This Just Seen: The Celluloid Closet

Let me be sure not to bury the lead: Go watch "The Celluloid Closet."

The documentary, which draws from Vito Russo's 1981 book of the same name, looks closely at the history of homosexuality in film, from the earliest experimental Edison images to more contemporary movies. That the documentary is from 1995 makes it all the more fascinating, provoking one to reflect on what has and has not changed in the last fifteen (!) years.

"The Celluloid Closet" chronicles the "types" of gay characters that were presented (from the sissy played for laughs to the creepy humorless lesbian) and the narratives ascribed to them (death, unhappiness, self-loathing, comic relief), if any at all. It features many scenes that had been cut from films because they seemed to be too "offensive"--and, when it comes to contemporary films especially, I was quite interested to hear the commentary about how gay themes were dropped or revised in book-to-film adaptations. (Susie Bright's antsy reaction to seeing "Fried Green Tomatoes" is hilarious). There's a fascinating (and depressing) montage of the use of the word "faggot" in film. And I found the conversation about the difference in presenting male-male sex and female-female sex on film to be especially memorable--namely, why male-male sex scenes are deemed especially controversial, while female-female scenes veer towards the gauzy, soft-focus, un-orgasmic variety.

But let's back up a moment. Why care so much about movies? Why does visibility, or the lack of it, even matter in real life?

Says Harvey Fierstein in the documentary:

The hunger I felt as a kid looking for gay images was not to be alone.

And Susan Sarandon:

Oh, movies are important and they're dangerous because we're the keeper of the dreams. You go into a little dark room and become incredibly vulnerable - on one hand all your perspectives can be challenged, you could feel something you couldn't feel normally. It can encourage you to be the protagonist in your own life. On the other hand it can completely misshape you.

What's so startling about the movie is how much gay subtext played into Hollywood films that were bound by restrictions on "sexual perversion" under the censorous Hayes Code. Gore Vidal, tasked with rewriting the script of "Ben-Hur," struggled with director William Wyler to find some kind of motivation for the ill-will between the characters played by Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd. Vidal suggested that the two had been lovers in their youth, and because Ben-Hur turned his back on that past, Boyd's character resents him. Wyler agreed. They clued Boyd into the change and urged him to act on it--but they decided not to tell Heston because he "wouldn't be able to handle it." As "The Celluloid Closet" plays scenes from "Ben-Hur," the subtext is hilariously clear.

Says Richard Dyer in the film:

Most expressions of homosexuality in most movies are indirect. And what's interesting about that is of course that is what it was like to express homosexuality in life, that we could only express ourselves indirectly, just as people on the screen could only express themselves indirectly. And the sense in which the characters are in the closet, the movie is in the closet and we are in the closet.

And that's the least of it. I was struck by the images of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca," a film and book I really enjoy; the strange Mrs. Danvers is always someone I'd chalked up as being simply crazy, but apparently Hitchcock very intentionally shaped Mrs. Danvers' character as a lesbian. Again, the scenes that "The Celluloid Closet" presents put a spotlight on the subtext that hadn't registered for me--and I found myself grinning in revelation.

Shirley MacLaine speaks candidly about what it was like to act in "The Children's Hour"--which comes from Lillian Hellman's story of two schoolteachers accused of lesbianism--without quite acknowledging the core motivation of the movie. Amazingly, the subtext even escaped the protagonist.

One of the most interesting legacies of Hollywood being in "the celluloid closet?" It's how affection on film changed. Early films showed straight guys hugging and kissing each other (even on the lips) as part of their friendship. As the public became more aware of homosexuality, those images vanished right quick ... and the stoic image of what a "man" is became calcified in the art form that is the "keeper of dreams," as Susan Sarandon describes it. The repercussions are destructive not just to gay people, but to all people who balk at being assigned a certain set of behaviors based on their gender.

"The Celluloid Closet" shows how, slowly, more nuance came to the representations of homosexuality and gay people in films. Tom Hanks spoke lucidly about his role in "Philadelphia." Hanks is quite aware that his non-threatening and likable public image is what made this 1993 film that centered a gay man with AIDS palatable to many.

Since then, we've had untold numbers of films with the "gay friend" cliche. We had "Brokeback Mountain." We had "Milk." There was "Notes on a Scandal," "Before Night Falls," "The Birdcage," "In & Out," "But I'm a Cheerleader," "Saved!," "Best in Show," "Wonder Boys," and generally just a hell of a lot of movies that feature gay, lesbian, and bisexual characters (with varying degrees of quality). Not to mention films that center trasngender people, like "Transamerica," "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," and "Boys Don't Cry." 

God knows it's no celluloid utopia yet. I saw a Pedro Almodóvar movie awhile back that was rated R, though the only sexual content it showed was eminently PG-13 style--except that it was between two men. Much of what the conversation on "The Celluloid Closet" discusses as overdone, limited roles for gay people (like the Comic Relief, or the Creepy Lesbian, or the Tragic End) hold true today. And while everyone applauds the "courage" of straight actors who play gay and trans leading roles, when are we going to see more openly gay people cast as straight leads? Can out gay actors only play gay roles?

In the meantime, though, let us pause to celebrate the tradition of cinematic love (and how beautiful Marlene Dietrich is in "Morocco"):

Comments

[Dana Tommasino]

Beautiful. Thank you for this. Saw it back in the day, but so moving to have you put it all in context again. It still makes me weep! It was brilliant then and is brilliant still.