by MK Scott
When I first saw The Celluloid Closet in the late '90s, I was blown
away. It was a perfect documentary from start to finish, directed by a
team of Gay directors, Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein. I so much
wanted to meet them!
And now, 20-plus years later, I got the chance to interview them.
(Editor's note: The interview with Friedman and Epstein below is followed by an interview with Hollywood insider Dave Karger.)
MK
Scott: I'm excited to talk to you... You two are one of the first
documentary filmmakers to make it in the mainstream, and now TCM is
giving you your own night to share some of your best work. What was your
feeling when they had first approached you on that?
MK Rob
Epstein: Excited, thrilled, honored. It's great. I think all but one of
these films have never been on TCM before. And it's really a wonderful
treat to have them collate it, curate it, and present it as an evening
of our films. And we had the opportunity [to work] with TCM a number of
years ago on a film called And the Oscar Goes To.
MK Scott: I saw that. That was fabulous. It was a really, really good piece.
MK Jeffrey Friedman: Thanks. It's fun to be working with them on this side as well.
MK
Scott: For nearly 35 years you have brought to the screen a variety of
stories, from Harvey Milk and the Holocaust to the AIDS Memorial Quilt,
and finally, one of my favorites, The Celluloid Closet. Which one
impacted you the most?
JF: That's like asking if you have a
favorite child, right? Like most parents do have a favorite child, they
just never admit it. (laugh)
...Now there's so much distance
between us and most of these films... it's like being reacquainted with,
you know, an old friend, a family member that you've had a long history
with and hadn't seen for a while. So I just tend to get just completely
absorbed in the film and the experience of making the film.
RE:
Thinking of them all together playing in the course of a night, or the
retrospective that we've had, I'm more impressed by how many films we've
made. You know, we've been at this for a long time, and each one of
these films took years to make. And all of our energy and creativity
and, you know, just our lives were immersed in these subjects. So seeing
them collected this way impresses me just with how long we've been at
this.
MK Scott: Speaking of The Celluloid Closet, you got a
chance to interview a lot of major, major people, from Gore Vidal to
Quentin Crisp to Shirley MacLaine. Was there any interview that
intimidated you at all?
RE: Gore Vidal was pretty intimidating.
JE:
Arthur Laurents was pretty intimidating. Shirley MacLaine was
intimidating until she got to the set. Then she was a total pussycat,
Well, you see why people are stars when they [have] such charismatic
magnetism.
MK Scott: Probably one of the most serious films I had
ever seen was Paragraph 175. I thought it was a beautiful, beautiful
film. Were there any particular stories from that that touched you the
most?
RE: They were all touching. You know, those were personal
stories of these men who had gone through this horrendous period, the
Nazi era, and were victimized by the Nazis. Most of them had never
talked about it.
One in particular, Heinz F., had really never
told his story to anybody until he gave an interview for our film. And
there were people who just found it too painful. There's one person in
there, near the beginning of the film, who just says he doesn't want to
talk about it anymore. Because it was just such a painful period in his
life. He wants to forget about it and move on at age 93 or something.
So,
yeah, I mean, I found them all touching. They were beautiful, they're
beautiful men. It was very special to hear their stories.
JF: One
of the most touching moments in the making of that film was actually at
the premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, when two of the men met for
the first time - two of the surviving men - one of whom was German and
the other was French. And the French guy had said that he never expected
to set foot on German soil again. And there they were on stage, holding
hands to a standing ovation at the Berlin Film Festival. That was a
very moving moment.
MK Scott: How have documentaries changed in the last 30-plus years?
JF:
Oh, in so many ways. I think the genre lines are getting a lot
blurrier... people are using aspects of dramatic filmmaking, and
animation. I think the vocabulary of the documentary has certainly
broadened, and that's changed the form.
...When I started out, with Word Is Out, those films were more premeditated.... I think the form just continues to evolve.
MK Scott: I once interviewed Jeffrey Schwartz, and I know you know him from when you were in the Vito documentary.
RE: Right. He worked on The Celluloid Closet.
MK Scott: And actually his style is actually very similar to yours. So I'm sure he was very influenced by you.
JF:
Well, he actually... when he graduated college, he came to San
Francisco to intern with us, and that's how he ended up being assistant
editor on The Celluloid Closet.
