Early in Stonewall Uprising, in voiceover, a man describes the evening of June 28, 1969, succinctly, in a tone permeated with pride: â┚¬Å”In the civil rights movement, we ran from the police. In the peace movement, we ran from the police. That night, the police ran from usâ┚¬â€Âthe lowest of the lowâ┚¬â€Âand it was fantastic.â┚¬ÂÂ
Producers of the acclaimed PBS history series American Experience approached documentary team Kate Davis and David Heilbroner with the project of recounting David Carter's book Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, in large part due to their proven track record with LGBT subject matter. Their documentary, like its source material, has managed to achieve something that appeared impossible up until now: setting the record straight on this event that ignited the LGBT rights movement. To arrive at this objective look at the facts of the evening the LGBT community fought back for the first time, Davis and Heilbroner had to sift through myth, legend, and embellished memories.
Speaking to Watermark from his home in Manhattan, respected playwright Doric Wilson relates a memory of seeing a friend dancing in a can-can line in front of the police that night. He knows the memory isn't real because he didn't meet the friend until after Stonewall.
â┚¬Å”My mind superimposes it. I see it as real, but know it didn't happen at the same time. I'm usually pretty good about that kind of stuff, so if I'm dealing with that imagine what [the filmmakers] were up against,â┚¬Â said Wilson, one of the eyewitness interviews in Stonewall Uprising. Among his canon of plays is Street Theater (1982) about Stonewall.
Heilbroner and Davis made Anti-Gay Hate Crimes (1998) and Transgender Revolution (1999) for the A&E Networks, and Davis directed and produced Southern Comfort, an award-winning film (including Best Documentary Feature at the Florida Film Festival) about a female-to-male transgender diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Some may be surprised to learn, then, that Heilbroner and Davis are husband and wife. When the question comes up, Davis gets her guard up a bit perceiving it as a challenge of their qualifications.
â┚¬Å”I don't want to speak for my husband, but I was interested in gay rights when I was in high school andâ┚¬â€ÂI'm dating myselfâ┚¬â€Âthis was the 1970s. I even started a gay rights group [in high school], though it was quickly disbanded,â┚¬Â Davis told Watermark.
At the same time, Davis offers that having some distance from the topic may have helped the couple to take an unbiased look at what has been called the Stonewall Rebellion. Wilson agrees that not being â┚¬Å”immersedâ┚¬Â in the LGBT community, in addition to being too young to remember Stonewall, may have been a key to Davis and Heilbroner's success.
â┚¬Å”I was terribly impressed with Kate and David. I gained some measure of fame at [1960s off-off Broadway coffee house] Caffe Cino, so I've been interviewed for 50 years. Never have I been around people who took such care,â┚¬Â said Wilson.
Wilson emphasizes that starting with author David Carter, who served as a consultant on the film, was also pivotal in making Stonewall Uprising accurate. Carter's book, submits Wilson, was the first chronicling of the evening that didn't seem to have an agenda, unlike Martin Duberman's Stonewall, for example, which postulates the riot was manufactured by leftists.
An inclusive range of interview subjects adds crucial legitimacy to the documentary. In addition to rioters themselves, the film includes journalists from The Village Voice, the NYPD officer who led the raid, and Ed Koch, the eventual New York City Mayor, who was then a councilman and leader in â┚¬Å”cleaning up the streets.â┚¬ÂÂ
Davis laughs when she recounts a screening of the film in North Carolina at which an audience member angrily insisted she should have asked Koch if he was gay, an unfounded rumor that has perpetuated the NYC LGBT community for decades. Though she seems surprised by the encounter, it only helps reinforce her motivation for placing Koch's â┚¬Å”powerfulâ┚¬Â scenes in the film. The director calmly explained to the man that the film wasn't about going after anyone.
â┚¬Å”That's a whole other discussion. Let's talk about that over a beer later,â┚¬Â she laughs.
American society's view of homosexuality during the 1960s and the anti-gay laws, most arcane even at that time, provide an essential backdrop to the film. An interviewee who served in the Navy recounts slashing his wrists to avoid the shame of homosexuality, a woman tells of joining a nunnery to figure herself out, and Wilson tells of a friend who was given a lobotomy, an accepted cure for homosexuality at the time. Clips for a 1961 public service announcements called Boys Beware teaching young attractive boys how to recognize a homosexual's advances seem worthy of Saturday Night Live skits, if it weren't for the fact that they were real. It is particularly jarring, and telling, to see clips for a black and white 1967 CBS report â┚¬Å”The Homosexualsâ┚¬Â hosted by none other than Mike Wallace, widely considered liberal.
â┚¬Å”I know Mike and I would guess he would be embarrassed by the piece today,â┚¬Â said Davis. â┚¬Å”But that was the accepted thought on homosexuality at the time, which makes it all the more important to include in the film.â┚¬ÂÂ
Davis is fairly indignant over the exclusion of Stonewall in textbooks while Wilson views it as a fact of life (â┚¬Å”â┚¬Â¦history is the version of the people who wonâ┚¬Â¦Ã¢â”šÂ¬Ã‚Â), but Stonewall Uprising could be an important start to finding that place in history. In addition to making the film festival circuit, it will be broadcast on PBS this month, viewed by millions, many of whom are unaware of these events. Those numbers will include members of the LGBT community who will, for the first time, connect Pride parades to the birth of the LGBT rights movement, the night the queers fought back.
see+hear
WHAT: American Experience presents Stonewall Uprising
WHEN: 9:30 p.m. Monday, April 25
WHERE: PBS (Check local listings
