Library - History - Our Gay and Lesbian Heritage

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1889-1931) was a gay German film director. He was also an actor, and, during World War I, a pilot. Murnau's best-known films are Nosferatu (made in Germany) and Sunrise (made in Hollywood). He was a film pioneer, the first to use a mobile, rather than static, camera during filming. The most bizarre event in Murnau's life was his death; he and his chauffeur were killed in a car crash, and it appears that the deaths occurred while Murnau was performing fellatio on the driver (the probable cause of the accident).

James Whale (1896-1957) was a gay British-American filmmaker. Whale started out a a newspaper cartoonist, then "embarked on a stage career, trying his hand at acting, set designing, and directing. After moving to Hollywood in 1930, he created "some of the most intelligent and witty films of the horror genre," as well as adapting a number of stage and literary works to film. Whale's films include Journey's End (1930), Frankenstein (1931), Waterloo Bridge (1931), The Impatient Maiden (1932), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), By Candlelight (1934), One More River (1934), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Remember Last Night? (1935), Show Boat (1936), The Great Garrick (1937), The Road Back (1937), Port of Seven Seas (1938), Sinners in Paradise (1938), Wives Under Suspicion (1938), The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), Green Hell (1940), and They Dare Not Love (1941). Whale "lived openly as a homosexual in discreetly closeted Hollywood" with his lover, producer Da

Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) was a gay Russian filmmaker. A famous pioneer in Russian cinema, his best-known works include Battleship Potemkin (1925); Alexander Nevsky (1938); and Ivan the Terrible, Parts 1 and 2 (1945 and 1946). Eisenstein also wrote two books on filmmaking, The Film Sense (1942) and Film Form (1949). "Karlinsky writes that when he was in Mexico filming Qu Viva Mexico! his homosexuality nearly caused an international scandal, and he was blackmailed into returning to the Soviet Union by the authorities, who threatened to expose his private life."

George Cukor (1899-1983) was an openly gay American director with a 53-film career, including Dinner at Eight, David Copperfield, Camille, Holiday, Gone with the Wind (until producer David O. Selznick fired him at Clark Gable's behest...Gable said "I can't go on with this picture. I won't be directed by a fairy. I have to work with a real man."), The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, and My Fair Lady.

Luchino Visconti (1906-1976) was a gay Italian filmmaker of international renown with an aristocratic background. His work features few gay characters, but has a strong gay esthetic. Visconti's films of gay interest include The Damned, Death in Venice, and Ludwig.

Anthony Asquith (?-1968) was an famous (and openly gay) British director, with a career spanning forty years and over thirty films. He is best remembered for his George Bernard Shaw adaptations, including Pygmalion (1938). Some of Asquith's other films include The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), based on gay playwright Oscar Wilde's (1854-1900) play, and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964).

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) was an openly gay Italian director, poet, essayist, screenwriter, teacher, painter, and novelist. His film work includes Oedipus Rex; the gay-themed Teorema (Theorem); his "Trilogy of Life," The Decameron (based on Boccaccio's stories), The Canterbury Tales (based on Chaucer's classic book), and Arabian Nights; and the disturbing Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (based on the Marquis de Sade's novel, it contained "scenes of graphically cruel sex and violence").

Franco Zeffirelli (1923-) is a gay Italian director, better known in Italy for directing plays and operas than film. His best film work includes filmed operas (La Boheme, I Pagliacci, La Traviata, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Tosca) and adaptations of Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, Otello, and Hamlet).

Sergei Paradjanov (1924-1990) was a gay Russian filmmaker. Controversial and innovative, "stunningly beautiful and rich in color and imagery," his films include The Color of Pomegranates and The Legend of the Suram Fortress. Idealized male beauty was featured in many of Paradjanov's films. He spent several years in prison during the 1970s for "homosexuality and illegal trafficking in religious icons."

John Schlesinger (1926-) is an openly gay British-American filmmaker. His best-known work includes the Academy Award-winning (and gay-themed) Midnight Cowboy and Sunday, Bloody Sunday and the thrillers Marathon Man and The Falcon and the Snowman. Schlesinger's long-time relationship with Michael Childers began in 1976.

