New Queer Cinema

B. Ruby Rich is Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has written for scores of publications, from Signs, GLQ, Film Quarterly, and Cinema Journal to The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Nation, and The Guardian (UK). She has served as juror and curator for the Sundance and Toronto International Film Festivals and for major festivals in Germany, Mexico, Australia, and Cuba. The recipient of awards from Yale University, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, and Frameline, Rich is the author of Chick Flicks: Theories and Memories of the Feminist Film Movement, also published by Duke University Press.

“Has it been 32 years since Vito Russo took the measure of gay identity in movies with his seminal cri de couer The Celluloid Closet? Many film journalists have endeavored to update the landscape, but none has done so with the passion and insider’s wisdom of B. Ruby Rich in her necessary volume New Queer Cinema. . . . Rich celebrates the swagger, cheek, and positive energy presaged by such mavericks as John Waters, Lizzie Borden and Derek Jarman and fulfilled in the ‘90 sand beyond by, among others, Rose Troce, Todd Haynes, Cheryl Dunye, Gus Van Sant and TomÁs GutiÉrrez Alea. - Jan Stuart (San Francisco Chronicle) “Rich’s book is both a portal into previous time of queer imagination and a history lesson on how the politics of an era resulted in the cinematic portrayal of the LGBT world as we see it now. New Queer Cinema is a living history. . . . ” - Chase Dimock (Lambda Literary Review) “A Must-Read For Anyone Even Remotely Interested In LGBT Cinema.” (Indiewire) “Whether you’re a denizen, a habituÉ or a newcomer to queer cinema, Rich’s writing will make you feel welcome, and offer something to discover.” - Sophie Mayer (Sight & Sound) “Not simply an assortment of nearly thirty essays and reviews- ranging from brilliant to just really, really smart-but also a nuanced, multidimensional tapestry of the shifting state, and political influence, of LGBT cinema over the last three decades.”  - Michael Bronski (Cineaste) “As classy and packed with goodies as a Criterion Blu-ray. . . . Rich’s is exactly the voice combining erudition, political passion, a feeling for the indie scene as deep as her joints, and the kind of quick turn around of new ideas about culture and change that we, readers of journals such as this, need.” - Patricia White (Film Quarterly) “The new collection of essays by B. Ruby Rich, our foremost chronicler of queer cinema, reads like a rocket trajectory from one era into another, from the darkest days of the AIDS crisis to the premiere of Gus Van Sant’s Milk (2008). . . . The movement that Rich describes in this new book was always eleventy-zillion light-years ahead of the mainstream, and one of the many pleasures this book affords is rediscovering the momentum that the new queer cinema has enjoyed and that, perhaps, it has gifted to the culture that lags behind it, like a sporty red car dragging an armful of tin cans.”  - Chris Dumas (Cinema Journal) “Rich's anthology is undoubtedly essential reading for GLBT cinÉphiles. For younger film students (straight, gay, or questioning) it sets the historical scene impeccably.” - Matthew Hayes (Gay & Lesbian Review) “New Queer Cinema is exemplary of film criticism that is both scholarly and accessible. It eschews arcane theoretical acrobatics in favor of carefully historicized, critically challenging, and nuanced analyses interspersed with intimate observations and lively anecdotes. The book is invaluable to film scholars, but can be enjoyed by anyone who cares about queer issues and who likes going to the movies. This crossover appeal is the book’s biggest asset. As the book challenges its wide readership to become a more accepting and demanding audience, it is at the same time enabling queer cinema to grow in ever more adventurous directions.” - Helen Hok-Sze (GLQ) "Simply put, the dazzling New Queer Cinema is required reading for anyone interested in filmic critiques of gender and sexuality." - Tsika (Film Criticism)

• Acknowledgments xiIntroduction xvPart I. Origins, Festivals, Audiences 1. Before the Beginning: Lineages and Preconceptions 32. The New Queer Cinema: Director's Cut 163. Collision, Catastrophe, Celebration: The Relationship between Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals and Their Publics 334. What's a Good Gay Film? 40Part II. Bulletins From the Front 5. The King of Queer: Derek Jarman 496. True Stories of Forbidden Love 537. Goings and Comings, the Go Fish Way 588. Historical Fictions, Modern Desires: The Watermelon Woman 669. Channeling Domestic Violence: In the Den with Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon 7210. The I.K.U. Experience: The Shu-Lea Cheang Phenomenon 7611. Jonathan Caouette: What in Tarnation? 8112. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Maladies 8813. Beyond Doom: Gregg Araki's Mysterious Films 9214. A Walk in the Clouds: Julián Hernández 96Part III. Genre Meets Gender 15. Lethal Lesbians: The Cinematic Inscription of Murderous Desire 10316. Queering the Biopic Documentary 12317. A Queer and Present Danger: The Death of New Queer Cinema? 130Part IV. Queering a New Latin American Cinema 18. Preface to a History 14119. Refashioning Mexican Screen Sexuality: Ripstein, Hermosillo, Leduc 14520. Gay and Lesbian Traces 15121. Mexico in the Forties: Reclaiming a Gender Pioneer 15622. Revolution, Sexuality, and the Paradox of Queer Film in Cuba 15923. Queering the Social Landscape 167Part V. Expansions and Reversals 24. Ang Lee's Lonesome Cowboys 18525. Itty Bitty Titty Committee: Free Radicals and the Feminist Carnivalesque 20226. Queer Nouveau: From Morality Tales to Mortality Tales in Ozon, Téchiné, Collard 21427. Got Milk? Gus Van Sant's Encounter with History 236Conclusion 261Filmography 285Bibliography 297Credits 307Index 309