| San Francisco Public Library

Director: Jarman, Derek
Year: 1993
Synopsis: Derek Jarman's first film since Edward II is a humorous portrait of one of this century's most influential philosophers. Made for Britain's Channel Four TV, Wittgenstein reflects Jarman's distinctive sense of style. Inventive images and vibrantly colored costumes (most of them containing the extraordinary Tilda Swinton) are filmed against a pitch-black background; it's what Jarman calls "the eradication of all that flim-flam." The result is so striking it almost hurts the eye. It won the Teddy Award at the 1993 Berlin International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival for Best Gay Feature. Young Ludwig (Clancy Chassay) was born in Vienna in 1889. His family was wealthy, though mysteriously ill-fated. During studies at Cambridge University, Wittgenstein (played as an adult by Karl Johnson), is seen as an intensely brilliant thinker, not without his erotic impulses. He is patronized by Bertrand Russell (the sublime Michael Gough) and Russell's imperious mistress, Lady Ottoline Morell (Swinton, of course). Ludwig's search for intellectual self-development results in some rather shabby treatment of Johnny (Kevin Collins), the working-class man he loves. Wittgenstein struggled with self-alienation throughout his years. He died of cancer in 1951. His final, mocking words were: "Tell them I've had a wonderful life." Jarman's film captures this life with energy and imagination.

Director: Unconscious-Collective, The
Year: 1993
Synopsis: The first British-produced lesbian safe-sex video! Released in the U.S. as part of She’s Safe, a lesbian safe-sex video package.

Director: Lee, Ang
Year: 1993
Synopsis: Winner of the Berlin Film Festival's top prize, The Wedding Banquet is bound to be one of the year's most talked-about movies. It's a delightful comedy about the conflict between modern sexual and social values and old-world traditions. Director Ang Lee has managed to take the issues of a gay-centered situation and make them relevant to a mainstream audience, with precisely observed details and much heart-warming wit. Gao Wai-Tung has a happy and very settled life in Manhattan. Some shrewd real-estate investments keep him busy and comfortably well off; regular workouts in the gym keep him in good shape; best of all, his Caucasian lover Simon cooks first-rate Chinese food. The only trouble is Wai-Tung's elderly parents back in Taiwan. They expect him to marry and give them a grandchild. They're constantly enrolling him in computer-dating clubs, to find him a suitable bride. It's Simon who comes up with a solution: A marriage of convenience with Wei-Wei, an illegal immigrant badly in need of a green card. But no one reckons on the sheer weight of Chinese tradition when it comes to matters of matrimony and procreation. Through a chain of inevitable accidents, the simple ceremony escalates into a full-scale wedding banquet. "This is to 1993 what Strictly Ballroom was to 1992: a scintillating comedy with a serious undertow and a masterly grasp of emotional highs and lows."—Tony Rayns, Berlin Film Festival, 1993

Director: Marsh, James
Year: 1993
Synopsis: Meet the real people behind Lou Reed's classic celebration of '60s transgenderism: Joe Dallesandro and Holly Woodlawn, who both confirm the decadent drag scene that inspired the world-famous song. "Lou was fascinated by transvestites," claims Jayne County. "He had this girlfriend at the time called Rachel and she was a transsexual. It's only natural that he would write a song about three drag queens."

Director: Marsh, James
Year: 1993
Synopsis: Meet the real people behind Lou Reed's classic celebration of '60s transgenderism: Joe Dallesandro and Holly Woodlawn, who both confirm the decadent drag scene that inspired the world-famous song. "Lou was fascinated by transvestites," claims Jayne County. "He had this girlfriend at the time called Rachel and she was a transsexual. It's only natural that he would write a song about three drag queens."