NEW QUEER CINEMA

By: Grey Daisies

NEW QUEER CINEMA

Let’s all be empiricists, victors of the brain
   Rulers of the stupid, leaders of the blind
   An empire of knowledge will conquer all the rot
   A culture of certainty will put us back on top.

– John Greyson, Zero Patience

The term “New Queer Cinema” was coined by film critic B. Ruby Rich in several publications (including the British film journal Sight & Sound¹ and her seminal Village Voice overview of the 1992 Sundance Film Festival) to describe the appearance of certain films at Sundance Film Festivals in the early 1990s that evinced a politicized stance towards queer culture.

These films were unapologetic in their frank look at sexuality and combined stylistic elements drawn from AIDS activist videos, avant-garde cinemas, and even Hollywood films. They eschewed “positive images” and “happy endings” in favor of more complexly queer musings on the nature of gender and sexuality. Critic Karl Soehnlein noted this trend in 1990, when he wrote that an “emerging flock of filmmakers is using provocative subject matter – transgression, gender-bending, and rude activism – to create challenging visions of sexual identity.”²

The 1990s opened with the arthouse release of such unapologetically queer films as Todd Haynes’ Poison, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, and Norman Rene’s Longtime Companion, which paved the way for the 1992 phenomenon known as the New Queer Cinema.

While 1985/1986 had seen a mini-boom that was dubbed the “Gay New Wave”³ by Richard Goldstein, few of these films (Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts, Bill Sherwood’s Parting Glances, Gus Van Sant’s Mala Noche, Arthur Bressan’s Buddies, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo’s Dona Herlinda and Her Son) were exhibited at the major gay film festivals of the time.

In 1991, Todd Haynes’ Poison won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Film; the next year saw the inclusion of Tom Kalin’s Swoon, Gregg Araki’s The Living End, and Christopher Munch’s The Hours and Times.

These young directors, along with the producers Christine Vachon (who produced Poison and Swoon) and Andrea Sperling (who produced The Living End and Totally Fucked Up), were the vanguard of what seemed to be a movement, though it was never really an organized movement as such. There was no manifesto, no rules and no particular canon, making it in essence not a movement or a genre but, perhaps more accurately, a trend. Most films came from the independent scene, making them less answerable to corporate or mainstream interests.

Unfortunately, the New Queer Cinema was basically a gay male phenomenon. The real lesbian crossover did not happen until 1994. The Sundance Film Festival was once again the origin of mainstream legitimacy when the Samuel Goldwyn Company acquired worldwide rights for a lesbian feature out of Chicago, Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner’s Go Fish.
Cheryl Duyne’s The Watermelon Woman (1996) was the first feature film to be directed by a lesbian of color and the first to specifically address the lives of her African American Sapphic sisters.

¹ B. Ruby Rich, New Queer Cinema: Sight & Sound, Volume 2, Issue 5, September 1992, p. 30-35.
² Karl Soehnlein, Homo Movies: Village Voice, September 1990, p. 66.
³ Richard Goldstein, The Gay New Wave: Village Voice, April 1986, p. 51-53.

References/Further Readings

- Books

Queer Theory: An Introduction (Annamarie Jagose, 1997)
The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (Vito Russo, 1987)
Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video (Raymond Murray, 1996)
The Ultimate Guide To Lesbian & Gay Film and Video (Jenni Olson, 1996)
Between the Sheets, in the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, and Gay Documentary (Chris Holmlund and Cynthia Fuchs, 1997)
Out Takes: Essays on Queer Theory and Film (Ellis Hanson, 1999)
New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader (Michele Aaron, 2004)
Queer Cinema: The Film Reader (Harry M. Benshoff, Sean Griffin, 2004)
Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America (Harry M. Benshoff, 2005)
New Queer Cinema: Beyond the Celluloid Closet (Robin Griffiths, 2006)
The View From Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers (Matthew Hays, 2007)

- Online Articles

New Queer Cinema: An Introduction (Michele Aaron, in: New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader, Michele Aaron, 2004)
New Queer Cinema (B. Ruby Rich, in: New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader, Michele Aaron, 2004)
New Queer Cinema and Third Cinema (Helen Hok-Sze Leung, in: New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader, Michele Aaron, 2004)

