| Title | : | Out at the Movies: A History of Gay Cinema |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.92 (501 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1843446618 |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 224 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-06-01 |
| Genre | : |
Over the decades, gay cinema has reflected the community's journey from persecution to emancipation to acceptance. Politicized dramas like Victim in the 60s, The Naked Civil Servant in the 70s, and the AIDS cinema of the 80s have given way in recent years to films which celebrate a vast array of gay lifestyles. Gay films have undergone a major shift, from the fringe to the mainstream and 2005’s Academy Awards were dubbed "the Gay Oscars" with awards going to Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica. The book discusses gay cinema since then, and includes information on gay filmmakers and actors and their influence within the industry. Interspersed throughout the book are some of the most iconic scenes from gay cinema and the most memorable dialogue from key films.
Editorial : From School Library Journal In this lavish history, Davies (A–Z of Cult Films and Filmmakers) examines gay cinema from its earliest days through the present. He organizes the material by decade, beginning with pre-1960s cinema, and discusses various films within their social contexts—from when the subject was off-limits and expressed on-screen only via symbolic codes and icons, through Stonewall and AIDS, to when gay people and gay themes were openly accepted and became central to certain films. Davies follows each chapter with biographical summaries of key actors and directors and includes in-depth examples of the genre's development, from Midnight Cowboy (1969) and La Cage aux Folles (1978) to Torch Song Trilogy (1988), Philadelphia (1993), and Brokeback Mountain (2005). A generous selection of photos and movie stills and an excellent foreword by Simon Callow nicely complement this work. A thoughtful and well-presented overview of
The uniformly-high quality black and white photos (virtually all exteriors) are a mix of snapshots from the author's collection and period publicity pictures. The set up for the ghosts and other supernatural elements is intriguing, and the narrative voice has a nice bit of snark to it, which is always a plus in my book.. The text at the beginning by Kendall Brown is informative and helpful in better appreciating the prints, placing them within the context of the larger Shin-Hanga ("New Print") movement of the 20th century and tentatively explicating an aesthetics for this underappreciated art form--derided as it was (and is) by modernist artists and art critics for whom lyrical beauty and sentiment in art are passe and collaboration with engravers and publishers a damning compromise of principle. The example problems should be there to reinforce the theoretical material. If this book were an accident, there would be a police officer saying "Move along, nothing to see here." And he'd be
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