SEASON FOUR

BURNING THE CLOSET!

to watch a preview of Season Four click here

1968?

Student revolt in Paris. Anti-Vietnam pacifist activism. Second feminist wave. Civil rights agitation in the states. Spring of Prague. ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. And Stonewall -- the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Things are changing in every front… and film is no exception!

Cinema will mirror another big change, ‘The sexual revolution’, launched by the contraceptive pill. By 1968 it is official: sex and procreation are two very different things. Sex is there to be enjoyed, by everyone, in any place, at any time, in any form. Films from the 1970s are giddy with flesh, flesh, and more flesh.

There is a new openness in cinema, just as everywhere else. Ending decades of repression and censorship, the movies want to tell it like it is. For the first time, openly gay people make openly gay movies. They share previously untold stories, and the way they tell them is also new. Filmmakers want to burn down the rule-book. The war cry everywhere is “Lets Experiment! If it hasn’t been done before, we simply must try it!”

Behind bedroom doors, there are new choreographies, and behind the camera, there’s a visual revolution. Editors run amoch, actors are poached among friends and lovers, scenes are set in urinals and trucks, the old order of ‘beginning, middle, and end’ is shredded to pieces. In the 70s --in a way we hadn't seen since the 1920s and 30s-- film images are playful again. Cameras are toys, and they like to place themselves at strange angles, and they love to zoom in and out for no reason. They do it just because they can!

Burning down closets, burning down traditional filmmaking, and burning with lust…

Season Four is on fire.

Film Qlub

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