#1082b: RIGGS, Marlon: Tongues Untied (1989)

RIGGS, Marlon (United States)
Tongues Untied (1989)
Spine #1082b
Blu-ray

Director/Writer

Marlon Riggs was 32 when he directed Tongues Untied.

Made, in Marlon Rigg's own words, to "shatter the nation's brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference," this radical blend of documentary and performance defies the stigmas surrounding Black gay sexuality in the belief that, as long as shame prevails, liberation will never be possible. Through music and dance, words and poetry by such pathbreaking writers as Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam -- and by turns candid, humorous, and heartbreaking interviews with queer African American men -- Tongues Untied gives voice to what it means to live as an outsider in both a Black community rife with homophobia and a largely white gay subculture poisoned by racism. A lightning rod in the conservative culture wars of the 1980s that incited a right-wing furor over public funding for the arts, the film has lost none of its resonance in its unapologetic, life-affirming declaration that "Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act."

55 minutes
Color
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2021
The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film critic K. Austin Collins.

Commentary

None.

Four programs

Featuring filmmaker and editor Christiane Badgley: performers Brian FreemanReginald T. Jackson, and Bill T. Jones: filmmakers Cheryl Dunye and Rodney Evans: poet Jericho Brown: film and media scholar Racquel Gates: and sociologist Herman Gray.

Excerpts

From a 1992 interview with director Riggs.

Brief introductions

By Riggs to Tongues United and Color Adjustment.

Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues (1981)

Riggs’s graduate thesis film.

Introduction

To Riggs from 2020 featuring filmmakers Vivian Kleiman and Shikeith, and Ashley Clark, curatorial director of the Criterion Collection.

I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs (1996)

A documentary by Karen Everett.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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