Subject: Gay Movies
From: Sam Damon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 04:34:09 -0500 (EST)

Here's a catalog of some rather obscure gay movies I received today.  I'm not
familiar with any of them but perhaps some of you here have heard of Jerry
Tartaglia.  Apparently he's been well-received.

=========

The Films of Jerry Tartaglia

I have been making films sonce 1971 when I was influenced by the early
American "Underground Films" which explored human awareness, sexuality and
politics.

Each of my films portrays some aspect of gay consciousness, sexual
representation, or self-identity.  At the same time, each film utilizes the
medium's unique potential for visual technique.

I am not very interested in creating narative forms, which generally are used
to show how gay people are supposed to become lavender carbon copies of
straight people.  Instead, I work with short, personal, experimental forms
which explore and celebrate the uniqueness of gay identity.

In the era of AIDS, our hope is derived from the strength of our queer "window
on the world."

You can contact Jerry Tartaglia and his distributor through email at:
[email-masked]

VHS video sales for private or classroom use are available from:  Franklin
Media Distribution, 211 West Broadway, #500C, NY, NY  10013. 212/274-8480

Rentals on 16mm are available from: Canyon Cinema, 2325 Third St, Suite 338,
San Francisco, CA  94107, 415/626-2255

=================

(A set of the following 3 costs $17 + s/h)

ECCE HOMO       1989   7 min
Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) interweaves images from Jean Genet's masterpiece,
Un Chant d'Amour with images from gay sex films.  It forces the viewer to
question the point of view in looking at "pornographic" images.  AIDS hysteria
portrays gay sex as pornographic, politically incorrect, sinful, or, at best,
a public health hazard.  Ecce Homo asks whether the taboo is against gay sex
or against seeking gay sex.

1990 Atlanta International Film Festival: Best Experimental Film

"Ecce Homo makes it all worthwhile.  It reclaims desire in the age of AIDS.
Tartaglia is an artist at the peak of his powers."  - Vito Russon, The
Advocate

A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M.     1988   6 min
AIDS has become a conveninet excuse to desexualize gay men and thereby destroy
gay liberation.  This experimentally processed film expresses Queer anger and
rage at the no-win constructs of straight culture's refusal to acknowledge the
political impact of the disease.

Selected by the Whitney Museum of American Art for AIDS
Counter-representations, 1989

"Short, acidic, and militant!"  - Helen Knode, L.A. Weekly

"Perhaps the most gut wrenching is A.I.D.S.C.R.E.A.M. ... the kind of movie we
have a right to expect from a gay film festival..." - Joseph Lanza, New York
Native

"It brings us ti what Art About AIDS should be about: telling the truth about
AIDS."  - Michael Hunt Stolbach, SocialText

FINAL SOLUTIONS     1990   10 min
Queer imagination has no place in the death-dealing consumerist culture.  For,
in it, the final soulation is management of all situations through enforced
assimilation using death-terror as the weapon.  This film explores the
Teleculture's treatment of AIDS as a consumer image.

San Fran International Film Festival, 1991: Golden Gate Award Honorable
Mention

"Tartaglia raises hell in this unrelenting analysis of AIDS consumerism."  -
Robert Hilferty, Outweek

"Strong and innovative."  - Kate Bornstein, Bay Area Reporter
=================

(a set of the following 3 costs $16)

REMEMBRANCE      1990   5 min
A short remberance of growing up gay, searching for an identifiable image on
the movie screen.  This character chose Bette Davis in "All About Eve."  The
film includes clips from Davis' performance and the narrator's childhood home
movies.

"Tartaglia plays with a stereotype as old as cinema itself: the connection
between movie going and coming out."  - Jonathan Mandell, New York Newsday

HOLY MARY     1991   5 min
A collage film which intercuts images of Pope J.P. 2, Fashion Experts, and a
sex-change medical specialist.  The result: an outrageously funny look at
gender, fashion, and the head of the world's largest gay sex club.

