The Celluloid closet

Vito Russo’s seminal text on homosexual representation in Hollywood cinema has been faithfully adapted for the screen by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman who also made the documentaries” The Times of Harvey Milk” and “Common threads: Stories from the quilt”. Narrated by Lily Tomlin and featuring interviews with Susan Sarandon, Gore Vidal, Tom Hanks, Quentin Crisp, Tony Curtis, Harvey Fierstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Susi Bright, Richard Dyer and Amistad Maupin (who also wrote Lily Tomlin’s voice over narration), “The Celluloid closet” covers ambitious ground, that being Hollywoods difficult relationship with showing homosexual desire openly and honestly. This informative documentary also demonstrates how certain films were modified through such means as the puritanical Hayes code which was set up to stamp out any hint of ‘sexual perversion’ from the screen. The film also goes on to discuss how homosexuality was then coded and subverted in order to pass unnoticed by the censors. Featuring clips from “Ben Hur”, “Johnny Guitar”, “Calamity Jane”, “The Childrens Hour”, “Boys in the band”, “Tea and Sympathy”, “Suddenly last summer”, “Some like it hot”, “Rebel without a cause”, “Personal best” and “Cruising”.