Friday, September 28, 2007

'Parting Glances' Comes Home

Well, it's official. The New York screening of Outfest Project Legacy's restored print of my favorite gay film of all time -- and one of my favorite films of all time -- "Parting Glances" has been confirmed. (Complete details below.) If you've been on this blog before then you've undoubtedly heard me yammer on and on about this landmark film. Its impact on me and, as I've come to learn, so many other people of my generation is enormous. Although it deals with the AIDS crisis, which was certainly at the forefront of my mind at the time in 1986, for me "Parting Glances" was really about every other part of being a gay man. It showed this teenage boy in Mesa, Arizona, that I wasn't the only gay person in the world. That I wasn't a complete freak. That the only option for me wasn't being drag queen.* (How much we owe to independent film.) The character of Michael taught me that I could still be a smart, witty, upstanding member of society -- an editor, a lover, a friend -- in spite of everything I'd seen or heard about being one of those "homosexuals." His boyfriend, Robert, gave me hope for meeting the hunky man of my dreams. His friend Joan helped me understand why so many of my closest friends had always been girls. And Douglas helped me understand who Doug Semig was. Watching Bill Sherwood's 48-hour slice of Manhattan gay life was the first time in my life that I believed that I was going be OK.


The Walter Reade Theater
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
165 W. 65th St., upper level (between Broadway and Amsterdam)

Monday, October 29
6:30 p.m.: Pre-Reception (VIP ticket holders)
7:30 p.m.: Screening and Q&A (all ticket holders)
9:30-11 p.m.: Post-Reception (all ticket holders)

For more information click here. For tickets, click here
Scheduled to appear: Kathy Kinney, Richard Ganoung and John Bolger
*Not that there's anything wrong with that.

As a bonus, here is a four-minute clip of from Robert's surprise going-away party. These were people I wanted to be friends with, and in a sense feel I am now.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for giving the heads up on this screening. This is one of my favorite movies also. I always felt that this film was so much more eloquent about the AIDS crisis than Longtime Companion.

Have you seen The Brave One? I was very happy to see Yolande Bavan (Betty, Cecil's clueless wife in Parting Glances) as Naveen Andrews' Mother in one touching scene wi/ Jodi Foster.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes your references have not given as much as they do when combined with this clip. I'm a NY'er, came out in '83 and still had many of the same insecurities that you describe- but this film made all the "speech" friends offered seem possible. Great Post.

Oh and you can still catch Robert and those sexy Grey Eyes on All My Children. He may not actually be gay, but he was the worlds best boyfriend when it counted.

Anonymous said...

The first time I saw "Parting Glances" was when I was 16. Living in my parents house, knowing that I was gay, but not having known what being gay was supposed to be. And then late one night this movie came on Cinemax's "Vanguard Cinema." I was riveted. The opening scenes had Michael & Robert ravaging each other. Wow. That was the first time I saw two men be intimate with each other. I would end up watching that movie every single time it aired.

Anonymous said...

I always feel left out when others talk about their "coming out" traumas. I think because I always devoured history books and already knew about DaVinci and Plato and Alexander, long before I realized my own preferences. And besides, I knew I was smarter than my parents so never gave a flip what they thought about any subject. And I knew I could still kick my hetero brothers' asses.