Released in 1985, it helped put a halt on the notion that homosexuality was a product of societal moral decay. Told through the recollections of gay men and women who paved the road to Stonewall by simply living their lives and loving the people they loved, despite draconian laws that ensured that they could be refused employment or fired from their jobs, denied the right to rent apartments and thrown in jail simply for being who they were. The documentary includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) intersected with the feminist and civil rights movements. They survived the sometimes dangerous times to tell us the stories of their time.
The movie attempts to collapse about forty years of gay history into a documentary of about ninety minutes. With a plethora of interviews, people telling their own stories, it's amazing what it does cover. While the depth of the history may be somewhat lacking, the real impact of the document is an understanding of the roots of where the gay movement came from. This is a great doc to remind us of the incredible strides we've made as a society in terms of acceptance of diversity - but also a sad tale of how bleak things were for the LGBT community just a few decades ago. And maybe a cautionary tale of where we could be devolving to. Warm, humorous, compassionate and at times enraging. This is a documentary that can tell the sometimes bitter truth and still conclude with an unambiguously heartening flourish. Sure, this may not be your idea of entertainment (it wasn't mine) , but sometimes its important to know the history of the very personal battles that formed the foundation of a revolution. They may not be relevant today, but Rights fought and paid for can be taken away, a fact well worth remembering in our parlous times. (5/10)
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