![]() That was the analytical groundwork to which Desert Hearts arrived. Though independent, grassroots queer and feminist press created their own openings for criticism that married politics and aesthetics, queer critics were still barred from most major publications and respected critics’ circles, just as their films were kept out of major circulation. The independent art film scene was friendlier to gay characters earlier than Hollywood was - not a surprise given it was also friendlier and freer of restrictions as to who could create noncommercial and socially rebellious films - but queer film criticism only began to emerge as a field during the post-Stonewall and Black Cat Riot period of the 1970s. Even after the repeal of the restrictive Hays Code in 1965, homosexual characters in major motion picture releases still tended to either be a joke, or overwhelmingly end up in the graveyard, with a notable exception being the adaptation of Mart Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band in 1970. This was a revolutionary notion for a major release of a film with a conventional structure. It made the assertion that queer women have always existed, and that their clumsy, argumentative, and honest yearning can lead to an open road (or train track). Regardless, Deitch’s neo-Western depiction of two lonely, stubborn women falling in love against their own instincts of self-preservation took over screens anyway. When out lesbian filmmaker Donna’s Deitch’s narrative debut premiered in 1985, it did so to a film environment in which LGBTQ+ critics, filmmakers, and characters were still sidelined and thought of as freak attractions or special interest pursuers more than serious artists, especially if those filmmakers and critics happened to be queer women. One such film that demonstrates the power of historical context around the canon of American film, as well as the subjectivity of film criticism and verified appreciation, is Desert Hearts. This isn’t because they’re inferior, but because they lack the decades of positive mainstream criticism, theatrical or physical redistribution, and lasting cultural recognition to back up the legitimacy of liking them, or funding their next project. However, underdog films that center queer women, made by queer female directors, are often disqualified from the same continuous, cyclical high praise and worship in the American cinema canon. Certain films and directors may deservedly decorate our AFI lists, and our personal Criterion closets. This introduction is not to decry love of the white male directors who fight (symbolically but not systemically) against the industry that eventually embraces them. They decorate just about every Top “Your Qualification Here” American Film list, and continue to remain in academic, critical, and pop culture discourse as unimpeachable greats. This appears in the near-worship of grey-area figures created by the likes of Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, and intense critical devotion to underdog first-time-directors-turned-auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, and Spike Jonze. American narrative film focuses intently on underdogs and antiheroes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |