Synopsis
The Celluloid Closet (1996) is a documentary worth watching online on iFILM — a hundred years of Hollywood seen from one unusual angle: how the screen handled gay and lesbian lives. Lily Tomlin narrates.
Directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman stitch together clips from 120 films, from an Edison short to Philadelphia and Basic Instinct. On camera, Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg, Gore Vidal, Shirley MacLaine and Quentin Crisp talk plainly about coded glances, the Hays Code, and the decades when the villain or the punchline was the only part on offer.
It grows out of historian Vito Russo's book, and it lands as more than a celebrity reel — a clear-eyed account of cinema learning to say things out loud. Sharp viewing for anyone who reads film for subtext. Stream The Celluloid Closet online on iFILM.
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