Not just another AIDS doc: Vito @ Image + Nation
More : ACT-UP, AIDS, celluloid closet, Documentary Film, Festival Image+nation, Jeffrey Schwarz, Vito Russo
A moving documentary tribute to one of the reluctant heroes of the AIDS movement, Vito screened last night to an appreciative audience at Image + Nation. A labour of love by Jeffrey Schwarz, assistant editor to the acclaimed film version of Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, 1995), Schwarz’s ode shows the inspirational ACT-UP co-founder in all his complexity. Review by Conrad Ryan.
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Despite the limitations of a historical point of view, one of the pitfalls of the biopic genre, Vito succeeded in painting a portrait of one of film criticism’s queerest and most cantankerous commentators. Tracing Vito’s adolescent years as an unabashed femme fag frequenting the movies in New York City in the early 1960s to his early days with Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) and through his final days with the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), the film depicts the colorful life of a committed activist and brilliant writer.
The biopic features fantastic archival footage from 50s and 60s gay bar raids, the stonewall riots, events and meetings from the GAA firehouse, ACT UP actions and speeches, and most interestingly, footage from the 1973 gay pride festival in New York that Vito emceed where transgender folks, lesbian feminists and drag queens stormed the stage to demand respect and recognition from within the largely male dominated gay liberation movement. Vito passionately attempts to pull the fracturing and frustrated crowd together, but in the end ultimately fails as the political landscape is shifting towards the hardline identity politics of the 80s and 90s.
Although I may have been one of few audience members under the age of thirty at this Image+Nation screening, I hope that Vito’s story will been seen by younger generations so that one of the most important queer cultural critics of the 20th century won’t be forgotten. Vito was an inspirational character, someone to learn from, and someone not to be forgotten in the pages of queer history.
1 comment
the question is how do people under the age of 40 or 30 will actually know who he is when movies like this are generally reserved for festivals like this (which by the way has a horrible promotional campaign and maybe should learn a thing or two from Inside Out). i offer a queer history month to complement all the other oppressed minority months kids have in school.