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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
WORD IS OUT (1978) After 32 years, are the talking-head testimonies in the groundbreaking documentary Word Is Out still fresh or vital? Very private accounts of feeling alienated, the first inklings of same-sex attraction, the act of coming out, figuring out gender roles, etc., may not now shatter taboos, but it would be hard to find more candid, articulate interviews. One of the filmmakers, Lucy Massie Phenix, hits the nail on the head in the DVD extras: “Truth is not dated.” The film conveys a sense of what makes these 26 people tick, while recording a specific historical period and a nascent political movement. (Perhaps it should go without saying, but the hairstyles and the musical interludes haven’t aged as well.) The filmmakers cover the gay experience circa 1977 painstakingly, selecting from almost all demographic groups from all walks of life from all over the country. (In a sign of how times have changed, the filmmakers had to search far and wide to find a gay man with a child.) The film undoubtedly targets gays and lesbians as its primary audience, but the directors have structured the film to answer the many questions a family might have. Perhaps the film’s biggest achievement is that the filmmakers sought out and won the cooperation of men and women who agreed to use their real names and appear on camera without camouflage or the distorting of their voices, despite the possible repercussions. This is no small feat. As recently as 2001, an American lesbian couple living together in Florida had their faces blurred in Trembling Before G-d, Sandi DuBowski’s documentary about the clash between Jewish Orthodoxy and its gay and lesbian adherents. The effect is unnerving. A sense of shame pierces through that film. The same can’t be said for Word. True, none of the men and women in the latter film profess to be religious, but all participants had to face their families and communities. Looking straight into the camera, they reveal their most intimate thoughts. The film, newly restored, cries out for DVD extras, and, fortunately, Milliarium Zero delivers. Like a mini-high school reunion, the extra, “The Word Is Out, Then and Now: Thirty Years Later,” addresses the AIDS epidemic, which began only a few years after Word was released, claiming the lives of five men in the film as well as producer Peter Adair. All of the surviving contributors describe the experience as a positive one; only two did not agree to reappear. One West Virginian veterinarian used the film as a way to come out to her small town. In this and
other featurettes, it’s acknowledged how much America has changed since
the Carter years—no one in the 1978 film even broaches the subject of
gay marriage—and the fears of one woman in the documentary, Pat Bond,
haven’t, by and large, come to fruition. She expressed concern that
gains in gay rights could be reversed, that 10 years down the road she
and others could be on some sort of list. (She would know about witch
hunts. While she was in the army in the 1940s, thousands of gay women
were dishonorably discharged for being gay.) Richard Stokes believes, in
his follow-up interview, that the landscape has so altered
that the stories of Word are not the tales of young gay people
now. Hmm, I wouldn’t be so sure. With its diversity of points of view,
and covering much ground, Word’s bound to have something
to share with the viewer, gay or straight.
Kent Turner
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