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December 24-30, 2015 • Bay area reporter • 23
More than just a martyr by David Lamble
M
att Shepard is a Friend of Mine (Virgil Films) is a compelling film memoir about the murder and martyrdom of a 21-year-old University of Wyoming freshman who, 50 days shy of 22, could already claim to have experienced more than his share of hard knocks. The film’s director spells out her personal stake in Matt Shepard’s story. “My name is Michele Josue, and Matt Shepard was a friend of mine. Matt was the type of friend I thought I’d know my whole life, but on Oct. 12, 1998, we lost him forever, and the Matt I knew became Matthew Shepard to the world. I miss my friend, and I’m not willing to let him go.”
Some of this bio-doc’s intimate disclosures were covered by Matt’s mom Judy in her poignant volume The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie and a World Transformed. What Judy Shepard’s memoir and this new film offer are private glimpses of the joyful soul who was Matt Shepard. Here are home movies of Matt filmed by his kid brother, and family vacation video where his dad Dennis teases his handsome son as he poses in front of a Roman fountain. The movie also contains fragments of Matt’s diary, a playful excerpt read aloud by a female friend. “I’m funny and forgetful and messy and lazy. I’m giving and understanding, I’m formal and polite. I’m sensitive, and I’m honest and
sincere. I’m not a pest, I am my own person. I am warm. I love helping, I love smiling, I love being myself. I love learning, I love eating, I love airports, I love hugs.” As a kid, Matt had a mischievous streak, noted here by his dad. “At the airport one time, I got to tickling him, and he started screaming, ‘Child abuse, child abuse! Who is this stranger?’ Everyone around him started laughing. He was about nine at that time.” As she proved to an admiring nation, Judy has collected anecdotes about Matt that go from recalling a prank-prone kid to a moving moment when she recalls sensing Matt’s biggest life-secret. “He just loved people, and he loved making people feel better. It’s what made Matt Matt. When he was little he started writing poems to the neighbors, and he would leave them in their mailboxes. My dad was a postmaster, and he told Matt that it’s illegal to leave things in people’s mailboxes without putting a stamp on. So he decided to leave rocks instead. He’d find these pretty little rocks, gravel, whatever, and put them in. Everybody in the neighborhood knew it was Matt, and that the intention was good. That was when he was about eight, and I began to wonder if he was gay. I tell this story that his favorite Halloween costume was Dolly Parton, and that might have been a clue. He was Dolly lots of times, and didn’t always wait until Halloween to practice. That made me start thinking. I really think that people who love their family and friends know that they’re gay.” It would have tickled Matt, a young man with political ambitions, to be eulogized by a brilliant political practitioner, President William Jefferson Clinton. “I hope that in the grief of this moment for Matthew Shepard’s family and in the shared outrage across America, Americans will once again search their hearts and do what they can to reduce their own fear, anxiety and anger at people who are different.” Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine recalls the cosmic moment when
the news of a young gay man’s murder struck a chord with the national media. NBC Evening News anchor Tom Brokaw announced, “A young gay man is in a deep coma, near death, from a savage beating. It’s a crime that goes beyond despicable.” But for all the friends and family who share their memories of Matthew Wayne Shepard, the most moving for me came from Matt’s college guidance counselor, Walt Boulden. “It was probably only a couple of weeks before Matt was killed that he told me that he finally felt safe in Laramie.” Boulden, more than many of the Wyoming folks who got to know Matt, has a personal handle on the circumstances surrounding Matt’s last night, the reason he was sitting at Laramie’s Fireside bar. “The night that Matt was taken out of that bar was my birthday, and he and I were supposed to go out. My birthdays were never a big thing for me, and he knew that. So he called up at the last minute and cancelled. You always have to wonder, what if I had said, ‘No, we’ve got plans, let’s go out.’ So I know he was just sitting at the bar and a couple of guys came up wanting to talk, and he was willing to talk, trusting. He had an innocence about him, and a belief in people. I think that sometimes he let his guard down and put himself in situations that he
shouldn’t have had to worry about. But being gay, some things that made him such an incredible person also made him an easy target.” Boulden recalls another connection he forged with the young Matt. “I think I was the first person he came out to. I asked, ‘What would it mean if you found out you were gay?’ It was so obvious that he thought about it for a long, long time, and was so afraid of it. He started crying and said, ‘My family would reject me.’ His fears and experiences were enough like what I had grown up with that I could understand. He was just starting to feel he was connecting to people he could possibly trust when they moved overseas and he had to start over.” Filmmaker Josue recalls meeting Matt at a Swiss boarding school, where Matt shined as an actor and a student of current affairs. Tragically, Matt was raped while on a school vacation trip to Morocco. Josue remembers that the assault seemed to make Matt fearful. He lost some of his zest for life, his desire to expand his boundaries. But all in all, the Matt Shepard she loved was a young man who delighted in reaching out to both boys and girls in his class. “Matt was the person who made everybody feel comfortable. He always looked into your eyes. He had big ideas. He had a future.”t
(1983) David Bowie and Tom Conti star in a test of wills between a Japanese POW camp officer and a British officer prisoner. The Dead (1987) A dying John Huston directed this Christmas-inDublin tale from the pen of James Joyce. The Man Who Came to Dinner
(1941) Monty Woolley steals the show as a bullying radio host who commandeers the home of a Midwestern family after slipping on their snow-covered steps and breaking his hip. Great supporting turns from Bette Davis, Jimmy Durante, Ann Sheridan, Billie Burke and Reginald Gardiner. Bell, Book and Candle (1958) Kim Novak is a fetching witch with a Siamese cat who gets involved with a soon-to-be wed New York publisher (James Stewart). Based on John Van Druten’s play, with a flamboyant supporting cast, bohemians mixing with witches and warlocks: Jack Lemmon, Janice Rule, Ernie Kovacs, Hermione Gingold and Elsa Lanchester. Home Alone 1 & 2 (1990, 92) Macaulay Culkin aces his role as a boy left behind by his distracted family during the holidays. He’s terrifyingly good as a smart-ass kid
who foils a pair of bumbling home intruders in stunts worthy of a Road Runner cartoon. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Frank Capra’s instant Christmas classic was a glorious return from the war for Jimmy Stewart, who works to save his family’s savings & loan from the clutches of a blackhearted banker (Lionel Barrymore). Highlight: suicidal Stewart is saved by a guardian angel (Henry Travers). It’s pure Capra-corn, and improves with each viewing. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Judy Garland steals this sentimental slice of Americana with ballads “The Boy Next Door,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “The Trolley Song.” The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Ernst Lubitsch brought his special touch to this tale of shop workers (James Stewart, Margaret Sullivan) who are secret pen pals.
