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      George Michael Preferred Music to Fame. The Doc He Made Does, Too.

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      “George Michael: Freedom Uncut,” a film the musician worked on with his longtime collaborator David Austin, tells the story of his professional life via interviews and previously unseen footage.George Michael and David Austin were best friends who met because their mothers were best friends. Austin’s family lived at 67 Redhill Drive in the working class East Finchley area of North London, and Michael’s family was at 57. The two wrote songs together and remained close even as one became a global superstar and the other didn’t.Michael was a gifted and determined musical dynamo who became a star at the age of 19, first as a member of the British duo Wham! He won two Grammys in the solo career that followed, and collaborated with some of the greatest stars of the previous generation, including Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Elton John. He was a gifted writer, producer, arranger and musician, sometimes playing all the instruments on his songs. And as a singer, he moved fluidly from Motown pop to hard funk to Brazilian bossa nova, with a voice that was sure, expressive and flush with poignancy and drama.Neither Michael nor Austin had significant movie directing experience, but neither lacked confidence, so around 2014 they began directing a documentary detailing the vicissitudes of Michael’s career and life, including pop supremacy and international scandal, euphoric love and lacerating deaths.In December 2016, they’d picture-locked the film and planned a screening for their families, who’d gathered, as they often did, to celebrate Christmas together. “We were going to show it to our parents on Boxing Day,” Austin said. “George was immensely proud of it.” But Michael died in his sleep at 53 and was found by a lover, Fadi Fawaz, on Christmas morning. The cause was a heart condition.Austin trimmed Michael’s final cut to fit a TV time slot on Channel Four in England, where it aired in October 2017 as “George Michael: Freedom.” But he was dissatisfied with the edit because it didn’t tell the full story as Michael saw it. So in the following years, while resolving some worldwide rights issues, Austin restored the final cut and added an introduction by Kate Moss and tribute performances by Adele as well as Chris Martin of Coldplay. The film, now called “George Michael: Freedom Uncut,” debuts in theaters worldwide on Wednesday.“Freedom Uncut” was preceded in 2004 by the BBC’s “A Different Story,” which included interviews with Michael’s close friends as well as his father, a Greek immigrant who’d viewed his son’s dreams of stardom as juvenile and foolhardy. Throughout “A Different Story,” Michael discusses his private life with self-mocking candor, which was one of his most charming traits: “Oh my God, I’m a massive star and I think I may be a poof,” he says at one point, describing a time when he began coming to grips with being gay. “What am I going to do?”So for “Freedom Uncut,” Michael wanted to focus on his professional life. “He said, ‘This is a different film. This is about me and about the people I work with,’” Austin recalled in a phone call from his office in London. The documentary includes interviews with fellow music stars, including Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Mary J. Blige, the comedians Ricky Gervais and James Corden, the producer Mark Ronson and the supermodels Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and others who starred in his “Freedom! ’90” video. The film includes recently discovered 35 mm footage shot by the director David Fincher, who directed “Freedom! ’90” before his successful career in Hollywood, and unseen home videos Michael made of Anselmo Feleppa, his longtime boyfriend, who died in March 1993 of an AIDS-related illness.Michael was a self-described homebody who was happiest playing with his dogs at his country house, but his career brought him into contact with music and fashion’s biggest stars. “What struck me instantly was how down to earth and what a sweet, beautiful soul he was,” the supermodel Naomi Campbell wrote in an email. “He was unique, a one-of-a-kind divine personality of our time.”IN THE RAPID-ASCENT stage of his career, Michael was a remarkably prolific songwriter: Starting in 1982, Wham! (the duo he formed with Andrew Ridgeley) had four Top 10 U.K. singles in a row. The pair’s second album, “Make It Big,” gave them three No. 1 songs in the United States: “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Careless Whisper” and “Everything She Wants.” When I interviewed Michael following the breakup of Wham!, he described the duo as a carefully plotted return to pop escapism. “I can understand why people wanted to punch me out,” he admitted.Everything Michael learned about craft and marketing conjoined on his first solo album, “Faith” (1987), which made him a star on the magnitude of Michael Jackson or Madonna. But the celebrity he’d desired and attained “had taken me to