|
Somewhere over the rainbow >> A gay coming of age in Where Lies the Homo? by MATTHEW HAYS
"But for me," recalls Monette, "there was something missing. The film wasn't personal enough. And there were very few clips or references to European cinema." Thus Monette set out to make his own first-person account of growing up gay amid a popular culture which overwhelmingly denied the existence of gays. The result, Where Lies the Homo?--which served as his thesis project for his Master's degree in film production at Concordia--is a poignant examination of a gay man's coming of age. The film is a bizarre juxtaposition of video and film clips, with gay icons galore making appearances: Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Madonna, Sal Mineo, Snow White, Jean Cocteau, James Dean--even an axe-wielding Joan Crawford--all rear their heads. Monette's voiceover punctuates the footage, recalling his painful experiences as a man trying to come to terms with his sexual identity. Some of the clips may seem a bit of a stretch: Monette recalls his attachment to Henry Fonda in the classic 1946 Western My Darling Clementine--not exactly what one would think of as a gay-related film. But Monette's appropriation and reclaiming of pop culture references far and wide is all part of the plan. "These films were very influential in my childhood and my upbringing. This film really grew out of my need to tell my own coming-out story, as tacky as that may sound," says Monette. "It was a slow process. As I assembled various vintage clips, I wrote the narrative. I wanted to make the film much more personal and less academic and theoretical. It's an extremely difficult thing to do when your framework is your own life." Monette had already scored a festival hit with Anatomy of Desire, he and co-director Peter Tyler Boullata's documentary about the history of the scientific theories surrounding homosexuality. Monette has also been heartened by audience response to his 35-minute experimental film. Where Lies the Homo? premiered at Montreal's Image&Nation Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and appears again this month as part of Le Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, the annual roundup of the province's homegrown celluloid. Monette, who is now working on an adaptation of Derek Brown's award-winning short story Swiss Chalet, says one of the toughest critics of Where Lies the Homo? was Monette's mother herself. "She objected to my rewriting of family history," reports Monette. "But she saw that this wasn't so much a fact-based documentary as a subjective first-person account of my own childhood and adolescence. Eventually she came around." Where Lies the Homo? screens as part of the annual Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, which runs February 11-17
|
For filmmaker Jean-François Monette, the critically acclaimed 1995 documentary The Celluloid Closet left something to be desired. The film, based on Vito Russo's book of the same name and featuring clips of cinematic homosexuals, aimed to critique Hollywood's nasty homophobic track record.