Movie Details
| Title: | Paris is Burning | |
| Director: | Jennie Livingston | |
| Year: | 1990 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 12.28.21 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 12.28.21 | Blu-ray | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2021 Movie 3: stack 2, number 5. Spine 1018 I actually bought this for Molly, who is a huge RuPaul's Drag Race fan, but since I haven't seen it and it's a criterion... it went in the pool. While I'm not really a super drag fan, what I do obsess with is 90s/80s NYC. I also was growing up during this time so I have vague memories of this movie coming out along with, thanks to MTV's House of Style (which I watched for... reasons) like Madonna's Truth or Dare and the Isaac Mizrahi doc and stuff like that... plus seeing club kids on Jerry Springer all that. It seemed like this culture was on the fringe yet still had small glimpses of visibility at that time. Nothing like today of course, but I think this stands as one of few seminal docs on the subject. Huh. This was pretty good. There's not a lot of exterior footage here but that 80s dirtiness comes through. Of course the movie's not really about that... it's just the setting for this subculture which feels portrayed without judgement or exploitation by the filmmaker to me (who has no clue). It does almost feel foreign at times, stepping into this world with its own rituals and lexicon, but just like that krumping doc Rize or Penelope Spheeris' third Decline of Western Civilization or I guess any other movies in this vein, it lives by presenting individuals that you grow to care about. It's also a time capsule considering most of the footage was shot in 1987 in a community deep in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. It's only lightly touched upon in the film but you have to imagine a significant impact just as or right after this movie happened. Some of this interlocks with other stuff I've watched regarding DJs and famous clubs like The Loft and Paradise Garage but mostly it's balls and vogue-ing and reading shade and a bunch of other words I now know about. And it was only 76 minutes! which means I'm on to the fourth film of the day before midnight. Let's see what it is. |