the edge of madness,” he says in “Freedom Uncut.”For the release of his next album, “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1,” he insisted his name and face not appear on the cover. He refused to promote the record or appear in his own videos. And in his song “Freedom! ’90,” he deconstructed pop stardom and exploded the foundational illusion of fandom: “I don’t belong to you, and you don’t belong to me.” It was, regardless of its message, a massive hit.Michael felt that his record company, Sony, was not promoting his new album avidly enough, and in 1992, he sued in the hope of terminating his contract. By then, he’d met Feleppa and felt loved for the first time in a sexual relationship. “I was happier than I’d ever been in my entire life,” he says in a “Freedom Uncut” voice-over.Andrew Ridgeley and Michael performing as Wham! in 1985, supporting their second album.Michael Putland/Getty ImagesHis disenchantment with stardom collapsed into depression over the following years. In June 1994, a little more than a year after Feleppa died, Michael lost the Sony case. In 1997, his beloved mother, Lesley, died of cancer. And in 1998, he was arrested in a Beverly Hills park for committing a “lewd act” with an undercover policeman, which is when he came out as gay and declared, “I don’t feel any shame whatsoever.”In the midst of these troubles, he released a 1996 album, “Older,” which included the Top 10 hits “Jesus to a Child,” written in tribute to Feleppa, and “Fastlove.” (Michael called “Older” “my greatest moment,” and an expanded edition will be reissued on July 8.) But he made only one more album of original songs in the following 20 years before his death.“Freedom Uncut” vivifies Michael for younger generations that didn’t live through the Pop Star Wars of the ’80s. He loved and emulated Black music, which created controversy in the moment — George Benson’s eyes nearly rolled back into his head when he announced Michael’s 1989 American Music Award win in the favorite soul/R&B album category. But time often engenders empathy, and the singer is now viewed as an ally. “Michael’s journey as a working-class gay white man from London who loved Black music and Black culture gave him an intersectional legacy that few artists (save Prince) will ever achieve,” Jason Johnson wrote in The Root, a website that focuses on African American issues, two days after the singer died.The fact that Michael was able to write, arrange and produce at such a high level places him in “the rarefied air of Sly Stone, Prince or Shuggie Otis,” Mark Ronson added in a phone interview. “It’s crazy, because he made incredible R&B music, but he didn’t go to America to record it” with Black musicians, he noted. “There wasn’t the insecurity of being a white soul boy from England.”Ronson also hears melancholic or even mournful qualities in Michael’s music: “A lot of our favorite artists sound catchy and peppy, but when you peel back one or two layers, you see somebody who’s dealing with serious inner demons.”Michael onstage accepting an American Music Award. The musician won two Grammys for his solo work.Alan Greth/Associated PressIN 1984, WHEN Michael was already a gleaming pop phenom in England, he went on TV and introduced David Austin, who was singing his debut single, “Turn to Gold,” which Michael wrote with Austin and produced. “I’ve known this young man since he was 2 years old,” Michael said, before declaring his pal “the biggest star of 1984.”Austin recalled, “He was telling a porky pie,” and laughed, using Cockney rhyming slang for a lie. “We’d known each other since he was the grand old age of 6 months, and I was 11 months older. From early childhood, right through to our late teens, we were together all the time.”David Austin is a stage name; he was born David Mortimer, to Irish parents. George Michael was born Georgios Panayiotou, to an English mother and an industrious Greek Cypriot father who worked in a fish and chips shop and became a restaurateur.Austin doesn’t often give interviews. Although he’s sometimes described as Michael’s manager, he wasn’t — he was a collaborator, an adviser, a deputy and since his friend’s death, he’s been in charge of the estate’s artistic decisions. In the course of a 70-minute phone call, he talked warmly about Michael, sometimes referring to him in the present tense, and joked about his own modest recording career. (“What career?”)His father made trumpets and other instruments for the British music company Boosey & Hawkes. Their home was full of instruments, and Austin learned clarinet and guitar, while Michael played drums. “We both aspired to be pop stars,” he said.By age 6, Austin had learned to use a Revox recording machine, and he recorded four or five songs with Michael, including “Crocodile Rock” by Elton John, “Wig Wam Bam” by the Sweet, who were Michael’s favorite band, and their first co-written original, called “The Music Maker of the World.” (“I’m never going to tell you what the lyrics are, because I’m going red talking about it,” he said, and chuckled.)The two friends had a band called Stainless Steel, and they decorated Michael’s bass drum with the band’s initials. “But they were slanted S’s,” Austin recalled, which made them look like the Nazi Schutzstaffel logo. “One of the parents came up — ‘Right, off with that!’ We were like, ‘What?’ We hadn’t been taught about World War II yet.”After that, Michael and Austin played in a five-piece ska band called the Executive, with their pal Andrew Ridgeley. “We were terrible, but everyone loved us,” Michael had told me years ago.But when the Executive broke up, Michael and Ridgeley kept working together, finding almost immediate success as Wham! while Austin chased a solo career. “It was very hard at the time, watching my two best friends have enormous success,” Austin admitted. “It took me a few years to accept.”The success of Wham! “opened the door to the industry for me,” Austin continued. But he turned out not to be the biggest star of 1984. After Wham! broke up in 1986, he and Michael went to the south of France and tried to write Austin’s next single. Michael wrote “I Want Your Sex,” which Austin demoed, and the two wrote “Look at Your Hands” together. But Austin’s label didn’t love the songs, so Michael held on to them and released them on “Faith.” (That album has gone 10 times platinum, giving Austin considerable publishing royalties.)As a director, Austin’s strength was his rapport with Michael, and his inside understanding of the singer’s feelings and fears, going all the way back to Redhill Drive. He even knew Michael during his awkward phase: “People have no comprehension of what I looked like as a kid,” the singer had told me, laughing wildly. “I was such an ugly little bastard.”Austin confirmed his friend’s self-effacing analysis: “George didn’t feel attractive as a child,” he said. “People who go on to have extraordinary careers, quite often there’s something lacking in their life. The career is filling a void, and that’s what the extra drive is about.“When you initially get there, it’s everything you want.” he added. “Then when it becomes huge, you realize fame will never, ever fill that void.”Rather than repairing anyone’s bad feelings, fame is more likely to exacerbate them. Michael figured this out, Austin said, which is why he spent his last two decades among friends and family, more than in front of fans. “Now I’m gonna get myself happy,” he sang, and he did.“George and I used to fight as kids, and even as adults,” Austin said. “But we were incredibly close. Music, family, close friendships — those are the things in life that fill the void.” More

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      ‘Civil: Ben Crump’ Review: What Becomes of a Missed Opportunity?

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      The documentary “Civil” follows Ben Crump, the prominent attorney who has represented families affected by police violence, for one turbulent year.At the beginning of “Civil” — a documentary about the civil-rights attorney Ben Crump — a phone call from Tera Brown, a cousin of George Floyd, comes into Crump’s office. Crump listens compassionately as Brown relates the 2020 murder of her cousin by a Minneapolis police officer. Crump gently offers her some advice about next steps, then rests his head in his hands. The image of Crump holding his own head, and of Crump rubbing his eyes, is repeated throughout “Civil.” It is the weary physical response to ongoing injustice and to a schedule that keeps the lawyer on planes and on his smartphone, pursuing lawsuits intended to make police departments and municipalities pay financially — and the media and the court of public opinion pay heed.Most viewers will likely recognize Crump as a high-profile legal representative for family members not just of Floyd but of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor and Andre Hill, too, to name some of his clients’ loved ones who have been killed during encounters with the police.The director Nadia Hallgren filmed Crump over a year during 2020 and 2021, and her portrait has instances of tag-along intimacy. The phone calls to Crump’s wife, Genae, and daughter, Brooklyn, as well as his check-ins with his mother, Helen, provide ballast amid the upheaval. And the biographical details about the college, law school and fraternity that shaped Crump tease his roots in Black communities.Yet “Civil” yields fewer insights than hoped. At times, the neat documentary feels nearly as tailored as Crump’s suits. (Perhaps this is what happens when verité-style filmmaking follows such a camera-ready subject?) Given Crump’s vital role in momentous litigation, “Civil” may be crucial viewing — but it’s not always revealing.Civil: Ben CrumpRated PG-13 for strong language and images of violence. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      In the Documentaries of the Blackwood Brothers, Great Artists Are Explored

