STONEWALL (1995)
The 1995 film STONEWALL blends fact and fiction in its exploration of the events leading up to June 28th, 1969. Screenwriter Rikki Beadle-Blair and the film’s director, Nigel Finch, used author/historian Martin Duberman’s 1994 book “Stonewall” as a guide when crafting their story.
Today's post is by Larry Duplechan (@larry_duplechan_the_writer on Instagram) and is about one of the films featured in his latest book "Movies That Made Me Gay".
STONEWALL
1995. UK/USA.
Director: Nigel Finch
Screenplay: Rikki Beadle-Blair
Based on: “Stonewall” by Martin Duberman
Starring: Guillermo Díaz, Frederick Weller, Duane Boutte, Bruce MacVittie, Brendan Corbalis, Peter Ratray, Dwight Ewell, Matthew Faber, Michael McElroy, Luis Guzmán and Joey Dedio
STONEWALL (1995). Nigel Finch, dir. (Not to be confused with Roland Emmerich’s 2015 film of the same title.) It isn’t a documentary (and it does not purport to be a history lesson), but rather one drag queen’s “Stonewall legend”.
Duane Boutte as Bostonia is on my list of unsung great movie performances. Bo is battle-scarred and tough-talking (imagine how tough life must have been for a Black drag queen in the 1960s), yet generous and tender hearted: she bails La Miranda (Guillermo Diaz) and Matty Dean (Frederick Weller) out of jail, then rips them each a new fundament – “If you give them cause to mess with you again I’ll kick your asses myself.” Boutte’s delivery is deliciously deadpan, whether scolding the younger queens she treats like her children, sparring with downlow boyfriend Vinnie, played to perfection by Bruce MacVittie (“You’d make an ugly woman: you’d have to shave your knuckles, for starters.”), or dispensing queenly wisdom to buttoned-down Mattachine member Burt (Peter Ratray): “Dance, dammit. They might be coming for you in the morning, so you might as well dance… all… night.”
Larry Duplechan’s Movies That Made Me Gay is a movie memoir: a wonderfully well-informed, witty and acerbic take on iconic Hollywood films, film stars, and indie cult favorites, from a Lambda Literary Award-winning author who is also a lifelong movie fan. It’s also a touching and extremely readable personal memoir of growing up gay and Black in the early '60s; surviving the early days of the AIDS pandemic; the adaptation of his novel Blackbird into a feature film starring Mo'Nique in 2014, and much more.
Order Movies That Made Me Gay from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite bookstore.
STONEWALL is streaming on Prime (USA/Canada/Australia) and also available on DVD.
