LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
PAST Out |
by Rawley Grau |
What were the first gay and lesbian themed movies?
Homosexual imagery has appeared on screen from the dawn of cinematography. As early as 1895, the Thomas Edison Studio produced a short piece in which two men danced a waltz together. Strangely poignant, the experimental sound film was titled The Gay Brothers. A 1916 Swedish work called Vingarne (The Wings) is probably the first movie to deal seriously with homosexual themesnamely, an artist's obsession with his male modelbut it was not widely distributed. Far more important was the German film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), which opened in one of Berlin's major movie theaters in May 1919. Along with its tragic tale of love and blackmail, the film presented an explicit plea for the acceptance of homosexuals. It's no accident that the film was made in Germany, where a thriving gay and lesbian subculture was emerging amid the social turmoil that followed World War I. Germany was also home to the world's most advanced gay rights movement, which was centered around the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, a group that had been fighting for sex-law reform since 1897. The committee's founder, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, co-wrote Anders als die Andern; he also appeared as a therapist in the film and made an impassioned appeal for tolerance. Hirschfeld's fellow scriptwriterand the film's producer and directorwas Richard Oswald, already well-known for his "enlightenment films," which examined current social problems such as alcoholism and prostitution. Although Anders als die Andern fits comfortably in this genre, the problem it highlights is not homosexuality, but rather society's injustice toward homosexuals. Today only about 20 minutes survive from what was originally a full-length feature. But a synopsis published by Hirschfeld's institute lets us reconstruct the plot. Paul Koerner, a concert violinist (played by Conrad Veidt, fresh from his sensational performance in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), falls in love with one of his pupils, a young man named Kurt. The two are very happy together until Kurt discovers that Paul is being blackmailed by Franz, a young man Paul had once picked up in a gay bar. Kurt leaves Paul, and Paul and Franz eventually both end up in prison, Franz for blackmail and Paul for homosexuality. After his release from jail, Paul, abandoned by all his friends, fatally poisons himself. A similar fate would befall countless future gay movie characters, but in this film Hirschfeld and Oswald offered some hope. Kurt, weeping over his lover's body, vows to work for justice for homosexuals, and the film (in the original version) ends with the image of a hand erasing the sodomy statute from the law book. Despite favorable reviews and box-office success, Anders als die Andern was banned in several major cities, and public protests accompanied screenings in Berlin. Finally, in August 1920, the German censor board prohibited the film from being shown to the general public, though private screenings continued to be permitted "in places of learning and scientific institutions." In May 1933, soon after Adolf Hitler came to power, Nazis stormed Hirschfeld's institute and destroyed its holdings; virtually all the complete prints of the film are assumed to have perished in the raid. The 20-minute version that still exists resurfaced in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. Anders als die Andern primarily concerned men, but its social message did refer to homosexual women as well. While lesbians appeared in other German silents, toomost vividly in G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1928)it wasn't until 1931 that love between women received a full and sympathetic treatment on screen. Maedchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform)again, a German filmfeatured an all-female cast directed by Leontine Sagan. Scripted by lesbian writer Christa Winsloe and based on her own play, the movie was set in a strict girl's school headed by a harsh disciplinarian. A new student, named Manuela, falls deeply in love with Fraulein von Bernberg, a kind, young teacher who, for her part, is obviously moved by the girl's beauty and spirit. When Manuela publicly declares her feelings at a party following a school play (the girl is still in male costume), the headmistress is appalled and orders her confined to the infirmary. But von Bernberg defends Manuela: "What you call sins I call the great spirit of love, which has a thousand forms." Meanwhile, Manuela runs from the infirmary and is about to jump off the railing of the school's main stairwell, but von Bernberg and the other girls manage to rescue her. Although it, too, was denounced by the Nazis, Maedchen in Uniform did not suffer the woeful fate of Anders als die Andern; excellent complete prints of the film have survived. Nevertheless, in order for the film to be shown in the United States in the 1930s, its distributors had to cut important scenes revealing the depth of Manuela's feelings, as well as von Bernberg's defiant statement about "the great spirit of love." Consequently, this stirring portrayal of lesbian love was reduced to a "wholesome little tale of schoolgirl crushes," as one American critic described the censored version. Rawley Grau has won four Vice Versa Awards for his writing on gay and lesbian culture. He can be reached in care of Letters from CAMP Rehoboth or at GayNestor@aol.com. Suggested reading: Dyer, Richard, 1990. Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film. London: Routledge. Kuzniar, Alice A., 2000. The Queer German Cinema. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Russo, Vito, 1987. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. Revised edition. New York: Harper and Row. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 5, May 18, 2001. |