LGBT movies are still too often pigeonholed as “niche” entertainment. are still intimidated by the bottom line and worried that people don’t want to watch queer stories when that lesson has been, I thought, learned time and time again.” “It’s sad that the Hollywood corporate machine, which is very much queer as far GLBT working in the industry. Jamie Babbit, who put herself on the map in 1999 with But I’m a Cheerleader, thought the industry would change when Brokeback Mountain came out in 2005-but she too still runs into the same roadblocks that persisted in the 90s. It’s a reminder that it’s not impossible, that I’m wrong to some extent.” “I need the visibility as much as anyone who’s starting or beginning, and as much as the audience. “I’m encouraged by anyone who manages to make a film with LGBTQ content that furthers the visibility,” he says of movies like Moonlight and this year’s Call Me by Your Name, which is already generating awards buzz.
Yet that space comes with its own complications, as Moonlight director Barry Jenkins has discussed at length.įor someone like Love Is Strange director Ira Sachs, who’s been in the business for more than 25 years, it can feel “next to impossible” to make LGBTQ films. It’s what made it possible for Moonlight-a film about a queer person of color-to win best picture at the Oscars. The indie realm has become our primary source for more diversity on screen. GLAAD’s fifth annual Hollywood report card confirms that the gay community is still dramatically underrepresented in mainstream movies: just 23 of the 125 films released by studios in 2016 featured LGBTQ characters, and 10 of the 23 gave them less than a minute of screen time. “I watched Alien: Covenant and there’s a gay couple in it, and I had no idea,” Spa Night director Andrew Ahn tells Vanity Fair, laughing. Unfortunately, their “coming out” scenes have mostly been lost in translation. Recent films like Beauty and the Beast and Power Rangers have “broken ground” or “made history”-according to these headlines, anyway-as major Hollywood releases featuring openly queer characters. From the fertile opening shots to the ravishing close-up that concludes the film, "Call Me by Your Name" is an enrapturing experience, like a melancholy dream that sends you floating into the enchanted, unwritten future.Hollywood is having an “exclusively gay moment”-a phrase inadvertently coined by director Bill Condon this winter and overblown by media attention. Life is but a dream in this adaption of André Aciman's celebrated novel, directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by James Ivory, who treat the central courtship like a feature-length Sufjan Stevens ballad. Their connection builds slowly, steadily, sensually. Timothée Chalamet gave the year's finest performance, playing a bookish 17-year-old who jumps at the chance to be tour guide and companion for Armie Hammer's strapping grad student. Nestled in the Italian countryside during one lush summer, a love story springs to life, first in furtive gestures and finally with profound euphoria. The only parallel from 2017 is "Call Me by Your Name," the most blissful heartache ever to saunter across the screen. That's how I felt about "Jackie" last year, and about "Carol" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" the year before.
Maybe once or twice a year, a movie will come along that I adore so much it seeps into my soul.