Review of The Celluloid Closet (1996) by Clint D — 19 May 2012

If you dig film history, you owe it to yourself to check out 'The Celluloid Closet'.

This documentary from HBO Films takes a close look at the way Hollywood tried to either completely ignore or manage to vilify the issue of homosexuality in movies, especially before the 1980s. It's amazing how effective the hundreds of clips they show are at showing how dirty a word "gay" has been for movie history. To this day, homosexual characters continue to be marginalized or stock stereotypes but it's easier to understand how far we've come after seeing this film.

'The Celluloid Closet' does a wonderful job of showing the heavy undertones present in some classic films because writers/directors weren't able to specifically say a character was gay, forcing them to come up with creative clues to tell you so. You may never look at 'Ben Hur' the same way again!