Before and After Stonewall
25th Anniversary Edition
First Run Features
R1 DVD
Before
Stonewall is a superb documentary directed by Greta Schiller, originally
released in 1984, First Run Films is re-releasing this classic film in a 25th
Anniversary Special Edition with a second DVD, After Stonewall.
Before Stonewall takes a decade by decade look at
the experience of gays and lesbians from the early years of the 20th century to
the momentous events of the Stonewall Riots.
We have fascinating insights into what it was like to live as a gay man or
lesbian in the 20s, 30s and 40s and the opportunities and dangers each decade
posed. We come to appreciate the significant role homosexuals played in the
World Wars and yet how the very military they served turned against them in
paranoid fury in the Fifties through the witch hunt trials of the McCarthy era.
We
also come to understand the interactions between Black, Women’s and Gay
Liberation movements and the way in which a number of small organizations, the Mattachine Society and Sisters of Bilitis,
were able to ferment a mood for change within the previously loose knit
“homosexual” network.
Before
Stonewall balances rare footage, documents and images with interviews with such
figures as Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde
and Jose Sarria among many, many others
giving recollections of what it was like to live as a gay man or woman
before Stonewall.
Narrated
by Rita Mae Brown, it offers a good balance between general commentary and
individual experience and between interviews and film footage. This gives the
documentary a light and personal touch which is both informative and
entertaining, amusing and yet, at times, quite moving.
After Stonewall continues documenting the struggle.
It is directed by John Scagliotti, Janet Baus & Dan Hunt and Narrated by Melissa Etheridge. It
is a true roller coaster ride as it captures the struggles from the Stonewall
riots through sexual liberation, hard won acceptance in some quarters and
terrible defeats as fundamentalists fight back. It also explores the effect HIV/AIDS
had on the movement as it first cause a terrifying loss of life and associated
loss of confidence but then, as never before, brought lesbian and gay people
together to fight a common foe. This section of the film is especially moving
and includes documentation of HIV/AIDS research measures and the Quilt.
Featuring Dorothy Allison, Michael Bronski, Rita Mae Brown, Barney Frank, Barbara Gittings, Arnie Kantrowitz, Larry
Kramer, Craig Lucas, Armistead Maupin, Leslea Newman,
Barbara Smith, and many others.
The
two remarkable films, Before & After Stonewall,
tell the remarkable tale of how homosexuals, a heretofore hidden and despised
group, became a vibrant and integral part of America's family, and, indeed, the
global community.
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