James Ivory (1928-) is a gay American director who has worked together with gay Indian-born producer Ismail Merchant (1937-) for over thirty years...and they have lived together for nearly that long. Merchant Ivory Productions' best-known films are The Remains of the Day (1994), adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's 1989 novel, and three adaptations of gay British novelist E. M. Forster's (1879-1970) work, A Room with a View(1986), the gay-themed Maurice (1987), and Howard's End (1992).

James Bridges (1935-1993) was a gay American filmmaker, twice-nominated for an Academy Award. His best-known films are The Paper Chase, China Syndrome, and Urban Cowboy.

Paul Bartel (1938-) is a gay American film director; an actor in over 50 films, including Gregg Araki's (see below) The Living End; and a writer. His films include the bizarre Private Parts (1972) and the outrageous comedy Eating Raoul (1982), which he also wrote and acted in.

Colin Higgins (1941-1988) was a gay American filmmaker and screenwriter. His films include Foul Play (1978), 9 to 5 (1980), and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). He also wrote the screenplay for Silver Streak (1976).

Wolfgang Petersen (1941-) is a gay German-American director. His films include Das Boot (which received six Academy Award nominations), the near-classic fairy tale The NeverEnding Story, the intelligent science fiction story Enemy Mine, and the suspense thriller In the Line of Fire.

Derek Jarman (1942-1994) was "one of Great Britain's most acclaimed directors and the leading gay filmmaker of our time." His death in 1994 after battling AIDS for ten years (during which he continued to create excellent films) was a loss to the creative community. His gay-themed work includes Sebastiane ("filled with scintillating images of male bodies and graphic scenes of sex"), Caravaggio, The Garden, Edward II, and Wittgenstein. His other work includes Jubilee, The Last of England, War Requiem (based on gay British composer Sir Benjamin Britten's (see earlier installment) oratorio and starring Sir Lawrence Olivier), and Angelic Conversation (based on 14 of possibly-gay British poet William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) sonnets, reinforcing their probable homosexual roots). Jarman was also an artist, a writer, a scenery designer, and a gardener.

Rosa Von Praunheim (1942-) is a gay German film and stage director, as well as a writer. Born Holger Mischwitzky, this "bad boy of the German gay scene" took a female name in 1967 when he began directing, in a reversal of the habit of female writers in centuries past, who often took male names in order to get their works published. Praunheim has created over 40 films, almost all controversial, as befits the "senior member of the Berlin school of underground filmmaking."

Peter Adair (1943?-1996) was an openly gay independent documentary filmmaker. He was the first to create a feature documentary that portrayed homosexuals in a positive light--Word is Out (1977). Other films in Adair's 25-plus year career include Holy Ghost People (1967), called by lesbian anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) "one of the best ethnographic films ever made;" Some of These Stories Are True (1981); Stopping History (1983); The AIDS Show (1986); and Absolutely Positive (1990), made after he tested positive for HIV. Adair died of AIDS at the age of 53.

Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (1943-1991) was an openly gay independent filmmaker. After teaching at a Catholic boys's school, Bressan got his start in film in the male porno industry. Another victim of AIDS (there is a panel in his memory in the AIDS Quilt), his three gay-themed feature films are Gay USA (1977), Abuse (which caused a ruckus when it was released in 1982 for its positive portrayal of man/boy love), and Buddies (1985).

Eloy de la Iglesia (1945-) is an openly gay Spanish filmmaker, referred to by many as Spain's Fassbinder (see below). Although risky during the Franco regime, Iglesia has been outspokenly gay, and his films are very popular in Spain, although virtually unknown in the United States. His films have often featured gay characters, and several have homosexual themes, including Colegas (Pals); El Sacerdote (The Priest), which was banned by the Catholic Church and heavily censored when initially released; and his "gay trilogy" of Los Placeres Ocultos (Hidden Pleasures) (the first gay film produced in Spain), El Diputado (The Deputy, or Confessions of a Congressman), and Running Against the Wind. Iglesia says that he talks "about the world of which the majority of filmmakers do not care to speak, the marginal world...I am the one who always wants to make the films that are not supposed to be made. I'm the one interested in the subjects that everyone else has agreed not to talk about."

