Rob Epstein

(On Cable TV, June 2021) The topic of how Hollywood depicted homosexuals through its history is not quite as niche as you’d think — It dovetails quite well with the forces that affected moviemaking through the decades. It’s about what could be said and shown (or not) on-screen, but also more regrettably what was said about a group identified for marginalization. The Celluloid Closet may date from 1995, but it’s far less dated than you’d think in exploring the evolution of gay characters and narratives throughout cinema’s history. Building on the written work of Vito Russo, directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman offers an overview of how Hollywood portrayed homosexuality prior, during and after the restrictive production code: Stereotypes studied include “the sissy” and depraved killers, but perhaps most notably the absence of fully realized homosexual characters until quite late in history. Numerous celebrities and activist interviews (many of them with elderly celebrities since then deceased) are complemented by a large assortment of film clips. One thing that does set apart The Celluloid Closet from similar films and helps ensure its freshness even a quarter-century later is the witty and often very funny editing of film sequences, especially as the film examines the way coded messages were sent from gay creators to gay audiences in the middle of otherwise straight films — In context, some sequences are almost riotously on-the-nose, and even more so when few people catch the allusions. It’s worth noting that much of the film’s first half could play almost as well today — as a historical overview, it’s rich and compelling, and it’s not as if the corpus of mainstream Hollywood classic film has changed significantly since then. The creaking starts to show in the second half — not because the material is less interesting, but because the examples used to anchor the latest progress have, themselves, become dated — Philadelphia is the last major film discussed here, and while there’s been some progress since then (the 2010s were a big year for pan-denomination representativeness — I suppose Rocket Man would be another modest landmark), a sequel becomes more urgent as The Celluloid Closet nears its end. There are a few topics that the film could have covered in more detail — Specifically, the way Hollywood was shaped by homosexual filmmakers and the gulf between how Hollywood thought of homosexuality within the thirty-mile-zone and the way it showed it to the rest of the world. I also would have liked film clips and speaking heads to be more frequently identified. Still, The Celluloid Closet remains a remarkable documentary, and I strongly suspect that it’s because the world has caught up with it — Had I seen the film in 1995, I probably would have found it a bit bold in its worldview… but by 2021, it reflects a somewhat mainstream attitude toward homosexuality that makes the film feel self-evident. That’s progress of a sort, I suppose.