"A witty, immodest proposal about sex, clothes, the single girl and Pope John
Paul II."  - Manhola Dargis, Village Voice

"Hilarious.  I have't laughed so much at a video in years."  - James Broughton

VOCATION    1981  7 min
A pastoral hymn to the God Pan; filmed at the Short Mountain Collective in
Tennessee; adapted from a text by Aleister Crowley.

==================

INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS    1992  17 min
A dream-like film study which takes the viewer through a series of sketches
examining the creative drive as expressed in the languages of cinema, the
fears of life threatened by homophobic violence and AIDS, and the hope
engendered in the possibility of internal vision.

Black Maria Film Festival: Jurors Citation, 1994

==================

1969      1991  13 min
A personal recollection of a time past, when gay identity was a source of joy
rather than of mourning.  The film explores the fictional nature of personal
history and the unreliability of memory,

San Fran International FIlm Festival, 1992: Golden Gate Award, Honorable
Mention

"A memorable short which explores personal and political values, idealism, and
radical freedom of expression ... " -  Roy Grundman, Cineaste

"A refreshingly tart memory film ... "  - Stuart Klawans, The Nation

"A fearless, aggressive film.  A barbed critique of political amnesia."  -
Manohla Dargis, Village Voice

===================

LAMBDA MAN    1989  10 min
A personal experimental film exploration of a gay identity in the pre-AIDS
era.

Exerpt from LAWLESS    1977  13 min
Pope Ondine rages abd pontificates on Queer life, the hopelessness of
heterosexualism, and the importance of having a good hairdo.
From: Sam Damon <[email-masked]>
Subject: Gay movies
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 04:35:51 -0500 (EST)

Once more, I have no familiarity with any of these ...

Gay-Themed Films By Other Filmmakers

You can contact Jerry Tartaglia and his distributor through email at:
[email-masked]

VHS video sales for private or classroom use are available from:  Franklin
Media Distribution, 211 West Broadway, #500C, NY, NY  10013. 212/274-8480

Rentals on 16mm are available from: Canyon Cinema, 2325 Third St, Suite 338,
San Francisco, CA  94107, 415/626-2255

=================

OUT IN THE GARDEN  by Vincent Grenier, $15 + s/h
An extraordinary film which explores the dynamic of assumptions, seen through
the struggle of a gay man who has recently been told that he is HIV positive.
In his own way he comes to terms with the news that he is HIV positive.  In
his own way he comes to terms with the news in front of Grenier's camera.  The
film eschews the usual "talking head" format and result is a studied
examination of questions of identity, social tyrannies, and the viewers'
complicity in this intimate struggle.

=================

(The following set of 4 films by Tom Chomont costs $15 + s/h)

Four deeply felt shorts by a filmmaker whose works spans three decades.

"For Chomont, making films has become a medium for enabling the material and
spiritual worlds to discover each other."  - Scott MacDonald, A Critical
Cinema

"There is neither anguish nor camp in his work ... just getting on with being
homo-erotic, among other things."  - Richard Dyer, Now You See It

JABBOK - Jacob wrestled til dawn at Peniel by the waters of Jabbok.  In this
interpretation, mortal and angel are two aspects of one person.

THE HEAVENS - For Joe Glin.  A portrait influenced by metaphysical elements.

RAZOR HEAD - An erotic bondage and shaving ritual filmed at Ken Chomont's
request in 1980 and edited to distill the S/M fantasy elements of a haircut.

THE BATH d'apres Ingres - Variations on a single shot from This Sporting Life.
 Male nude bathers seen in the context of French Neo-Classic female nude
bathers.

==================

FLAMING CREATURES by Jack Smith   $100 + s/h
The notorious 1963 underground classic is now available for the first time on
video.  The film's extravagantly queer behavior triggered a series of police
raids, court battles and a special screening by Strom Thurmond to elucidate
its pornographic content.  To contemporary sensibilities the film will
probably seem tame.  But Smith's creatures exhibit the kind of gender play and
pre-cockettes fantasy which helped to push the limits of its day.  Flaming
Creatures is an extraordinarily beautiful film which, above all else
celebrates the ecstacy of the visual image.  Proceeds from the sale of this
tape will be used to restore and preserve Smith's film legacy, including
Normal Love and No President.