Audience Member
It was great to see these points of view
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
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Audience Member
A huge collection of interviews of mostly San Francisco based gay people, made in the 70â(TM)s, edited together and thematically arranged into three categories. Thatâ(TM)s all, and thatâ(TM)s all thatâ(TM)s needed. âWord Is Outâ? is a touching and captivating documentary that presents you with real people and their real lives. It works marvelously as a historical testament to the ways things have changed between now and then, but it also contains so many so familiar thoughts. There is a lot in this documentary thatâ(TM)s universal, and a lot that is disturbing, sad and brutally honest. And honesty is truly the key here, and thatâ(TM)s what makes this such a great piece.
The key sentiment with these interviews stems from the period. The documentary was finished 1i 1977 at a time when sexual minorities were gradually seeping into the collective consciousness in America. Many interviewees are worried about the openees that seems to be a possibility, stating that minorities tend to be persecuted in tough times, regardless of how well they have been accepted before. Coming from people who have lived lives in a world where homosexual acts are criminal and homosexual tendensies are a disease treated with institutionalization, electric shock treatments and- in the case of the men- ultimately castration, the concern is expected and might not be all that paranoid, looking at history.
The loss that comes with being part of the accepted society is also adressed, especially the older lesbians feel that a lot is lost if a secret underground culture of free love and feminism becomes diluted as a part of a monogamous, patriarcal mainstream culture. What of course makes "Word Is Out" tragic in retrospect is that we all know what will happen to the gay community of San Francisco in only a few years, making concerns about excess and forced confromity seem minor, although very current.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
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Audience Member
This is a beautiful little time capsule shot in 1975 of interviews with 26 queer people, selected from 200 pre-interviews and edited from 50 hours of footage. More than anything, it taught me that I underestimated how advanced queer studies was in '75 and how commonplace that knowledge was among queer people of that era. Of course, it has the effect of showing the eternal struggles of queer life, and the struggles that have remained static because of our political climate.
Also, the restoration looks beautiful.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
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Audience Member
Wonderful interview at the dawn of the gay movement.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
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Audience Member
I watched this last night on TCM, very interesting, I defiantly would watch it again.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Word is Out DVD
1 Disc Widescreen, being released on June 8, 2010
"Word Is Out" was the first feature-length documentary about homosexuality made by gay filmmakers and was premiered in 1977. Twenty-six people of very different backgrounds, ages, races, and lifestyles were selected after interviewing 140 people to tell the stories of their lives.
Thank goodness times have improved compared to what these people had to deal with in 1977 or even as far back as the 1940s and 1950s for some. There is still a long way to go, but this film does serve as a marker for how much progress has been made in the meantime. For example, one lesbian couple even though they were excellent parents to their kids from previous marriages had them removed from their home due to the type of environment the kids were being raised in.
There are some amazing interviews that get these people to open up about when/how they discovered they were different from others and how it affected their lives. How it affected those around them and the challenges with finding other like-minded people to communicate with. Many of them felt like they were all alone in the world. Also they talked about what they hoped for in the future in terms of rights for gays and lesbians. One very vocal woman said it had to be about women only fighting for women's rights and not worry about the guys since women have it tougher.
Many of these stories are emotional and talk of the hardships of being sent away to a mental facility and threatened with or had electroshock therapy used upon them to "cure" them. A few stories are on the funny side like a bunch of women dressing like men to join up in the armed forces. What is most amazing is that these stories are being shared at all in this time period and many of their feelings on subjects are heavily relevant today, 70s hairstyles and clothes or not.
"Word is Out" is being released now to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Gay Pride marches. The film has been newly restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and its Outfest Legacy Project due to time taking its toll on existing prints and the film rarely being seen anymore although it was a landmark in cinema. The restoration is pretty great and seeing it now captures so much of the feel of the time period. This documentary had been shown in theaters around the world and on prime-time television and helped countless people accept themselves as well as their friends and families and positively impacted the American culture.
Bonus Features:
Then and Now - Thirty Years Later is a fabulous featurette about the history behind this film. Note that there is no single director but a collective group that worked together and called themselves the Mariposa Group. They made decisions together and shared responsibility.
The Afterthoughts section gives you a chance to see some of the interviewees as they are today and how their lives have changed and what they thought of the film and their involvement in it.
One small featurette is of the Mariposa Group remembering Peter Adair, one of their members who passed away. Executive producer David Bohnett quickly speaks about the film's impact and there are additional credits for the restoration and a trailer for this film and a PSA for the Outfest Legacy Project.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/17/23
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