For Throwback Thursday Queerguru checks out the first short made by queer filmmaker Mark Christopher best known for as the writing/director of ’54’ and the subsequent ‘54 The Directors Cut.
Christopher was 29 years old in 1992 when he wrote and directed Dead Boys Club. It is the story of Toby an innocent young man who is visiting his cousin Packard in NY and is helping him pack up the possessions of hie lover recently who had recently died from AIDS. It’s a time when most of the world had still not have totally grasped the total enormity of the pandemic.
Packard gives his cousin a pair of shoes that his lover always wore when they went out dancing. The moment Troy puts them on he is transported to the carefree pre-AIDS 1970s world of promiscuity, hot guys, and glitter balls..
Whether Toby is based on Christopher himself who grew up as a (innocent?) farm boy in Iowa is not clear, but it does show his remarkable insight with Toby’s enjoyable coming out at a time when most of our community had little to be happy about.
At the time Dead Boys Club was first released it was hailed by influential critic & academic B Ruby Rich as one of the defining films of New Queer Cinema and went on to pick up 3 Awards . Looking back now it reminds us of the crucial role that filmmakers such as Christopher played in recording our history as painful as it was to so many of us.
Dead Boys Club is being screened as part of Frameline 44 Virtual Film Festival later this month , but can also be seen in full below
P.S. You may also like to watch this interview that Mark Christopher gave Queerguru to mark the release of 54 The Directors Cut in 2016 http://c3f.ab6.myftpupload.com/rwd-talks-to-filmmaker-mark-christopher/
Labels: 2020, Aids, Frameline, Mark Christopher, short
