Paris Is Burning, the quintessential documentary on the New York ballroom scene’s 1980s-1990s heydey, has been stoking passionate conversations for nearly 30 years. The film, K. Austin Collins notes, “has often been taught in colleges and beyond, an urtext for debates about the meanings of gender, race, class, and sexuality”; it’s meticulously crafted, and largely credited with helping to bring drag culture into the mainstream—as well as for making minor stars of its subjects. At the same time, the film has been criticized for its framing: “It was directed by a white filmmaker with relative financial and social privilege—a complete outsider to ball culture. It went on to win a prize at Sundance, get a distribution deal with Miramax, and land raves from publications like the New Yorker and the New York Times—all signs, to some, that the movie was intended from the outset to be consumed by white audiences.” Now, as the film embarks upon a New York re-release—just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising—Collins considers its complicated life and legacy, and turns to Paris director Jennie Livingston for an enlightening conversation about both. “There was an intensity to how we lived and how we came together,” she tells him of the period when she shot Paris, “because there was an intense need for sustenance for the community and for each other.” Paris Is Burning is the proof.
Elsewhere in HWD, Yohana Desta chats with Veepscene-stealer Sam Richardson about his character, the lovable Richard Splett; Jonathan Van Ness opens up to Paul Chi about appearing in Taylor Swift’s new music video; Julie Miller gets the inside story on auto magnate John DeLorean, subject of a new doc; and Marisa Tomeireveals to Laura Bradley how she prepared to channel the late Jean Stapleton in ABC’s celebrated All in the Family redo.
No comments:
Post a Comment