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      Several films from Michael and Christian Blackwood, grounded in the nitty-gritty of art-making, are available to watch through June 28.The collected documentaries of Michael and Christian Blackwood offer an extended studio visit with some of the 20th century’s leading artists. Here are artists at work and in conversation, with a minimum of frills: painters painting, sculptors sculpting and the jazz genius Thelonious Monk blazing away at the piano (and later telling a band member to drop in “any note you want”). If you’ve seen one too many art and music documentaries that resemble Wikipedia entries, then these back-to-basics films will be a genuine tonic, grounded in the nitty-gritty of art-making.Born in Berlin before World War II and later safely settled in the United States, the Blackwood brothers started making their films in the 1960s at the height of a revolution in nonfiction storytelling. Over the years, their mid-length films didn’t garner the high profile of direct cinema pioneers like Robert Drew (“Primary”) or D.A. Pennebaker (“Don’t Look Back”). But the Blackwoods’ art-friendly version of you-are-there filmmaking has a rarely rivaled scope of subjects, and a free sampling is now streaming online through Pioneer Works, the Brooklyn cultural center.“Monk”/”Monk in Europe” (1968) surely has one of the greatest opening shots in documentary: the jazz titan dancing in place in his inimitable style, spinning in the dark. From there the Blackwoods’ chronicle is off and running, leaning in to show Monk’s hands gliding across the piano in several lengthy performance excerpts, or hanging out backstage with him and a supporter (Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the Rothschild heir). The Blackwoods — Christian shooting, Michael directing and producing — skillfully set their documentary to Monk time, rather than cutting up his flow into bite-size pieces. He plays — he’s hustled to another gig across Europe — he chills — he waves away a producer’s request to record “something free-form,” preferring to play something easier “so people can dig it.”The artist Robert Motherwell, the subject of the documentary “Robert Motherwell: Summer of 1971.”Michael Blackwood ProductionsThe revealing offhand exchange is a signature moment of spontaneity for this style of documentary, and the Blackwoods are also strong when letting an artist hold forth at length. “Robert Motherwell: Summer of 1971” (1972) belongs to a subset of films about the New York School, and it’s a fascinating time capsule that’s part self-administered close reading, part art history lesson. The stately Robert Motherwell dabs another brush stroke on his latest elegy to the Spanish Republic, then reflects on how this recurring theme is like a lifelong relationship with a lover. We tag along for a visit to a genteel gallery opening in St. Gallen, Switzerland, but what sticks in the mind is Motherwell’s self-aware observations about the simultaneity of art movements. Picasso, Arp, Matisse and Degas were all alive and (mostly) kicking in the 1910s — the kind of insight that lights up other intersections all across history.“Christo: Wrapped Coast” (1969) might feel like a throwback with its voice-of-God narration: “Once Christo had decided to wrap part of a continental coastline …” But this 30-minute film of Christo’s project in Little Bay, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, yields shifting perspectives on the billowing fabric as workers drape it across crags on the shore. The white wrapping looks delicate, treacherous, glorious, and foolhardy; when gales cut it all to ribbons, art turns instantly into ruins. Christo has no shortage of chroniclers, but the film aptly shows off the Blackwoods’ mission of documentation. One of their favorite camera moves — in “Philip Guston: A Life Lived” (1981), for example — is an eager pan around a studio or gallery, as if to take it all in for posterity.A scene from “Wrapped Coast,” about the artist Christo.Michael Blackwood ProductionsMichael and Christian Blackwood began to work independently in the 1980s, but neither stinted on curiosity. “The Sensual Nature of Sound (1993),” covering the composers Laurie Anderson, Tania León, Meredith Monk and Pauline Oliveros, intersperses sit-down interviews with performances and rehearsals in a relatively routine way, but the bright vitality of the musicians is anything but. Their work rewires the brain, from Monk’s operatic, spoken-sung production of “Atlas” to the majestic Oliveros’s ethos of deep listening.A couple of times while watching these documentaries, the recent “Get Back” film on the Beatles’ recording sessions came to mind, because of its exhaustive attention to process. But that project’s thrill lies in seeing the very first fragments of pop songs that have played millions of times. The Blackwoods just as often take us deep into the abstract and the unknown. Listening to artists articulate their intentions and hazard guesses about reality opens up fresh conversations and musings for a viewer.The French artist Jean Dubuffet might have the best last word here. In “The Artist’s Studio: Jean Dubuffet” (2010), he responds to Michael Blackwood’s prompt by explaining that “culture is creation done” (that is, something already completed) and “art is creation in process.” It’s an intriguing and arguable distinction, but the sweeping terms neatly apply to the Blackwoods’ watchful art documentaries: they’re about art and culture, and delight in both. More