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1946-1982) was an openly gay German director and screenwriter, with 41 feature films to his credit in an all-too-short 13-year career. He was known as the genius of the New German Cinema. Fassbinder's first feature film, Love is Colder than Death, was booed when it was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in 1969. His artistic breakthrough came that same year with Katzelmacher, which won five prizes, while his commercial breakthrough came two years later with The Merchant of Four Seasons. He achieve international recognition in 1974 at Cannes with Ali-Fear Eats the Soul. His best-known gay-themed film is Querelle (1982), based on the gay French writer Jean Genet's (1910-1986) 1953 homoerotic novel and starring Brad Davis. His other gay-themed films include Satan's Brew (1976) and Shadows of Angels (1976). In addition to directing, Fassbinder also worked as an actor, cinematographer, composer, designer, editor, producer, theatre manager, and writer. To many, Fassbinder's death of an ove

John Waters (1946-) is a gay American filmmaker and screenwriter. His films include Mondo Trasho (1970); Multiple Maniacs (1971); Pink Flamingos (1973); Female Trouble (1975); Desperate Living (1977); Polyester (1981); Hairspray (1988), Waters' breakthrough hit; Cry-Baby (1990), starring Johnny Depp and Joe Dallesandro; and Serial Mom (1994). In a recent review of Pink Flamingos (which has just been reissued in a 25th anniversary version), Michael Atkinson wrote that Waters was the "official doyen of American bad taste, our well-beloved, antiestablishment, smirking wellspring of gay camp..." and that he "has gotten farther on less talent than nearly any other filmmaker in the history of cinema." However, Waters' more recent films have begun to enter the mainstream.

Pedro Almodovar (1949-) is Spain's leading gay filmmaker...and probably Spain's leading filmmaker, period. Most of his films, while featuring gay characters, are not gay-themed. Almodovar says "Even though I'm gay, I don't feel compelled to tell gay stories. I just tell a story that I'm interested in." His gay-themed films include Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980), his first feature; Labyrinth of Passion (1982), a comedy starring his discovery, Antonio Banderas; What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1985), his first American hit; and Law of Desire (1987), his most prominent--and sexiest--gay-themed film, which features Antonio Banderas in a steamy nude scene).

Jaime Chavarri (?-) is a gay Spanish director. His gay-themed films include A Un Dios Desconocido (To an Unknown God), a complex 1978 memior featuring the verse of gay Spanish poet and political activist Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936), and Las Cosas del Querer (The Affairs of Love), a 1990 musical drama set in the 1940s. Chavarri's other films include Las Bicicletas Son Para El Verano (1983), El Rio de Oro (The Golden River) (1985), and I'm the One You're Looking For (1988).

Gus Van Sant (1953-) is an openly gay, daring, innovative, and accomplished American director. His best-known work is his "trilogy of the streets," the low-budget, gay-themed Mala Noche; Drugstore Cowboy, starring Matt Dillon; and the fascinating modern gay classic My Own Private Idaho, starring the late River Phoenix and co-starring Keanu Reeves.

Monika Treut (1954-) is a lesbian German filmmaker and writer. Her feature films include Seduction: The Cruel Woman (1985), Virgin Machine (1988), My Father is Coming (1990), Female Misbehavior (1992), and Erotique (1996). In college, Treut studied literature; her doctoral thesis was on the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, later published in book form as The Cruel Woman: the Portrayal of Women in de Sade and Sacher-Masoch.

Marlon Riggs (1957?-1994) was a gay African-American innovative creator of documentary films. He is best known for the controversial documentary short Tongues Untied. Harvard-educated, the intellectual Riggs taught documentary filmmaking at the University of California at Berkeley. Riggs died of AIDS at the age of 37, before the release of his final film, Black Is...Black Ain't, which won a trophy at the Sundance Film Festival.

