By
David Savage
In
Vito, a new documentary examining the
life of Vito Russo, the pioneering AIDS activist and author of the landmark
book The Celluloid Closet (published
in 1981, updated in 1987), director Jeffrey Schwarz pays tribute to a man whom
he credits with being the first to break down the long history of Hollywood’s
defamation against gay people in the movies, and in so doing, advanced the
cause of gay rights on a crucial front. The documentary premiered at the 49th
New York Film Festival on last Friday, October 14th, and is being
distributed by HBO Films. (The cable network will air the doc sometime next
year, an employee confirmed.)
“Movies
caused great damage to gay people’s psyches,†said Jeffrey Schwarz recently in
an interview with Cinema Retro, “and he was able to tie in his burgeoning gay
activism with movies by showing films at the Gay Activist Alliance, which he
founded [in 1970], and that had the effect of creating community through film.
There really was no community before. Getting gay people in a room together to
discuss films had never happened before, and he was the first person to make
these connections.â€
The
documentary is the most personal yet for Schwarz, founder of Automat Pictures,
a production house in Los Angeles which, in between their bread-and-butter work
producing EPKs (Electronic Press Kits), behind-the-scenes shorts and making-of
featurettes for DVDs and Blu-Ray releases, has been cranking out some of the
best documentaries in recent memory on the outsiders of American cinema, like
William Castle, Tab Hunter and drag superstar Divine (more on the last, below).
““Vito
introduced me to a whole world of images I had no idea existed,†Shwarz writes
in his Director’s Statement for Vito,
“and helped me see films in a new way. As an activist, Vito knew that the key
to acceptance was visibility and championed sympathetic and realistic
portrayals of our lives.â€
Back
in the mid-‘90s, when Schwarz heard that a documentary was being developed of
Russo’s book The Celluloid Closet,
Schwarz, who had not only devoured the book but called it a life-changing
experience, contacted the co-directors Rob Friedman and Jeffrey Friedman and
talked his way into working on the project. He was assistant editor on the
film, which was released theatrically in 1995, to huge critical and popular
acclaim.
Even
though Russo had died of AIDS complications in 1990, Schwarz said he felt as
though he was getting to know Russo intimately through the research. “It was
during that time that I got to know him through all the research materials, his
writings, his audio tape interviews, his journals, the interviews he did.â€
So
what took him so long to do a documentary on Russo the man? “I had been mulling
the idea over in my mind for over ten years,†Schwarz said, “and the idea of a
film came about when I realized that Vito participated in every significant
milestone in the gay liberation movement – from Stonewall to ACT UP – and that
his story was also the story of our community. A documentary could
contextualize how he and his gay liberation brothers and sisters were able to
overcome homophobia and oppression, and emerge from invisibility to liberation.
. .As time marches on, a new generation of LGBT youth is coming of age without
knowing pioneers like Vito Russo and how he made it possible for us to live
proudly and openly in the world.â€
Russo,
Schwarz claims, advanced the cause of gay rights on the cultural front, focusing
on film as the primary culprit of demeaning representation: “Vito taught us to
read between the lines. As gay people, we’re always looking for signs of ‘who’s
gay’ and Vito taught us that it’s more complex than positive vs. negative
images. He taught us to question what we’re seeing. He knew that there was a
sensibility that [gay people] share, and he harnessed that.â€
Next
off Automat’s production line is another first: the first full-length
documentary on the life and times of drag superstar Divine, star of director
John Waters’ films Female Trouble, Pink Flamingos, Polyester and other cult hits. In I Am Divine, Schwarz promises
he will focus on the unexplored facets of Divine’s life, born Harris Glenn
Milstead in Baltimore in 1945. While keeping it fun and in the spirit of
Divine, Schwarz promises that it will be the first serious biographical
portrait of an actor who, despite his love affair with scandal, will honor
him as a serious artist who revolutionized pop culture.
I
asked Schwarz if Divine’s outrageous persona clouded how committed he was to
his art. “People definitely didn’t give him the credit for what he was creating
in every film. He wasn’t just playing himself. Those were distinct characters
he was creating. I can’t imagine what he went through to achieve those
performances. He felt trapped in that. He was doing theater, he was also a
successful recording artist. He was trying to do more male roles. Hairspray gave him the best reviews of
his life. He was hoping it would lead to something greater.â€
With
Cass Elliott-type rumors and legends long obscuring how in fact Divine died, I
asked Schwarz what was the actual cause of his death: “He just went to sleep
one night in 1988 and didn’t wake up. In a way he died happy -- he was really
on top of the world and was poised to start working on Married With Children the next day. He had already been hired as a
full cast member. But his heart just stopped beating.â€
I Am Divine will combine movie
clips, rare home movies and photos, television appearances and live performance
footage with brand new interviews with John Waters, Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Tab
Hunter, Holly Woodlawn, Michael Musto, Bruce Vilanch, mother Frances Milstead
(who provided her final interview just months before she passed away), and
many more of Divine's family, friends, colleagues, and devotees.
Even
though most of the film has been shot, Schwarz said, he is struggling to raise
funds to edit and put it through post-production. He turned to the power of
social media, hoping to capitalize on the widespread love for the deceased drag
icon that continues to this day. IndieGoGo.com -- the online fundraising site
for independent directors and other creative professionals looking to raise
money for their projects – has become the home base of the film, and is
actively soliciting funds from friends and fans of the late drag superstar.
Funders can log onto the site, become a follower of the film, and make
donations either publicly or anonymously, in increments from $5 to $50,000
dollars. The fundraising goal for the film is $100,000. (For more information
or to make a donation, go to: http://www.indiegogo.com/I-AM-DIVINE-Fan-Fundraising-Campaign.)
Automat
Pictures should be on the radar of all Cinema
Retro readers, cult film fans and movie buffs.
Their
exceptional 2007 documentary on William Castle, Spine Tingler! The Wiliam Castle Story, won the Audience Award at
2007’s AFI Fest and Best Feature Documentary at 2008’s Magnolia Independent
Film Festival. Other subjects of Automat’s past and future projects include B-director
Curtis Harrington, adult film star Jack Wrangler, and matinee idol Tab Hunter, another
victim of the Hollywood closet who found a second life once he decided to break
his silence.
More
information on Vito can be found at: http://vitorussomovie.com/