Remade as In the Good Old Summertime, She Loves Me and You’ve Got Mail. Joyeux Noel (2005) Writer-director Christian Carion’s poignant story of a Christmas Eve truce that unfolded between the trenches in WWI. Daniel Bruhl, Diane Kruger and Ian Richardson head up a fabulous international ensemble. We’re No Angels (1955) Humphrey Bogart stars in a rare comedy, the tale of three escapees from the French prison on Devil’s Island. With Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov, Joan Bennett, Basil Rathbone and Leo G. Carroll. Gremlins (1985) Joe Dante helms this raucous comedy about creatures who tear apart a small town at Christmas. About a Boy (2002) Paul Weitz puts Hugh Grant through his paces as a rotten narcissist who unexpectedly acquires a charge: a 12-year-old boy (Nicholas Hoult).t
whippersnappers with new recordings of the Chopin Preludes. Simply bad luck, bad timing, kids. Heading into formidable competition, Ivan Fisher’s Mahler Ninth (Channel Classics) both cleansed the palate and, without stooping, wrung a few tears, too. Andris Nelsons’ live recording of the fathomless Shostakovich Tenth Symphony with his Boston Symphony (DG), coupled with a scorching Passacaglia from the composer’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, demonstrated why Nelsons is another “future” guy whose future is now. Elsewhere in opera news, Egypt (North Africa, really) got pulled
back from the brink by the year’s two best opera recordings: Aida (Warner) and Niobe, Regina di Tebe, a 17th-century opera by Agostino Steffani that appeared in two live recordings, far and away the best of them Erato’s. The Aida marks the second time Pappano has proved that the studio opera recording is not a thing of the past. I know no one who was pining for another Aida, but Pappano’s returns the intimacy to this opera whose very grandness has spoiled its reputation, and with an exemplary cast. The Radames is Jonas Kaufmann, who continued to prove that his supremacy among tenors is complete
and earned. Nessun Dorma (Sony), his survey of Puccini arias from across the composer’s career, was as enlightening and satisfying as it was thrilling, and in two live Puccini operas on Sony DVDs, a Covent Garden Manon Lescaut, also with Pappano, and a late-year La Fanciulla del West from Salzburg (with SF favorite Nina Stemme as a Minnie as terrific as it was unlikely), proved that what he can do in the studio he can do with the same incandescence in the house – and made me eat crow about two operas I had previously held nearly in contempt. Maria Callas and Leonie Rysanek (the latter as Donna Elvira in a live
1952 Don Giovanni) were in contention for best live historical release, but that award goes to the late Jon Vickers, who died this year and whose memory cannot be erased even by the likes of Kaufmann, his rightful heir, for Vickers’ overwhelming Gerontius in Elgar’s Dream, with Barbirolli in Rome in 1947. Callas and Rysanek, both of whom sang with Vickers, would have protested, but also understood. Finally, Decca’s box set of Scriabin: The Complete Works (it was Scriabin’s “year”) could have been a Vladimir Ashkenazy roundup, but isn’t. Much of it is newly recorded or issued, and all of it is terrific.t
son sizzle!
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’s Eve Performance Added!
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Christmas films
From page 19
in an underground ice-cream war between rival gangs. A droll entry from director Bill Forsyth, known for crowd-pleasing comedies Gregory’s Girl and Local Hero. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
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2015 classical music
From page 21
piano and cello, respectively. The revelatory first two appeared this year, coupled with, of course, Schumann piano trios. Yuja Wang easily won the concerto prize with her recording of both Ravels (DG), the G Major as good as any in the catalogue and the LeftHand nothing short of a revelation. Grigory Sokolov’s 2008 Salzburg recital, the beginning of a promising new contract with DG, came as a reminder of how powerful pianoplaying at its most individual can be, crushing a number of the younger