The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
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Wednesday, June 21, 2023 at 9:00AM Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot? This one is ironically for Pride month.
The answer is after the jump when you scroll down...
LGBTQ+, first and last Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 7:00PM by Patrick Ball
It certainly isn’t a stretch to consider any Todd Haynes filmography part of the Queer Oscar Canon. The filmmaker brought us La Blanchett in the all-timer Carol and as a gender-bent Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. He directed Laura Dern and Kate Winslet on the small screen in prestige HBO offerings Enlightened and Mildred Pierce (respectively). And I know I’m not alone in my extreme anticipation for his forthcoming May/December, his third collaboration with primary muse Julianne Moore. If the proverbial Dorothy is 'a great actress or queer icon of her generation' than the man is a *friend* of Dorothy. But my favorite, and an early example of how a queer perspective permeates through his style, enriching the work, is Far From Heaven.
Far From Heaven, a juggernaut on the 2002 Critics Circuit, eventually was nominated for four Academy Awards- including one for Haynes’ himself for Best Original Screenplay. Though it didn’t take home any trophies that night (in an intensely competitive and notorious Oscar race), Far From Heaven was considered a breakthrough for Haynes as a filmmaker...
2002, Far From Heaven, LGBTQ+, Oscars (00s), Queering the Oscars, Todd Haynes Monday, June 19, 2023 at 2:00PM ;)
At the 42nd Academy Awards, the Best Original Screenplay category was a rarity of historical importance. You wouldn't know it in 1969, but all nominees would be studied for years to come. Whether seen as seminal works in their author's careers or cultural milestones with much to reveal about the society that produced them, the films form an illustrious bunch, going from Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice's pop psychology to the revisionist brutality of The Wild Bunch. The winner was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a western which has inspired queer readings for over half a century though it was far from the queerest picture in the race.
That would be Luchino Visconti's The Damned, marking the start of his German trilogy, the international metamorphosis of his cinema, and the most open expression of gay sensibilities in his oeuvre to that point…
Sunday, June 18, 2023 at 4:00PM For Pride Month, Team Experience is looking at LGBTQ+ related Oscar nominations...
dr evelyn hooker
by Eurocheese
When this series was announced, my first goal was to find a film that was completely new to me on a subject outside of my cinematic wheelhouse. Watching this film served as a reminder of how little I know about LGBTQ+ history. While I’d heard the name Evelyn Hooker before, I’m ashamed to admit I couldn’t have told you what role she played in history, much less the impact she had on the state of gay rights today. If the same is true for you, dear reader, I highly recommend carving 107 minutes out of your day to learn a bit about her impact in the Oscar nominated documentary Changing Our Minds: The Story of Evelyn Hooker (1992). I want to offer a trigger warning though as this film delves into difficult topics and images.
The sliding doors nature of Hooker coming to study homosexuality is mind-boggling if you stop to picture a world where her findings never existed...
1992, Best Documentary Feature, LGBTQ+, Oscars (90s), documentaries Friday, June 16, 2023 at 1:00PM For Pride Month Team Experience is looking at LGBTQ+ moments in Oscar history.
by Nathaniel R
When we decided to do this series we left it up to contributors to pick their topics. Does an movie achievement qualify as queer because of an aesthetic sensibility? Because the artists involved were LGBTQ+? Because of subject matter or characters? Any of those! With Old Hollywood movies one of the most common 'qualifying' reasons -- it's all very subjective of course -- is whether or not a movie or singular element of a movie was 'adopted' by the queer community. In this regard "Secret Love," the Oscar-winning ballad from the western musical comedy Calamity Jane more than qualifies...
