Vito

I watched Jeffrey Schwarz’s HBO doc about the life of gay rights activist and queer cinema scholar Vito Russo while writing my essay about why the documentary based on Russo's work, The Celluloid Closet, is one of my 100 Favorite Films of all time. Schwarz’s reverential portrait of Russo is both informative and moving. It's especially great to hear from his family members and to see footage of his early days as a rabid activist who was also a peacemaker trying to unite divisive factions of the same movement. There's footage here that I've seen in other docs, not realizing Russo was an active participant in the photographed events. I also didn't know he was at Stonewall. By all accounts, Vito Russo was a passionate, positive guy you wanted to hang with, which is a big part, I'm sure, of why he was so successful in bringing mainstream awareness to gay issues, AIDS, and, of course, to Hollywood's portrayals of queer people throughout cinema history. Still, watching Vito made me hyper-aware of how the nonfiction political movies and hagiographical film biographies of today preach to the choir, whereas documentaries that were also works of art reached across ideological lines in the era of The Times of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet.