In an early sequence of An Englishman in New York, a film receiving its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, we see Quentin Crisp (John Hurt) walking - well, more like floating, placing one foot in front of another as a ballet dancer on a tightrope, along MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. The year is 1981. As he turns and walks west down the charming and colorfully decorated Minetta Lane, it's possible to spot a chronological oddity in the background. In just a glimpse, a relatively new cupcake shop, opened in a small storefront in 2007 or 2008, appears on the shot of MacDougal. The shop, a cultural artifact of a later time, specifically Sex and the City, a cupcake-generating TV phenomenon of the straight girl's sexual revolution, might appear as an anachronism for some viewers.

Without knowing the mind of director Richard Laxton or his art directing team, the anachronism actually works in context, because Quentin Crisp, styling himself with a flamboyant side-swiping fedora, overly-generous scarves and just the right shade of lipstick, becomes the embodiment of a contemporary anachronist. The driving dramatic engine of the film, the conflict between the aging Crisp, once a pioneer as an openly gay man, and the gay culture, post Stonewall, makes for entertaining and thoughtful storytelling.

Making his life as a public persona, Crisp comes alive in evening stage performances where he utters Oscar Wilde-life aphorisms in question-and-answer sessions with members of the audience. In contrast to his large public life, when at home he keeps to himself in a tiny one-room apartment that shows as much upkeep as Grey Gardens. His popularity, however, begins to strain with members of the gay community after he offers on stage his ideas on the impossibilities of true love between men. As the health crisis of AIDS unfolds, the strain fully snaps after Crisp famously utters the remark, "AIDS is just a fad." When he refuses to retract his remarks, friends and managers start falling away. It's not until he develops a friendship with the painter Patrick Angus (played strongly, with a quiet interior force by Jonathan Tucker) that Crisp begins to understand the ramifications of the health crisis.

Several themes of history and film culture meet at the crossroads in An Englishman in New York. Greenwich Village, the setting, has a long history of providing a home for the sexual revolution, dating at least back to the early twentieth century in its early manifestations of bohemia. Gay culture and Carrie Bradshaw are both a part of the neighborhood. The streets in the Village, whether they intersect at MacDougal and Minetta or at Christopher and Gay, serve metaphorically and literally as places to explore issues of identity. The film, while establishing the importance of place (New York) and the time (from 1981 until Crisp's death in 1999), also asserts the importance of honest and identifiable portrayals of gays and gay culture in the mass media.

In an important self-referential moment in the film, Phillip Steele (played by Denis O'Hare in a role that's a compilation of two friends of Crisp, Phillip Ward and Tom Steele), tells Crisp about the personal impact of The Naked Civil Servant (starring John Hurt in the original 1975 film based on Crisp's 1968 book) on his life. He would have lived a much different life had he not been awakened by the work. Steele tries to explain why role models matter, why it's critical to see and then identify with someone who takes seriously, like Crisp, to live a life of authenticity. That's why films and TV portrayals matter, as these mediums shape our undertanding of reality. In truth, The Naked Civil Servant, an import from Thames Television for TV, caused much controversy for PBS member stations in the U.S. in the mid-1970s, with some patrons threatening to withdraw support.

Times have changed, but not completely. This list of Lesbian & Gay Film and Video Festivals from Planet Out.com provides evidence of many more venues for gay-oriented cinema than in the early 1980s. Several of these festivals began, not coincidentally, with the beginning of the AIDS health crisis, a time of public misinformation, backlash, political hostility and stereotypes in the mass media. Just because words do matter, it's important for me to state from the perspective of 2009 that these same concerns, galvanizing over a different set of public policy choices, have not gone away.

Related Works on Reframe:
 

One of the most relevant Reframe films to see in order to understand the formation of Quentin Crisp's sexual identity, from the point of view of an older man in love with cinema and from the British perspective, is A Bit of Scarlet (1997). Directed by Andrea Weiss, the documentary humorously mines the archives of early cinema for representations of gay sexuality.

Before Stonewall (1986)
DIR.: Greta Schiller  TRT: 87 min
Reframe partner

Gay Sex in the 70s (2005)
DIR.: Joseph Lovett  
TRT: 71 min
New York City between 1969 and 1981 with present-day interviews and archival footage to period after Stonewall.

Pandemic - Facing AIDS (2003)
DIR.: Rory Kennedy  
TRT: 113 min

Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (2006)
DIR.:Lisa Ades Lesli Klainberg  
TRT: 82 min

Manhattan Confidential (2005)
DIR.: Milo Yelesiyevich  
TRT: 82 min
This newly-discovered East Village film gives a good sense of the New York years depicted in An Englishman in New York. "interlocking love affairs that take place in Manhattan over seven years (1986-1993) that pit “old” New York against “new” New York."

Saturday Night at the Baths - Director's Cut (1975)
DIR: David Buckley
TRT: 86 min
 

Several LGBT films are playing at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, including Off and Running, Outrage, and The Fish Child. To honor the 40th anniversary of this watershed event, Tribeca will be screening William Friedkin's The Boys In The Band, released a year after the riots. In addition to that, there will be a screening of Making The Boys, a documentary about the production of the film, as well as the play upon which it was based. For information, visit this link.

One last thing. Of additional Reframe interest - Quentin Crisp memorably played Queen Elizabeth I in Sally Potter's Orlando.

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