The Celluloid Closet

Film, dir. Epstein & Friedman, 1995

Ever since I saw The Fight, a truly exciting documentary about those Schmeling/Louis fights, I've not feared the doc. And The Celluloid Closet is an equally good choice to dispel any of that docphobia, if you have it. It's an extremely interesting account of gay and lesbian images in film, from the first recorded images up until the early 1990's. Although it's hard to find one idea that's most intriguing, one for me was the belabored interpretation gay and lesbian viewers would do to films in order to be able to relate to them. Sort of similar to what I tried to do with My Best Friend, reviewed below. One woman interviewed in Celluloid said something like, "We waited the whole movie just to see Joan Crawford come down the stairs in that black cowboy shirt." And I totally get that. So yes. I was interpreting their interpretations. Yikes!
But whether you're gay or A, this film is highly watchable and, yes, relatable. And no matter what your orientation, you'll learn a lot about movies and find a whole host of new candidates for your Netflix queue.