.irIPMINNMIRIPOMSIPONMNMOMIMIPNWw •411101. PH OTO BY SCOTT CARROLUSONY PI CTU RES CLASSI CS -- Left to right:Rob Epstein, Harvey Fierstein and Jeffrey Friedman. In the film, Fierstein talks about being an openly gay author writing about gay lives in a straight culture. Below:In Morocco (1930), Marlene Dietrich plays a cabaret singer who kisses a woman in a nightclub. Olit o f th e Closet 0 n a crisp, sunny day in San Francisco, before heading out to a Passover seder with friends, Jeffrey Friedman talked by phone about his newest film release, which makes its local pre- miere this weekend at the Detroit Film Theatre. The Celluloid Closet, the latest venture by Friedman and part- ner Rob Epstein, is slowly being rolled out across the country (Ep- stein was in Toronto promoting the film's debut there at the time of this interview). Produced by their company, Telling Pictures, which was formed in 1987, The Celluloid Closet is based on author and film historian Vito Russo's landmark book of the same name. The Cel- luloid Closet was the first book to chronicle gay and lesbian char- acters during 100 years of motion pictures. Russo first approached Fried- man and Epstein in 1986 about making a film out of the book, but they weren't able to raise the mon- ey to produce it. In 1990, at age 46, Russo died of an AIDS-relat- ed illness, and Friedman and Ep- stein, once they acquired the rights, again tried to bring Rus- so's book to the screen. This time, they had more help. Michael Lumpkin, former direc- tor of the San Francisco Interna- tional Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, joined the team as co- producer of the film; Howard Rosenman, a Hollywood produc- er (Father of the Bride) and pres- ident of motion pictures at Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, came on as executive producer; and Lily Tomlin, a personal friend of Russo's, spearheaded a fund- raising campaign to get the film made. Tomlin also serves as the narrator of The Celluloid Closet, How are gays depicted in the movies? How do straights perceive them? FilmmakerJejliry Friedman provides a sneak peek into The Celluloid Closet. which spotlights 120 movie clips from mainstream Hollywood films from as early as 1927 to the present — from the Os- car-winning silent film Wings to the modern- day Philadelphia; The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Boys on the Side. (For more about the film, see to- day's review.) "It's very im- portant for non- gays to see this film," says Fried- man, who is co- writer, co-director and co-producer with Epstein, as well as serving as film edi- tor. "For straight people, it's an opportunity for them to see how gays have been de- JULIE YOLLES ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR picted in the movies. For gay peo- ple, it's a reflection of their own experience —you remember what it's like going to the movies and not seeing your image on the screen or, when it was there, seeing it as a gay, per- verted image." Friedman says they chose to highlight mainstream films, as op- posed to foreign, underground or independent films, in The Cel- luloid Closet be- cause they best reflect people's atti- tudes about homo- sexuality in pop culture. Of the hundreds and hun- dreds of clips that co produc- - er Michael Lumpkin and writer Sharon Wood scoured, the pro- duction team chose films that would be entertaining as well as illustrate the points they wanted to make. The editing process took one year before any interviews, which lead in and out of each movie clip, were shot. Friedman says that the crite- ria for being an interviewee on camera was that the person had to be involved in some way in making a particular movie (as writer, producer, director or ac- c' tor) or be someone who could ar- ticulate the experience of watching the film as a gay person. Noted playwright and screen- writer Arthur Laurents, in The Celluloid Closet, talks about work- ing with Alfred Hitchcock on the homosexual thriller Rope (1948) and the homosexual undertones between John Ireland and Mont- gomery Cliff in Red River (1948).