Douglas Messerli | Events in European Gay History [Introduction]

events in european gay history

by Douglas Messerli 

Overall, gay history has not been very effectively portrayed in film. Although since the AIDS crisis of the 1970s-1990s and the events centering around the 1970 riots at New York City’s Stonewall bar, LGBT cinema in the United States has made great strides in documenting American gay history, including important forays by Arthur Dong into various LGBT men and women serving in the military. And other US documentarians and filmmakers have given us insights into—to list only a random sampling—figures and events such as Michelle Parkerson’s Stormé: Lady of the Jewel Box (1987); Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston (1989); Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994); Bill Condon’s Kinsey (2004); Irvin Winkler’s bio-pic on Cole Porter, De-Lovely (2004); Bennett Miller’s Capote (2005); Douglas McGrath’s Infamous (2006), also on Truman Capote; Tina Mascara and Guido Santi’s Chris & Don. A Love Story (on Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy) (2007); Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008) (on Harvey Milk); James Franco’s Sal (2011) (on Sal Mineo); Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar (2011) (on J. Edgar Hoover); Cary Kehayan’s In Search of Avery Willard (2012); Steven Soderbergh Behind the Candelabra (2013) (on Liberace); Michele Josue’s Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine (2015); Jeffrey Schwarz’ Tab Hunter Confidential (2015); David France’s The Death and Life of Marsha P.  Johnson (2017); Matt Tyrnauer Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (2017) (revealing a whole host of LBBTQ Hollywood figures); Elsa Flores Almaraz and Richard Montoya’s Carlos Almaraz: Playing with Fire (2019); Don Wingate’s Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On (2019); Rachel Mason’s Circus of Books (2020) (on the Los Angeles gay bookstore); George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020); and Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation (2020).

     It seems to me, however, that European countries have been far more ready to explore their LGBT histories, even though, while arguably we can describe Berlin, as Robert Beachy does in his book Gay Berlin of 2014 as the birthplace of modern identity, we must recognize also that with the Nazi outlawing of all things homosexual, a large swath of German sexual history would seemingly disappear from memory. In 2014 Beachy reminded us, Berliners and other Germans colloquially described their annual gay pride parades as CSD (Christopher Street Day).

     Yet, it might be argued that Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz of 1980 presented a remarkable fictional history of that period. And others have fictionally engaged into the various figures and incidents of European gay history such as Luchino Visconti’s Ludwig (1973); Lionel Soukaz and Guy Hocquenghem’s Race d’Ep (Breed of Faggots) (1979); Herbert Ross’ Nijinsky (1980); Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio (1986); Stephen Frears’ Prick Up Your Ears (1987) (on Joe Orton); Ken Russell’s Salome’s Last Dance (1988) (on Oscar Wilde); Jarman’s Edward II (1991); Jarman’s Wittgenstein (1993); Sean Mathias’ Bent (1997) (on the Nazi internment of gay men); Stephen Haupt’s Der Kreis (The Circle) (2014) (on the Swiss gay magazine and its creators); Moren Tyldum’s The Imitation Game (2014) (on Alan Turing); both Jilil Lespert’s Yves Saint Laurent and Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent (both 2014); Abel Ferrar’s Pasolini (2014); Karl Eccleston and Brian Fairbairn’s Putting on the Dish (2015) (on the private gay language Polari); Peter Greenaway’s Eisenstein in Guanajuato (2015); Randall Wright’s Hockney (2016); Dome Karukoski Tom of Finland (2017); John Carey and Adam Darke’s Forbidden Games: The Justin Fashanu Story (2017); Bryan Singer and Dexter Fletcher’s Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)(on Freddie Mercury and Queen); Ryan Murphy, Nelson Cragg, Gwyneth Horder-Payton, Daniel Minahan, and Matt Bomer’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018) and Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman (2019) (on John Elton) to name only a few.

     While we must also recognize that a large number of the films on European LGBT figures as well as those from the US are commercially produced and contain perhaps as much fiction as reality, and that several of the films on European figures were written and directed by Americans, just as a few of the US titles were directed by Europeans,

      Accordingly, we need perceive that we have a long way to go on featuring viable and accurate films on significant lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer figures.

      Only recently have we become to notice more interest, particularly in Europe, about their lesser-known LGBT heroes and events, so crucial in comprehending the positions and emotions of the contemporary queer community.

       Below, I have written essays on three of these new works that have engaged with events in European gay history Willem by David Hastings, The Act by Thomas Hescott, and Ayor by Tom Bakker.

 

Los Angeles, February 5, 2023

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (July 2023).