Pride Month Doc Corner: The newly restored 'Gay U.S.A.'

Doc Corner is celebrating Pride Month with a focus on documentaries that tackle LGBTIQ themes. This week we are looking at a classic that has been recently restored by the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project.

By Glenn Dunks

Pre-AIDS accounts of queer life and pride that aren’t about the Stonewall riots are rare. Understandably, the violent anti-police uprising of 1969 by (primarily, at least at first) drag queens, lesbians and transgender individuals was the most significant moment in the public’s understanding of LGBTIQ people until the epidemic (gosh, a lot of these things sound familiar, don't they?). But while there is a lot to be found about the queer experience through films that interrogate both Stonewall and AIDS, just as vital to the fabric are films like Gay USA from 1977.

Directed by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr., this compendium of gay pride wraps itself in a rainbow flag of its own making and sets out to celebrate the experience of nation-wide parades and marches that for many were once an unimaginable dream. 

Bressan, who died of AIDS in 1987 after his glorious fictional feature Buddies, assembled camera crews across the country to capture the (pun intended) gaiety of pride when the future looked hopeful.

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"Die Another Day," Or, How the Mighty Have Fallen

We're celebrating 2002 this week. Here's Deborah Lipp...

When Die Another Day was released in November of 2002, it was greeted with tempered enthusiasm. Spending time, as I do, among movie fans, and within the narrower Bond fan community, there were certain very clear reactions: Invisible car: Dumb; Madonna song: Bad; Movie overall: Pretty damn great.

How the mighty have fallen. I should explain...

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Sandy Powell as an auteur and the splendor of 2002

by Cláudio Alves

Auteur theory may be important, but it has clear limitations. Cinema is an intrinsically collaborative art form and the creation of the cinematic object often involves the work of numerous artists brought together by a common creative mission. To point at one of those minds as the singular visionary of a film is, in part, to erase the authorship of the others. Over the years, scholars, critics, and casual cinephiles have argued for the auteur description to be expanded beyond directors, often signaling actors and writers as good candidates for that same validation. I'd argue that all sorts of contributors to the construction of cinema can be seen as artists who bring their authorial voice to their filmography.

For example, costume designers like Sandy Powell may putatively work for their director's grand vision. However, if you look at their filmography, you see recurrent obsessions and mechanisms, repeated themes, and the development of a personal aesthetic that transcends the limits of directorial intent. Since we're celebrating the year of 2002 because of the impending Supporting Actress Smackdown, I invite you all to consider Powell's authorship as we explore her fabulous designs in Gangs of New York and Far from Heaven…

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Spain's big mistake

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the recent awards season, I wrote several pieces about the Best International Feature race, an Oscar category that's very dear to my heart. It's also a source of endless frustration for I am Portuguese and Portugal remains the country that holds the record for most submissions without getting a single Oscar nomination. To be fair, that's not always the Academy's fault. Sometimes, the choice submission is so mind-bogglingly misguided, it kills any hope of a nomination the minute it's announced. It's not always that the submitted films are lacking in quality, but, sometimes they're productions that were little seen outside of Portugal and received no buzz whatsoever.

This is by no means a strictly Portuguese problem, mind you. In fact, since we're celebrating the 2002 movie year, it seems like a good time to explore one of Spain's most misjudged bits of Oscar selection…

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Academy's New Governors: Whoopi Returns, Ava Rises.

by Nathaniel R

Ava DuVernay is now on a Governor in the Director's Branch of the Academy

As you might imagine, steering a behemoth institution like The Oscars is no small task. To do that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has about 8 "officers" (including the current President David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson) as well as a 3 "Governors" from each of the 17 branches.

Each governor serves a 3 year term so there aren't huge upheavals from year to year since only 33% of a board might change). Some of the Officers are also Governors within their respective branches. The Academy recently held elections again for the 2020/2021 season and these folks will be helping to make the difficult decisions like "what to do about the upcoming Oscar ceremony given COVID-19" and such...

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