Peccadillo Films
R2 DVD
Before
Stonewall is a superb documentary directed by Greta Schiller, originally
released in 1984, Pecadillo Films is re-releasing this classic film in a 25th
Anniversary Special Edition with lots of fascinating extras.
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.
There
is a good balance between general society 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.
The
extras are very extensive including:
A fifty minute question and answer session with Ken Livingstone, Greta
Schiller, Richard Kwietniowski (Love and Death on Long Island) hosted by
Richard Newman (Big Brother), recorded April 2009 at the London Lesbian and Gay
Film Festival.
The short film ‘Tiny and Ruby’ (30mins, dir.Greta Schiller), an award-winning
documentary about prominent black jazz trumpeter Tiny Davis and her
drummer/pianist partner Ruby Lucas.
Extended
interview footage of Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde and Jose Sarria.
Reviews
appear on the Synergy website with a single cover image. In the digital and
print edition, reviews appear with multiple images and with expanded content.
We recommend you download the free digital edition (or
buy the print edition) to get the most from Synergy
Magazine.
This
review will appear in Volume 2 No.5
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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