Monday, April 13, 2009
Film Queer cinema 101
Posted by Ed M. Koziarski on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 10:31 AM
The Center on Halsted's Monday screening series Queer Cinema 101: Celebrating Queer Movies starts tonight with The Celluloid Closet, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's 1995 survey of lesbian and gay images through Hollywood history. Windy City Times critic Richard Knight Jr. is curator and host of the series along with a consortium of gay critics. Queer Cinema 101 continues with Todd Haynes' 1998 Christian Bale/Ewan McGregor/Jonathan Rhys Myers glam rock drama Velvet Goldmine on April 20, Robert Aldrich's 1968 lesbian soap opera behind-the-scenes camp tragedy The Killing of Sister George on April 27, Steve Buscemi's 1986 breakout film Parting Glances on May 4, and Blake Edwards's 1982 female female-impersonator Julie Andrews musical Victor/Victoria on May 11.
The Celluloid Closet screens tonight at 7 PM at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted. Here's a traiier:
Showing 1-1 of 1
I haven't seen "Velvet Goldmine," but the other films in the series are highly recommended, especially "The Killing of Sister George." The film features a slew of brilliant performances by Brit actresses Beryl Reid, Susannah York, and camp icon Coral Browne. Backstory: the original play's author was a straight man named Frank Marcus. His wife, Jackie, came out as a lesbian during the production of the original play and became a prominent LGBT feminist activist in 1960s and '70s England. Ironically, when the original play was produced in the mid-1960s, British theater was still governed by an official censor. The only way the play could be presented on a commercial stage was if the word "lesbian" was never used and there was no sexual activity depicted. But the movie's director, Robert Aldrich ("What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"), included explicit sexual material in the film. Though tame by today's standards it was shocking in 1968.
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