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Schlesinger followed this most daring film with the equally shocking (for its time) Sunday Bloody Sunday (1972). One of them, Joe Buck (Jon Voight), was a sex worker who was willing to sell himself to both men and women. Considered shocking at the time of its release, Midnight Cowboy told the story of two down-on-their luck street hustlers in New York City who may have fallen in love with each other. His 1969 film Midnight Cowboy remains the first and only X-rated film to take home the Best Picture Academy Award.
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He lived as an out gay man throughout his life. Schlesinger was a fearless film director who refused to bow to the rules of political correctness. In 2015 his grave was broken into and his skull was stolen.Īctor John Malkovich played Murnau in the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, a fictionalized chiller about the shooting of Nosferatu. Murnau’s remains were returned to his native Germany for burial. According to tabloids, a 14-year-old boy was in the car with him. In 1931, at age 42, he was killed in a car accident near Santa Barbara, California. Janet Gaynor, leading lady in Sunrise, was honored as Best Actress that year, the first year of the Academy Awards.į.W.
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Murnau’s use of lighting and shadow created a mood unlike anything seen in films before or since. So read on to see some of the best LGBTQ books, the stories that changed the lives of some of the greatest writers in the world, the ones whose stories will undoubtedly go on to profoundly affect a whole new generation.A few years later, Hollywood called, and Murnau made the equally stunning Sunrise (1927). What emerges is a vast and voluminous queer canon. There are so many wonderful instances of that here. An example: two authors on this list say their life was changed by Fun Home-and so it’s a thrill to see Alison Bechdel herself write about the book that shaped her own sense of self. So often we’re not alone in having discovered a book when we most needed it. One of the unique pleasures of putting a list like this together is watching a lineage of life-changing queer literature unfold. Something that’s very true about the queer community is that we love to pay it forward and backward, paving the way for future generations while also celebrating those who paved the way for us. This list started in 2019 with 50 writers-on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots-and has swelled to more than double that, a testament both to the power of the written word and to the importance of representation and community. Over the past three years, we’ve been asking queer authors-both emerging and established-about the books that became the keys to the latch of their selves. Books, of course, are the best vessel for self-understanding, articulating feelings and experiences you often lack the language to describe yourself. There are few experiences as profound as seeing oneself reflected in art, especially if a significant facet your identity has been traditionally shrouded in shadow.