The reluctance of the elderly interviewees to speak is as telling as their words. In an emotional outburst, one survivor recounts a Nazi experiment so horrific that it still makes him bleed every day. Another recalls “the singing forest,” a name that alludes to the locale where gay men subjected to torture wailed and screamed. No less disturbing is German historian Klaus Muller’s comment that, despite growing up in Germany, he never heard about the mass persecution of gays.
The most entertaining and enjoyable of the four films, The Celluloid Closet (1995) delivers a comprehensive review of the ways in which gays and lesbians have been represented in Hollywood cinema. The work ingeniously juxtaposes clips from various movies to construct a persuasive argument about the evolution of homosexual imagery through the cinematic medium, as films ranging from 1912’s Algie, the Miner to 1993’s Philadelphia are re-examined. In elegantly tracing the progression of the homosexual onscreen image, The Celluloid Closet follows the development of the gay archetype from the effeminate laughable sissy to the evil villain or vamp to the pitiful wretch to, finally, real-life characters.
The well-executed film is fun to watch, adorned with witty opinions from gay and straight celebrities alike, including Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, Tony Curtis and Harvey Fierstein. One highlight is writer Gore Vidal’s hilarious account of his introduction of the gay character Masala in the 1959 epic movie Ben Hur.
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