The Celluloid Closet

This was a remarkable film, I thought it brought to light Hollywood's ability to subvert a society and to make it into victimizer or victim. The people who were a part of the industry in the times portrayed showed us, where one entity would censor us, another will find a way around it. I loved the film and recommend it to anyone interested in the evolution of gays in the media. The movies shown were interesting and in many cases were films I have seen and realized that there was a subtext to the film. The writers and the directors were brilliant in the way that they overcame the censors of their period. It also shows the evolution of the film goer and the hopes for those of us who want to see the gay hero live through the movie and find love and happiness. Calia

It is a "gay" film in its humour and about gay-films in its story. It is a fact that we see a lot of things on the big screen without having the least idea what the meaning is. However, people follow usually the crowd and laugh at what they are supposed to laugh at and get angry about what they are supposed to get angry at! In addition of dealing with gay, sex and taboo issues it shows the pattern of cinematic mentality development across years of the past century. This film unravels subtly the preoccupations of the audience and it makes it acceptable to see scenes many people don't like to see. The music is beautiful and the story is told in a tantalising way. You get out of the art-house with a feeling that we live in a hypocrite world, yet a world full of irony and humour.

I agree that this film is perfect and here's why. It details its subject in a thorough and sweeping manner. It explores films and details the homosexual portrayals in an intelligent and non-catty manner. It's clever, well presented, no it's not a typical documentary but it's a very moving piece nonetheless, and it tells a story throughout. I was really thrilled by this film and all the research and effort that went into it. In interviews the filmmakers said that the only section they wish they could have kept was one about gay historical figures whose biographical lives were depicted on film as heterosexual. Certainly this would have been wonderful, but as is, the Celluloid Closet is an incredible film.

I think this documentary is a total eye-opener. It gave me an insight into the American film history with respect to the particular topic of homosexuality. There are many original film clips as examples, and also have actors who performed the respective roles to comment on their views of this topic. This makes the documentary so convincing and credible.

Entertaining, thought-provoking and (at times) very funny documentary chronicling gay subject matter in motion pictures from the silents up to 1995. The narration (by Lily Tomlin) is insightful and the cameos and comments by various stars who have played gay (Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Hamlin) or are gay (Harvey Feinstein, the late Quentin Crisp, Paul Rudnick) are very entertaining and in two cases (with Susan Sarandon and Gore Vidal) utterly uproarious. Special attention should be paid to the "Ben-Hur" segment when you realize Stephen Boyd was playing it gay and Charlton Heston was totally oblivious! This is a very important film and should be seen by everybody gay OR straight. A must for film buffs. Don't miss this one! My only complaint--it's too short! The DVD version has extra interviews that are just great.