MK Scott: Oh my gosh. And then
like two, three years ago, [in] State of Pride, you talked to different
kinds of people in the community, but they were all in the Deep South,
or they were in small towns. And I thought that was actually pretty
moving as well.
RE: Yeah, that was a commissioned film with
YouTube. We worked with Raymond Braun on that. And it was interesting to
see how much has changed and how much hasn't... how some of the
struggles that people are going through back when we were coming out,
young people are still going through in different parts of the country.
MK
Scott: So now you have a Grammy [for Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My
Voice], you have two Oscars, you have an Emmy. All you need now is a
Tony, and then you're an EGOT.
JF: Yes. We'll have to figure out which of our films would work as a musical theater adaptation.
MK
Scott: My last question. Would you ever consider doing a sequel to The
Celluloid Closet, but focusing on films from the last 25 years?
JF:
Well, Jeffrey Schwartz is actually developing an idea. We've been
working with him, supporting him in developing an idea that would be
along those lines.
RE: Hopefully that will happen one day. A little chat with a Hollywood Insider
I
also had a chance to chat with Hollywood insider Dave Karger, one of my
favorite entertainment journalists, whom I have interviewed three
times. You have seen him around Oscar time on Access Hollywood or the
Today show, or as one of the hosts of Tuner Classic Movies. Talking to
Karger was like catching up with an old friend.
MK Scott: Okay, so TCM is doing a special night with Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Was this your idea?
Dave
Karger: I can take partial credit for this. So the TCM programmers
wanted to do a night of LGBTQ-themed documentaries. And they sent me the
list of movies that they were planning on airing, and it was Harvey
Milk, Common Threads, and Word Is Out.
I was looking over the
list, and I said, these are all Rob Epstein and/or Jeffrey Friedman
movies. We should get them to co-host with me. So the talent department
said, Oh, that's an interesting idea. So they got onboard and were able
to get Rob and Jeffrey onboard.
I really pushed for programming
to include The Celluloid Closet, because that's a film that I watched
right when I started my career. I had just started at Entertainment
Weekly. [It] came out in early 1996 in theaters [and] I remember... just
being so affected by it. It just caused me to look at films in such a
different way.
So it's a movie that we've never shown on TCM
before, but it's such a natural fit for our TCM audience. So I'm so glad
that we're showing that one too, and it was a thrill to have Rob and
Jeffrey on the network with me for the whole night.
MKS: In a few words, what do you think of The Celluloid Closet?
DK:
I think The Celluloid Closet is one of the most purely entertaining
documentaries that I've ever seen. And because of just the way they pace
the movies and edit the movie, plus Lily Tomlin's very wry narration, I
think it's a must-see for any movie fan, particularly a classic movie
fan, because it helps you understand what the Hays production code
really did to films for the 35 years that it was in effect. And it helps
you see, you know, how far we've come as far as LGBTQ representation
[where] film is concerned.
MKS: I could not agree more. I told
them when I spoke to them yesterday [that] everything about it was just
so perfect, with Lily Tomlin's narration as well as K.D. Lang's
rendition of Secret Love.
DK: Don't you love that at the end, to hear that Doris Day?
MKS: Very much. Regarding Paragraph 175, what do you think of that film?
DK:
That was so eye-opening. I had never seen that one until just a couple
of weeks ago, when I was preparing to talk to them. And it's a very
different film for them, because it's an international story. Most of
the films that they do [deal] with more domestic issues.
And just
in talking to them, [it was interesting to learn] about Klaus Müller,
the Nazi-era historian who we see interviewing all of these survivors in
the film. This man approached Rob and Jeffrey to get them onboard to
direct a documentary in relation to the work that he was doing. It just
speaks to how groundbreaking and influential and in demand these two
filmmakers are, that people were coming out of the woodwork trying to
get them onboard to do documentaries with them.
So it's a
fascinating film. It's heartbreaking to hear from some of these
survivors who are just unable to talk to anyone about what they had
experienced during the Nazi era as gay men. It's very sad. But
absolutely worth your time.
MKS: What did you think of The Times of Harvey Milk?
DK: That's a film that we've shown several times on TCM. And I've even introduced it before.
Here's
the weird story behind this, for me, very personally: That was the
first movie that I can personally recall seeing win an Oscar. I was 11
years old. I don't know why I was watching the Oscars in 1985, but I
was, and I remember seeing a movie called The Times of Harvey Milk win
for Best Documentary.
