Creating a Place in the Present via the Past
Review of Out of the Past
Seen on 6 August 1998 for $8.50 with Byron at The Screening Room as part of a double feature with *Dottie Gets Spanked*.
"To create a place in the present, there must be a place in the past." It's one of the ways we provide an edification for our own existence. For centuries, the gay past remained hidden for gay men and lesbians. While this is no longer the case, *Out of the Past* fulfills it's title by bringing noteworthy and even prominent figures from the gay past out into public consumption, giving them their long overdue recognition.
Six figures are portrayed. Michael Wigglesworth, the repressed 17th Century Puritan minister; the "Boston Marriage" of turn-of-the-Century writers Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields; 1920s activist Henry Gerber, Founder of the doomed Society for Human Rights; Bayard Rustin, the gay black civil rights activist who got lost in the shuffle of history while Martin Luther King became the prominent activist at his expense; and Barbara Gittings, an early homophile leader who began her work in the 1950s and is the sole subject still living today.
The stories that unfold are fascinating, and largely unknown even to gay people. They are astounding; the bravery shown by Gerber and Rustin, the open love of the "Boston marriage"; the nonviolent persistence of Barbara Gittings from the 1960s through today. To even try to tell them here would do them no justice, so try to see it yourself. There's a lot to be learned her for all audiences.
Contrasted to the stories of the historical figures is the tale of one girl's quest for social justice in Utah; Kelli Peterson formed the Gay-Straight Alliance at East High School in Utah. The school tried to close down the club, and when told it was illegal to discriminate in this manner, the school board surreptitiously voted to outlaw *all* extracurricular clubs. All of them. This led to massive protests by *all* students, and in the end the Gay-Straight Alliance retained their rights to meet.
The 97-minute documentary is augmented by archival photos and film reels (including the Stonewall Riots aftermath), and it won the Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Linda Hunt is the narrator and voices for the historical characters were as follows: Stephhen Spinella as Michael Wigglesworth; Gwyneth Paltrow as Sarah Orne Jewett; Cherry Jones as Annie Adams Fields; Edward Norton (II) as Henry Gerber; Leland Gantt as Bayard Rustin.
Sad Footnote: One of the Utah youths shown with Kelli Peterson was Jacob Lawrence Orosco, who killed himself by hanging shortly after the film was complete, on 3 September 1997 Utah. See http://www.xmission.com/~sam3915/jacob_orozco.html
for obituaries and commentary. That kids are still driven to suicide in this day and age because of their distress over sexual orientation is both astounding and frightening.
More movie reviews by Seth Bookey, with graphics, can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2679/kino.html
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