GLR May-June 2024

there was still the challenge of finding a distributor. In early 1990, the filmmakers held a screening for industry insiders, journalists, and leaders of the gay community to get “a buzz going,” said Law. “Larry Kramer came,” says Wlodkowski, “and the fact that he liked the film was important, because we knew we would have to have that kind of supporter behind us. It would have been a problem if there was antagonism [from the gay community].” Also in January of 1990, the film was presented at the (now renamed) Sundance Film Festival and won the audience award. At that point, calls began to come in from distributors. Law reported that with the increasing positive word-of-mouth, dis tributors were then afraid of missing out on the next Crocodile Dundee , which was an under-the-radar Australian indie that went on to become one of the biggest box office hits of 1987. Law approached Tom Rothman, with whom he had worked as an entertainment lawyer. Rothman was head of worldwide pro duction at the Samuel Goldwyn Company. While the company had previously passed on financing the film, it was encouraged by the reaction from private screenings, one of which was paid for by Davison and actor Richard Dreyfuss. The Goldwyn Com pany eventually bought the worldwide distribution rights. People involved with the film knew that the project was “not just another movie,” said Lamos. “We were all aware of the film’s importance and worried it wouldn’t get a distributor, so when word came through that Samuel Goldwyn had signed on, everyone was cheering and crying.” But how to sell the film in a way that would attract an audience? Another question loomed: if the film were a critical and commercial failure, would that make it impossible for other films dealing with AIDS and the gay community get produced? “A movie like Longtime Companion has an uphill battle to get a mainstream audience,” said film historian Vito Russo at the time. Author of The Celluloid Closet , Russo called Long time Companion “a landmark film. It is the first major movie to deal with gay men and AIDS; it doesn’t try to explain gay life for a mainstream audience; and it contains more affection and intimacy between men than virtually any other film in recent memory.” But just as worrisome was that the built-in gay audience, despite its verbal support, would not want to go out on a Satur day night and pay seven dollars to see something they live with on a daily basis. The marketing strategy that was developed to reach the broadest audience possible was to emphasize the life affirming nature of the film. Despite the fact that it deals with personal tragedies as well as the horrors of AIDS, it also shows how the gay community came together to take care of itself. An other way the film was marketed was as a prestige event, as something important that would enrich people’s lives. René said at the time: “The issues in this movie aren’t about being gay, but dealing with death and friendship. At the initial screenings ... we had people who said their mother died a few years ago and the movie spoke to them.” § W HILE IT DEALT WITH tragic circumstances, the film’s humor and life-loving characters kept it from being unbearably painful. The emotional wallop of its ending was both uplifting and heart breaking, as it depicted a fantasy moment where scores of gay

men who had died from the disease were reunited with their sur viving friends and lovers on a Fire Island’s beach. (That end ing—which had audiences sobbing—was echoed in the final scene of Matthew Lopez’ two-part play The Inheritance . The first part ends when a seemingly never-ending parade of men who have died from AIDS walk down the theater’s aisles and re turn on stage to the setting of a country home where they sought refuge and comfort in their dying days.) Compared to films about LGBT life today, Longtime Com panion was not sexually explicit. Its aim was to depict gay life within the bounds of an R-rated film that would attract the largest possible audience. Observed René: “It’s probably more shocking to see intimacy between two men than to see sex be tween two men.” The primary gay characters in the film are attractive, up scale white professionals in their twenties or thirties. “Rightly so,” said Russo, “because this was the exact population first identified with the disease.” Russo told The Advocate at the time that the film would inevitably be criticized for not being all things to all people. “I’m tired of people who demand political correctness in art,” he said. “Not only isn’t it possible, it isn’t de sirable. It’s insulting to tell these people that their experience is somehow not valid because they’re white.” Lamos said people responded to the film the way they re sponded to another emotionally wrenching film, Terms of En dearment , and other moving stories of families struggling with life-and-death issues. Lamos acted in one of the films’ most emotional scenes as his character Sean lay dying while his part ner (played by Davison) lovingly tells him to “Let it all go.” Davison received an Oscar nomination for his performance and won the Golden Globe Award, among others. The film received mostly positive reviews, many quite en thusiastic. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers called it the year’s best domestic movie. Variety called it “simply an excellent film.” David Patrick Stearns of USA Today opined: “ Longtime Com panion isn’t simply the most authoritative dramatization yet of the AIDS epidemic and its emotional impact. It’s also a rare combination of beguiling honesty and gripping storytelling.” But there were some harsh reviews, too, especially from People magazine and Vincent Canby in The New York Times , who called the film “insipid” and was critical that the film’s gay couples were privileged and white. In passing, he also called TheNormal Heart “rudely angry” and An Early Frost “slick fiction.” “Those reviews were really harmful,” said Lucas. A TV movie based on Randy Shilts’ book And the Band Played On and the studio film Philadelphia followed the re lease of Longtime Companion . But it was primarily on stage that the stories from the epidemic in the LGBT community were being told. Terrence McNally in particular wrote about many aspects of the epidemic in plays such as Our Sons , André’s Mother , Love! Valour! Compassion! and Lips Together, Teeth Apart . The most famous stage work is Tony Kushner’s Angels inAmerica , which became the theatrical event of the ’90s. Lucas said he is proud of the film and the way it portrayed life among a particular group of gay men at that moment in time. He noted how rapidly that world has changed—and that his film is not particularly well-known by subsequent genera tions. As for the movie’s lasting impact, he simply said he’d let others decide its place in film history.

TheG & LR

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