Outfest Film Review: Vito

Tonight was the opening of Outfest 2012, the world’s largest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A little L.A. drizzle for the first time in months peppered the orange carpet proceedings outside the Orpheum Theatre. Introductions inside included Ricki Lake presenting director John Waters with the Outfest 2012 Achievement Award. Lake has a new show starting this Fall and dates back to 1988 with Waters who directed her in her feature film debut in the original Hairspray. Arguably his most mainstream film went on to spawn the even more socially popular musical and film remake from the 2000s. Lake alludes to the irony of filmdom’s king of trash creating the blueprint for the recent family-friendly Broadway phenomenon. Her knowledge of his oeuvre rolled out with much ease and it was obvious how honored she was to share this occasion with him. Waters took to the stage with a eggplant purple tie against a monochromatic blue-striped suit, and much graciousness to uproarious applause. After the well-produced promo showing footage of his movies and interview clips, as wit comes second nature to the icon, the impressed Waters quipped, “Please play this at my funeral.” Part of his success is due to his ability to judge people on an equal playing field, “I look up to my subject matter, I never look down.”

[Thank You to The Los Angeles Beat for John Waters image]

Outfest honoree John Waters

Also speaking were Outfest board members and co-presidents Laura Ivey, Jon Larson, Executive Director Kirsten Schaffer, Director of Programming Kim Yutani, and Jeffrey Schwarz, director of the opening selection for the film festival, Vito, only the third documentary in all of Outfest’s thirty years to kick off the eleven day gig. One of his first comments regarded the serendipity behind his subject matter, Vito Russo, being a huge fan of Frances Gumm who once sang on the Orpheum’s stage as a little girl with her sisters, before she became known to the rest of the world as Judy Garland. “Vito was a fan of hers and would be so happy to share the stage with her.”

The documentary details the life of gay activist Vito Russo, best known for not only writing the seminal tome on gays in film, The Celluloid Closet, but was one of the founding members of pioneering gay rights groups GAA, GLAAD, and Act Up. The documentary offers a straight-forward narrative describing his home life (his family was ultimately quite accepting and loving), his adventurous preternatural spirit, and active presence in New York night life. His love of movies led him to work as a film archivist for MOMA which planted the seed for his opus Closet, a book that took a decade to research and write as the amateur celluloid detective assembled what is regarded as the preeminent catalogue of the development of gay characters from the beginning of motion pictures through the 1970s. The film understandably spends a healthy chunk of time retreading what’s covered in the film version of Closet, if only because it involved a huge part of Russo’s life.

Through interviews with family and friends (including well known cultural icons like Larry Kramer and Lily Tomlin), as well as stock footage (there is an astounding video record of Russo’s life as an activist, as well as incredible never-seen-before footage of Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin—and, no, I’m not talking about deleted scenes from Big Business either), Vito pieces together a compelling story of man born in the right place and time, fired up with the right amount of passion, to encapsulate the American gay male during the early days of the fight for civil rights. With his heart firmly planted in New York City, Russo stood by on the sidelines during the Stonewall Riots, only to jump into the fray a few months later during subsequent bar raids. “The wiry, fuzzy guy with the huge grin” saw himself as a uniter in the 1970s, only to raise the stakes during the fight for more AIDS funding when the disease first annihilated a huge swath of the gay community in the early 1980s. Russo not only fought conservative demagoguery in politics (there were audible hisses from a faction of the audience whenever Ronald Reagan or Jesse Helms appeared onscreen), but the media itself (including the New York Post’s openly hostile and homophobic tone). The successes of his group's earlier work were vital and helped shape gay progress to what it is today as well as provide templates for other minority activism. Yet, rather than turn Russo into some kind of martyr like some other movies (whose names will not be mentioned here), Schwarz’ restrained approach allows the audiences to marvel at how truly incredible his contributions were, and how lucky we are for the stars to have aligned so perfectly for this man to have graced this earth. Vito debuts on HBO July 23rd at 6 pm EST/9pm PST.

An after party and silent auction followed the film in one of the parking lots behind the Orpheum and included several food vendors and open bar hosted by Absolut, which reminds me of one of my new favorite Sandra Bernhard quotes, “A vodka company supporting a gay cause? Sort of like Gerber giving a shout-out to babies.”