Rob Epstein (?-) is a gay American documentary filmmaker. His work includes Out of Order (1982); The Times of Harvey Milk (1985), which won an Academy Award, a Peabody Award, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, and three Emmy Awards; Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt (1989), which won an Academy Award, a Peabody Award, and an Emmy Award, and which Alan Carter of People Magazine called "As powerful and moving a documentary as you will ever see;" Where Are We? (Our Trip Through America) (1992); and The Celluloid Closet (1995)--based on gay writer Vito Russo's (1946-1990) highly acclaimed book of the same name--which won a Peabody Award and a Columbia-du Pont Award, and received five Emmy nominations. The last three of these films were co-directed and co-produced with gay actor and film Jeffrey Friedman, a 25-year veteran of the film business. Epstein also has produced and directed several documentary projects for television, and has been honored by a Guggenheim Fellowship. Epstein and Friedman are curre

Jaime Humberto Hermosillo (?-) is an openly gay Mexican filmmaker...a "more tranquil Almodovar" (see above). Hermosillo is quite popular in Mexico (and almost unknown outside that country), despite the closeted and "macho" environment. Interestingly, many of his films have been financed in part by the Mexican government. His best-known gay-themed film is the comedy of sexual manners Doa Herlinda and Her Son (1985).

Bill Sherwood (?-1990) was a gay American director. He is best known for his independent production, Parting Glances (1986), a "joyful, knowing gay love story" which "served as a model for such films as My Beautiful Laundrette and Longtime Companion." The film is also notable for then-unknown actor Steve Buscemi's first leading role, as a musician dying of AIDS (he stole the show); Buscemi has since appeared in many films (Reservoir Dogs, Fargo, Desparado [opposite Antonio Banderas], Miller's Crossing [with a gay subplot], and The Hudsucker Proxy). Sherwood died of AIDS.

Todd Haynes (1961-) is a gay screenwriter and independent filmmaker. His films tend to be cerebral, with meticulous art direction. Haynes' two feature films are Poison (1991) and Safe (1995). He is currently working on Velvet Goldmine, about British glam-rock in the 1970s.

John Greyson (1961-) is an openly gay Canadian director. He has created over 20 videos and short subjects, mostly on gay themes. Greyson has also made three features, Urinal (1991), a "documentary-style talk fest" about homosexual repression; Zero Patience (1993), a musical satire about "Patient Zero," Gaetan Dugas, the French-Canadian flight attendant who reportedly brought AIDS to North America; and Lillies (1996), which won a Genie (the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar) for Best Motion Picture.

Gregg Araki (1963-) is an openly gay Japanese-Canadian independent filmmaker. His work includes Three Bewildered People in the Night (1987), The Living End (1992), Totally F***ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation (1995), and Nowhere (1997). Except for his first film, he has written and edited all of his features.

Bruce LaBruce (1969-) is a gay Canadian independent filmmaker. He began making 8mm short subjects at the age of 18. At 21, he made his first feature, the gay-themed No Skin Off My Ass (1990), which was seized by the Morality Squad of Toronto for three violations: "bondage, nudity with violence, and the sucking of toes." His second feature, Super 8 1/2 (1994), a "takeoff on the Fellini classic, 8 1/2," was also gay-themed, and included "much graphic sex--yes, cum shots and all;" LaBruce played the washed-up porn star/filmmaker lead. LaBruce also co-starred in his latest feature, the romantic comedy Hustler White (1995), which features real-life porn star Kevin Kramer in a minor role. In talking about his offbeat unorthodox films, LaBruce says, "Personally, I'm just not interested in being mundane and boring as everybody else."

Our Gay and Lesbian Heritage by Bruce Britton - Part 4
Our Gay and Lesbian Heritage by Bruce Britton - Part 6

Library - History - Our Gay and Lesbian Heritage