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Written by Gregg Shapiro
Mar 10, 2011
“Stonewall Uprising” is screened on March 19 at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Church North, 13800 N. Port Washington in Mequon. Call 262-375-3890.
There is no shortage of good LGBT documentaries, and “Stonewall Uprising,” based on David Carter’s book “Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution,” takes its proud and rightful place among its predecessors. Co-directors Kate Davis and David Heilbroner provide a suitable amount of background through photographs and “dramatic recreation” for what was to become the gay “Rosa Parks moment.”
The doc sets the stage for gay life in the 1960s, described as the “dark ages for gay and lesbian people across America.” Included are footage of CBS’s 1967 news special “The Homosexuals,” a speech by the virulently anti-gay psychologist Charles Socarides, fear-mongering educational films, a horrific anti-gay assembly at a Dade County, Fla., school, newspaper coverage of gay bar raids and a psychiatric hospital in Atascadero, Calif., which was considered the “Dachau for queers.”
The oppressive atmosphere of the 1960s proved to be fertile ground for what would eventually occur at Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn, described as both “a toilet” and “a refuge from the streets.”
The film also covers the increase in gay and lesbian visibility during this period, including the rise of the homophile movement through the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis. Interviewees include Virginia Apuzzo, former New York City mayor Ed Koch, historian Eric Marcus, writer Lucian Truscott IV and several Stonewall Inn bar patrons who were present at the riots in late June 1969.
What sets this documentary apart is the in-depth focus on the events that created the perfect storm for the uprising that birthed gay liberation. The film’s coda, coverage of the first Gay Pride Parade in June of 1970, is particularly moving.
