
I liked the way director Maddux filmed the interviews with one man closer to the camera, allowing us to capture each man’s facial expressions when reacting to the other’s comments. Just like all old married couples, these guys finish each other’s sentences; that is, when they’re not interrupting each other.
With all the debate over whether gay marriage should be “allowed,” it’s helpful to see that it’s really existed all along.
Official site for the film
(8/10)
Tagged as:
aging,
Documentaries,
homosexuality,
Inside Out,
marriage
Glue (Director: Alexis Dos Santos, Argentina, 2005): I missed this film at TIFF last year, and was glad to get the chance to see it. Glue is unmistakably a first film, with lots of experimentation, some of which succeeds and some of which fails. Set in rural Patagonia, the film combines a soundtrack that features the Violent Femmes and moody handheld cinematography to give us a window into the life of Lucas, a bored and sexually confused 16 year-old.
Lucas spends most of his time riding his bike around with his headphones on. He roughhouses ambiguously with his friend Nacho, and when they meet shy Andrea, the three form an unusual bond. This isn’t a film with a huge dramatic arc, and by the end, nothing really feels resolved, but it certainly captures a certain time and place in the lives of a few characters.
One of my frustrations with the film was its constant pursuit of the artsy shot instead of the more direct shot. The overuse of extreme close-ups and the reliance on natural lighting left me scratching my head sometimes, as I tried to figure out exactly what was going on. The use of Super 8 footage was a nice touch, adding an element of nostalgia, but again it may have been a bit overdone. There were a few places where a steadier camera would have helped as well, especially when shooting landscape scenes.
The film feels long at 110 minutes, and since there is relatively little dialogue, some of the admittedly gorgeous shots of the Patagonian landscape could have been trimmed, but this is a forgivable sin for a first-time feature director finally getting a chance to stretch out things. I look forward to seeing Dos Santos’ next film.
(7/10)
Tagged as:
adolescence,
argentina,
bisexuality,
homosexuality,
Inside Out
The Life of Reilly (Directors: Barry Poltermann and Frank Anderson, USA, 2006): If you grew up in the 1970s like me, you couldn’t avoid Charles Nelson Reilly. He was on Match Game, Hollywood Squares, Lidsville, Uncle Croc’s Block, and made regular appearances on The Tonight Show. What I didn’t know about Reilly was that he had been a Tony Award-winning actor on Broadway in the 50s and 60s, and that when he disappeared from television, he went on to become a beloved and respected acting teacher.
This film documents a performance of Reilly’s long-running but also long-retired one-man show, “Save It For The Stage: The Life of Reilly.” The directors convinced him to take it out of mothballs for one last performance in 2004, and the result is this film. There is a bit of archival footage mixed in, and some music, but what the directors have done is essentially edit down a three hour long stage performance into something half that length. Which is why although it’s an amazing story, it’s just not that great a film.
Reilly has had a most interesting life, and he’s a great storyteller. That he even forged a career as an actor is incredible, considering his unbelievably dysfunctional family. His descriptions of his soul-crushing mother are hilarious, but also very sad. And when he eventually got an interview with the head of NBC in the early days of the television era, he was told, “They don’t let queers on television.” His prolific appearances in the 1970s almost seem to be his way of exacting revenge.
But because his story was so interesting, I wanted to know more. There’s very little about the fact that he is gay. No stories about crushes, romances, relationships, and only the NBC story about any kind of discrimination. One thing that emerged from the film was Reilly’s long and (to me) surprising friendship with Burt Reynolds. I would have loved to have heard a few more anecdotes like this about his friends. It just seemed like there was so much more to tell, and knowing that the stage show was longer, it made me question the directors’ decision to cut material. As well, apart from Reilly’s riveting performance, the filmmakers didn’t add much original work.
Although that makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy the film, that would be untrue. I wanted to hear even more from this fascinating man. Unfortunately, the show is back in mothballs, and I don’t see him touring it again, not at 76 years of age. Pity.
May 28, 2007: I just found out the very sad news that Charles Nelson Reilly has passed away. I’m very glad this film was able to convey a sense of the wonderful drama of his life and his skills as an actor. Try to see it if you can.
October 23, 2007: Good news. The film will be opening across the US next month, and the film’s web site has been newly redesigned with lots of content. The film will be playing at the Bloor cinema in Toronto from November 30 until December 13, according to the site. Don’t miss it!
Official site for the film
(7/10)
Tagged as:
Documentaries,
homosexuality,
Inside Out,
Television
It seems that when one film festival ends in Toronto, another begins. From May 17-27, the Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival will celebrate its 17th year by showing 276 films and videos exploring the queer experience all over the world. I’ll be previewing a few of the films screening at the festival over the next week or two.
Tagged as:
homosexuality
