#1018: LIVINGSTON, Jennie: Paris Is Burning (1990)
LIVINGSTON, Jennie (United States)
Paris Is Burning [1990]
Spine #1018
Blu-ray
The Booklet
Forty-page booklet featuring an essay by filmmaker Michelle Parkerson and a 1991 review by poet Essex Hemphill.
Parkerson writes a powerful essay:
Over an hour
Of never-before-seen outtakes.
Jenni Olson
Paris Is Burning [1990]
Spine #1018
Blu-ray
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, Paris Is Burning offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza — Paris Is Burning brings it, celebrating the joy of movement, the force of eloquence, and the draw of community.
76 minutes
Color
Monaural
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Monaural
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2020
Director
Jennie Livingston was 28 when she directed Paris is Burning.
The Film
The Film
A good documentary is — above all — informative. So if you’d never heard of the Harlem Drag Balls in the 90’s, you will learn something.
For example, a ball is a competitive event where the performers walk or pose in categories as diverse as schoolboy/girl or military.
A house is the family structure that comprises individuals who work on the same team.
A Mother (less frequently Father) who mentors and guides his Children.
Walking is competing in a Ball.
Etc.
Seven houses featured in the doc:
- House of Corey (Dorian Corey)
- House of LaBeija (Pepper LaBeija, Junior LaBeija)
- House of Xtravaganza (Anji Xtravaganza, Venus Xtravaganza, Danny Xtravaganza, Carmen Xtravaganza and Brooke Xtravaganza)
- House of Ninja (Willi Ninja)
- House of Saint Laurent (Octavia Saint Laurent)
- House of Pendavis (Freddie Pendavis, Kim Pendavis and Sol Pendavis)
- House of Dupree (Paris Dupree)
Venus was brutally murdered during the filming of Paris Is Burning. The story resulted in another documentary, I’m Your Venus (2024).
Film Rating (0-60):
53
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Forty-page booklet featuring an essay by filmmaker Michelle Parkerson and a 1991 review by poet Essex Hemphill.
Parkerson writes a powerful essay:
“Paris Is Burning has proved to be a critical but controversial triumph. Much of the controversy has centered on a perceived appropriation of a Black gay subculture by a privileged white filmmaker. It has also involved the perennial question of who has the right to tell someone else’s story, which, I posit, is the lingering dilemma at the doorstop of any documentary project … ultimately, it was the prescience of the ball-scene Children and the insight of filmmaker Jennie Livingston to recognize that the real challenge was what, in twenty-first century parlance, is known as intersectionality — the confluence of discrimination based on race, gender, sexual identity, age, class, body image, and physical ability. That is why Livingston’s documentary chronicle still has much to teach us about others, about ourselves. Now more than ever, the call for realness, that reverberating standard of ball excellence, is required.”
Hemphill burns Madonna for her song, Vogue:
“Vogue, a commercial hit, was an insult to the Black and Puerto Rican gay ball communities because the litany of names she calls in the song as representative of style and attitude deliberately excludes Blacks and Puerto Ricans. Obviously, Madonna must believe that Blacks and Puerto Ricans have contributed nothing to the theater of style and attitude originating in this country, since names like Josephine Baker, Dorothy Dandridge, and Celia Cruz are conspicuously absent from her list of the beautiful ones.”
Ouch. The video.
His contemporaneous review is intense. The penultimate paragraph begs to synthesize it all to a paradox:
“Paris Is Burning reveals the price some of us are willing to pay for membership, privilege, and ‘realness.’ Realness is valued for the obverse of what one expects realness to be. It isn’t candor that defines realness, it’s illusion. Realness is the ability to pass as something you are not, as in poor for rich, male for female, gay for straight.”
Commentary
Audio commentary from 2005, featuring Livingston, ball community members Freddie Pendavis and Will Ninja, and film editor Jonathan Oppenheim.
Excellent commentary with Livingston giving lots of back and forth with the two ballers and Oppenheim.
Conversation
Between Livingston, ball community members Sol Pendavis and Freddie Pendavis, and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris.
Audio commentary from 2005, featuring Livingston, ball community members Freddie Pendavis and Will Ninja, and film editor Jonathan Oppenheim.
Excellent commentary with Livingston giving lots of back and forth with the two ballers and Oppenheim.
Conversation
Between Livingston, ball community members Sol Pendavis and Freddie Pendavis, and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris.
Over an hour
Of never-before-seen outtakes.
Jenni Olson
Olson provides important historical context — she cites what might be the first gay film: Different From The Others (1919, Germany), starring Conrad Veidt. Later, we get Mädchen in Uniform (1931, Germany), perhaps the first lesbian-themed film.
She mentions A Taste of Honey (1961) [Spine #829] for its coded, yet implicit, homosexual character of Geoffrey (Murray Melvin).
Bringing us up to the time of this documentary’s release, she previews Marlon Riggs’ magnificent Tongues Untied (1989) [Spine #1082] and goes on to name check The Watermelon Woman (1996) [Spine #1184]; Daughters of the Dust (1991); Vintage: Families of Value (1995).
For trans representation, she mentions The Queen (1968).
“Documentary film can easily have a tone or an attitude that is distancing itself and saying ‘can you believe these people?’ and it feels more like ‘can you believe these people that are amazing!’”
Gisele Xtravaganza
Episode
Of The Joan Rivers Show from 1991, featuring Livingston and ball community members Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Freddie Pendavis and Ninja.
Of The Joan Rivers Show from 1991, featuring Livingston and ball community members Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Freddie Pendavis and Ninja.
Well, we know that Johnny wouldn’t have done it.
Joan gets down, even vogueing with the guests. Audience members volunteer to walk, and they all get trophies (which they aren’t allowed to keep).
Trailers
Trailers
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