WORD IS OUT: STORIES OF SOME OF OUR LIVES - DVD review

In 1977, six people decided to make a film that would frankly examine what it was like to be a gay or lesbian in America.

It was a daring venture, and not just for the filmmakers. Those who participated were also at risk, because the United States was then an even more inhospitable place for homosexuals than it is now. Ten years before this film was made, the routine police harassment of gay bar patrons culminated in an incident at the Stonewall Inn, when the police action spurred a riot. It was both a low point and a watershed moment in an emerging gay and lesbian rights movement. This film was also a milestone.

Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown, Rob Epstein, Lucy Massie Phenix, and Veronica Selver made "Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives" so that gays and lesbians could tell their stories and others could hear them and not feel as isolated or different as they did, growing up. The film premiered at the Castro Theater in San Francisco in November 1977, the year that Harvey Milk became the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco. That was just one year before Milk was assassinated.

Change comes slowly. In 1998, Matthew Shepard was attacked and killed near Laramie, Wyoming, just because he was gay. Eventually that would lead to the Matthew Shepard Act, which, signed into law finally in 2009 by President Barack Obama, expanded the 1969 hate-crime laws to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. For gays and lesbians, this film was nearly as important. "Word Is Out" was the first documentary made by gays about gays. It truly is a "coming out" film in many respects.

This is the 30th Anniversary Edition of the film, restored and preserved by Milliarium ZERO and Oscilloscope Laboraties and distributed by Milestone Cinematheque. Included are bonus features, among them a 30-year retrospective featuring the filmmakers and participants who are still living. In 1977 the AIDS epidemic hadn't hit yet, and a number of the people involved with this film fell victim.

The six, who called themselves The Mariposa Film Group, wanted to make a film that stayed clear of politics and polemics. They just wanted to tell the story of what it was like growing up gay in America during the 1950s and 1960s. After conducting 140 interviews, they settled on 26 people who represented the broadest possible cross-section. The youngest was 18, and the oldest was 77. Some were drag queens, others had gotten married and had children before realizing they were gay. Some went into the military, while others went into business. What they shared was a sense of confusion, and a knowledge that they had to repress or keep secret this side of them.

Some of the stories are almost hard to believe. One of the men who tells his doctor about his feelings for men instantly has to hear the suggestion that he be castrated. That will perhaps solve the problem. Others were sent to psychiatrists and psychologists, and one tells a sad story of having to undergo electroshock therapy. Most of them had to endure reactions from parents that ranged from disappointment and shame to outright anger. There are some surprises, too, as when one man tells how at 15 the only way he could experience sex was with older men, because he was afraid of guessing "wrong" at his school and being made a pariah. And so he sought out older men in order to have sex with them. He was the aggressor, he says, adding that when an older "predator" has sex with a younger boy now, he has to laugh, thinking back to his own experiences.

"It's really scary standing in isolation from everybody else, and that's what I've feared most of my life: the fact that I wasn't part of . . . part of a group," another man says.

"Why weren't you into girls," a behind-the-camera interviewer asks one woman. "I have no idea," the woman laughs. "I just liked girls."

"Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives" gives voice to people who were the quiet pioneers and explorers of their time, trying to live normal lives before the lesbian and gay rights movement of the 1970s began to nag at the public consciousness. The film's power rests largely in those 26 individual stories, rather than in anything learned in film school. It's more a sociological or anthropological study, with interviews conducted in a straightforward manner and nothing extraordinary attempted in the way of editing or juxtaposition. As art, as a documentary, it's absolutely ordinary. As a social document it's positively fascinating, whether you're gay or straight.

Video:
Even with a painstaking restoration, "Word Is Out" looks awfully rough. Seeing so makes you realize that what was at stake here was mostly preservation--the halt the film's deterioration. And kudos to The Outfest Legacy Project and UCLA Film & Television Archive for attending to this. But remember that a DVD is only as good as the source materials, and this was a low-budget affair. Expect heavy grain, some washed-out colors, and an overall look that oddly matches the psychic wear-and-tear that the participants have experienced.

Audio:
The audio is a functional Dolby Digital 2.0 in English that functions as Mono. The video is rough, and so is the audio. But again, one suspects that this film was on the precipice of being lost forever, and it's good to have this version on DVD.

Extras:
The main bonus feature is a retrospective that runs around 25 minutes, and it's interesting and in some cases satisfying to see that people haven't just survived, they've thrived. Then there's a roughly 10-minute tribute to Peter Adair, who died of AIDS, and a nine-minute segment on "Afterthoughts" that tries to put the film in context. Another two-minute feature tells of the restoration, and executive producer David Bohnett has a few words. Rounding out the bonus features is an Outfest PSA, a 2008 trailer for the film, and production credits.

Bottom Line:
"Word Is Out" isn't a dazzling or exceptional film, but it's of great value as an early record and document of America's emerging gay and lesbian rights movement.