New Queer Cinema (Daryl Chin, glbtq, 2002)
A Brief History of Queer Cinema (Gary Morris, GreenCine, 2007)
My Own Private New Queer Cinema (Mark Adnum, Senses of Cinema, 2004)
Fishing for girls: Romancing lesbians in new queer cinema (Maria Pramaggiore, College Literature, 1997)
The Reckless Moment – Two Pioneers of the New Queer Cinema Look Back on a Short-Lived Sensation (Dennis Lim, Village Voice, 2002 )
What Ever Happened to Queer Cinema? (Alonso Duralde, AfterElton.com, 2007)
Queer And Present Danger (B. Ruby Rich, Sight & Sound, 2000)
2006 FRAMELINE XXX—B. Ruby Rich On The Q-Word, the Post-Brokeback Landscape, Queer Normativity and the Genderation Gap (Michael Guillen, The Evening Class, 2006)
Gay and Lesbian Cinema Thread @ MUBI

LGBTQ Documentaries

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) directed by Rob Epstein
Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (1984) directed by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989) directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Paris Is Burning (1990) directed by Jennie Livingston
Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (1992) directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman
Nitrate Kisses (1992), Tender Fictions (1995) and History Lessons (2000) directed by Barbara Hammer
Shinjuku Boys (1995) directed by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams
The Celluloid Closet (1995) directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in Schools (1996) directed by Debra Chasnoff and Helen S. Cohen
The Brandon Teena Story (1998) directed by Susan Muska and Gréta Olafsdóttir
After Stonewall (1999) directed by John Scagliotti
Gendernauts – Eine Reise durch die Geschlechter (1999) directed by Monika Treut
Paragraph 175 (2000) directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Scout’s Honor (2001) directed by Tom Shepard
Southern Comfort (2001) directed by Kate Davis
Trembling Before G-d (2001) directed by Sandi Simcha Dubowski
Gan (2003) directed by Adi Barash and Ruth Shatz
Tying the Knot (2004) directed by Jim de Sève
Gay Sex in the ‘70s (2005) directed by Joseph Lovett
Between the Lines – Indiens drittes Geschlecht (2005) directed by Thomas Wartmann
Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (2006) directed by Lisa Ades and Lesli Klainberg
Bubot Niyar (2006) directed by Tomer Heymann
For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) directed by Daniel G. Karslake
Pursuit of Equality (2007) directed by Geoff Callan and Mike Shaw
Freeheld (2007) directed by Cynthia Wade
A Jihad for Love (2007) directed by Parvez Sharma
Be Like Others (2008) directed by Tanaz Eshaghian
Stonewall Uprising (2010) directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner

LGBTQ on TV

An Early Frost (1985) directed by John Erman
The Lost Language of Cranes (1991) directed by Nigel Finch
And the Band Played On (1993) directed by Roger Spottiswoode
Ellen (1994-1998) directed by various directors
Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995) directed by Jeff Bleckner
Queer as Folk (UK, 1999) directed by Sarah Harding and Charles McDougall
Queer as Folk (US, 2000-2005) directed by various directors
Juste une question d’amour (2000) directed by Christian Faure
Common Ground (2000) directed by Donna Deitch
If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000) directed by Jane Anderson, Martha Coolidge and Anne Heche
Stranger Inside (2001) directed by Cheryl Dunye
The Cockettes (2002) directed by Bill Weber and David Weissman
Tipping the Velvet (2002) directed by Geoffrey Sax
Angels in America (2003) directed by Mike Nichols
TransGeneration (2005) directed by Jeremy Simmons
Fingersmith (2005) directed by Aisling Walsh
TransGeneration (2005) directed by Jeremy Simmons
Noah’s Arc (2005-2006) directed by Laurie Lynd and Mina Shum
Will & Grace (1998-2006) directed by James Burrows
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003-) directed by various directors
The L Word (2004-) directed by various directors
Transamerican Love Story (2008-) hosted by Alec Mapa

Comprehensive Lists of (New) Queer Cinema Films

new|queer|cinema|.com The online source for gay films (English language)
CINEMA GAY LESBICO TRANS – elenco ricerca film (Italian language)
Cinegay – die Welt des Schwulen Films (German language)
HOMO Cinema Filmy gay, les, trans, drag – Lista filmów (Polish language)

Note: Since there are already some lists concerning queer films around (check out the fab Fox and His (Queer) Friends and Queer Cinema: So Pretty, Witty and Gay), I shall limit myself for the most part to the New Queer Cinema canon, its immediate predecessors and successors, as well as its ongoing influence in the work of directors from all parts of the globe. For experimental filmmakers, please visit my other list AVANT-GARDE FILM.

Thanks.