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Vol. 41 • No. 16 • April 21-27, 2011
www.ebar.com/arts
Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor as father and son in Mike Mills’ Beginners.
San Francisco Film Society
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his year’s edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (April 21May 5 at the Castro Theatre, Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, New People Cinema, and Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley) starts off on a sprightly queer note with Mike Mills’ moving ode to his late-to-come-out gay father, Beginners. More gay content includes a moving portrayal of a lesbian relationship under the Iranian religious police state, first-time director Maryam Keshavarz’s Circumstance; the revival of the late Sidney Lumet’s insurrectional Dog Day Afternoon; a newly rediscovered and restored sciencefiction melodrama from German bad boy Rainer Werner Fassbinder; and a State of the Cinema Address from Killer Films founder and queer indie producer Christine Vachon. Beginners Mike Mills didn’t expect that his 75-year-old father would use the end of his marriage to make a startling life transformation. “My dad came
out – my parents were married for 45 years. They ar the World War II-era generation. He was gay are iin a world where that just was a very hostile place, and the limited place and the limited life you could have as a gay person really freaked him out. He and my mom were friends since high school, and they really did love each other on some level, and tried to work it out, and god knows exactly what he did for 45 years. He was with her and not with other people. When he came out, he was 75 years old, and he came out full guns, not just intellectually. He really wanted to be gay in every way, and have a relationship. It was a very beautiful, sad, crazy part of all our lives. A And it’s definitely a part of my life, because I live w with that father figure who definitely was an odd fat father figure, a closeted gay man. “I many points of my life, it would have been “In See page 32 >>
Thomas Dekker in Cinema Verite.
The fantasy of reality TV HBO’s ‘Cinema Verite’ recalls the Loud family by David Elijah Nahmod
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n 1973, the PBS series An American Family was the talk of the town. This very early example of the now-popular reality TV genre starred the Louds, an upper-middle-class family from Santa Barbara, CA. The 12-episode series was meant to follow the day-to-day lives of an “ordinary” American family, though in retrospect, it’s highly unlikely that the Louds’ huge, palm tree-dotted property was an accurate representation of how regular folks lived. Neither the Louds nor viewers knew what they were getting themselves involved in. An American Family effectively destroyed the fantasy of American suburban life that shows like Leave it to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show and Father Knows Best tried to present as “real” during the 1950s. The Louds were a family in turmoil. Bill, the father, was interested in every woman in town except his wife. Pat Loud, the Mom, knew it. In an episode that startled viewers,
Sam Urdank/HBO
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she asked Bill for a divorce, and told him to leave the house. A scene perhaps even more disconcerting to 1973 audiences came earlier in the series. In the second episode, Pat visits her son Lance in New York City. Lance Loud is flamboyant, lives at the Chelsea Hotel, and hangs out with legendary Warhol drag queen Jackie Curtis. He doesn’t give a hang who knows he’s gay. Lance, who died of AIDS in 2001, is now credited as the first openly gay character on television, though he was not a character. He was a real person, being who he was. TV viewers were stunned but fascinated. The Louds became celebrities, and the subject of much criticism. Now HBO offers Cinema Verite, a dramatization of the TV series’ filming. As suggested by screenwriter David Seltzer, Family producer Craig Gilbert (James Gandolfini) is presented as a manipulative monster who comforts a lonely Pat Loud while urging her to air her dirty laundry on See page 33 >>