Of course I didn't know who Harvey Milk
was. I didn't realize the significance of an LGBTQ-themed movie winning
an Oscar, because that had essentially never happened before. I think
it's such a brilliantly made documentary, because it tells the
fascinating story of Harvey Milk and his shocking death, but it also
puts him in a larger context of what was going on in the early '80s in
San Francisco, [and also] all over the country, with the gay movement.
It's a hard movie to watch at times, but's exceptionally well done and so deserving of the Oscar win.
MKS: And I think it actually set the stage for Lance Black to put together the screenplay for Milk.
DK:
I think you can make the argument that without that documentary, there
would have been no narrative films directed by Gus Van Sant and starring
John Patton. I think one really did lead to the other.
MKS: I completely agree. And also, I had forgot that they had directed Howl, about Allen Ginsberg.
DK:
Yeah, it's interesting, I mean Rob and Jeffrey are probably best known
for their LBGTQ-themed documentaries, but they've also branched out into
these other worlds with narrative film. They co-directed the Allen
Ginsberg film Howl, they directed a [biopic] about Linda Lovelace, and
then they've also done non-LBGTQ themed [films] too. They had a really
fascinating short documentary called End Game about end-of-life care.
And one of my favorite things they've ever done, just from a year and a
half ago, is a great documentary about Linda Ronstadt called The Sound
of My Voice, which won a Grammy. So they're just such impressive guys
and everything they do just seems to be exceptional.
MKS: Well, I
just told them that if they ever decide that, okay, we're going to do
something on Broadway, then they could win a Tony and actually be an
EGOT.
DK: Oh, my god, wouldn't that be great? That's right.
They've got the Emmy, they've got the Oscar. Well, technically - and
it's kind of dorky - but technically Jeffrey does not have an Oscar. Rob
has two, but Jeffrey was not technically eligible to personally win the
Oscar. When Common Threads did win, Jeffrey was onstage with Rob, but
only Rob and the producer of the film won the Oscar. I think the rules
were such that only one director and one producer could win. So sadly,
Jeffrey does not have an Oscar, but Rob has two.
MKS: Well, Rob did say that he's perfectly fine being an EGO.
DK:
(laugh) Well, if you watch - that's very funny - if you watch our
interview on... Monday the 28th, you'll see in the back corner of the
frame is an Oscar and a Grammy that they've won, that Rob has won.
MKS: Amazing. Of course, as an Oscar insider, I'm sure you were a big fan of their TCM documentary, And the Oscar Goes To.
DK: You know, it's so great that we have this history with them.
And
it's fun because, you know, I think they even remarked on the fact that
they were a little bit less comfortable being on that side of the
interview. Usually they're the ones doing the interviewing... But even
with their discomfort they still did a fantastic job of answering all of
my questions. And they had great memories for all of the wonderful
films they've worked on.
MKS: What do you think Rob and Jeff's legacy is for documentary filmmaking?
DK:
I think it's twofold. I think on one hand they were groundbreaking as
far as bringing LBGTQ-themed films to the attention of the Academy and
thereby to, you know, the larger film-going public, with things like
Harvey Milk and Common Threads.
But then I think they've never
been people to rest on their laurels, literally. They're always looking
for something new and provocative to explore. And I think they will go
down in history as two of the preeminent documentarians and perhaps the
most acclaimed gay documentarians.
MKS: Absolutely. I mentioned
to them that Jeffrey Schwartz, whom I interviewed when he did the Divine
documentary, has a very similar style, which I realized before they
mentioned that Jeffrey was actually an assistant editor for Celluloid
Closet.
DK: Well, there you go. So they're obviously even helping to foster a whole next generation of wonderful filmmakers.
Turner
Classic Movies (TCM) will be celebrating Pride Month with a special
night of programming on Monday, June 28, hosted by Dave Karger and
featuring the LGBTQ-centric documentaries of Jeffrey Friedman and Rob
Epstein, including both the Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk and
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (a TCM premiere.)
(bold indicates a TCM premiere)
8:00 p.m. Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt (1989)
9:30 p.m. The Celluloid Closet (1995)
1:30 p.m. Paragraph 175 (2000)
1:15 a.m. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984).
3:00 a.m. Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977)
5:15 a.m. Before Stonewall (1985)
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