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      ‘Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma Ikuta’ Review: A New Path

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      Cameras follow Ikuta, an actor on popular Japanese teen dramas in the 2000s, as he learns Kabuki’s expressions and movements from a friend.Toma Ikuta grew up around people who excelled at performance. While appearing on several popular Japanese teen dramas in the 2000s, Ikuta attended high school with other young actors and singers, so many of whom rose to fame that Ikuta and his best friend, the Kabuki actor Matsuya Onoe, bonded over not getting as many acting gigs as their peers. As Ikuta grew older, watching his classmates pursue their careers beyond the teen idol phase began to take a toll on his own self-esteem: “There was jealousy,” he admits in the new Netflix documentary “Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma Ikuta,” adding, “or rather, I felt ashamed for the first time.”The film, directed by Tadashi Aizawa, follows Ikuta, now in his mid-30s, as he works to fulfill his lifelong dream of acting in a Kabuki performance, where he feels that he truly belongs. His passion for the art form was inspired by Onoe’s late father, also a prominent Kabuki actor, and it’s Onoe himself who leads the production and teaches Ikuta the fundamentals of Kabuki-style expression and movement, including roppo, the dramatic way that Kabuki performers may exit the stage, and mie, the distinct poses that actors settle on during moments of emotional intensity.Even for viewers with no relationship to Ikuta or his prior roles, “Sing, Dance, Act” provides a fascinating look into Kabuki theater and the particular sets of skills that are required to pull off such idiosyncratic performances. And it’s undoubtedly satisfying to watch Ikuta, initially unsure of himself, transform into a promising Kabuki actor who leaves even the pros in admiration. In perhaps the film’s clearest window into what makes Kabuki mastery so elusive, a renowned Kabuki actor points out how impressed he was by a single, subtle turn that Ikuta made during one of his scenes. “I doubt anyone else noticed it,” he admits. But “as a professional,” he adds: “Wow, he pulled it off!”Sing, Dance, Act: Kabuki Featuring Toma IkutaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Stay Prayed Up’ Review: Spreading the Gospel of Love

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      A new documentary about the gospel ensemble the Branchettes and its guiding light, Lena Mae Perry, is a plain-spoken tribute.In the opening moments of “Stay Prayed Up,” the plain-spoken and pleasant documentary about a gospel music ensemble, a young boy waves the viewer inside a bright-white church that almost glows in the North Carolina sunshine. There, the Branchettes are both performing and recording a live album. The smiling kid promises that the proceedings are “going to be churchy” and that you might find some friends inside.The film can’t be called world-historical or any such thing. But the group, led by Lena Mae Perry (and backed by instrumentalists called the Guitarheels), is inspiring in the ways of both shaking the rafters and invoking peace in the valley.Perry, a singer in her 80s and the guiding light of the Branchettes, is a presence both formidable and gentle. A powerful alto, she founded the group in the early 1970s with two now-departed comrades, Ethel Elliott and Mary Ellen Bennett. The trio forged a distinctive three-part harmony and eventually built a following in the state.Perry was raised on a tobacco farm, and proudly recalls her expertise at tying up tobacco leaves. The work wasn’t hard, she insists; it was just what her family did. She recalls her experiences of racism with a similar equanimity, no doubt a result of her religiosity — a belief in the gospel of love that appears profound but not inordinately dogmatic.Her group now encompasses several generations. The Guitarheels’s leader, Phil Cook, a pianist from Wisconsin, sheepishly admits that his first exposure to the music was via the 1993 Whoopi Goldberg comedy “Sister Act 2.”This movie is directed by D.L. Anderson and Matthew Durning and was produced under the banner of Spiritual Helpline, which is also the name of the record label, started by Cook, that made the Branchettes’ live album. As self-promotional ventures go, this is an effort of integrity and good will, and packs in a lot of spirited music that more or less sells itself.Stay Prayed UpNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Halftime’ Review: Let’s Get Loud

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      In the Netflix documentary about Jennifer Lopez’s life and career by the director Amanda Micheli, the political moments are brief, and then it’s back to rehearsal.A film about Jennifer Lopez and her performance at the Super Bowl in 2020 was bound to generate headlines, but the Netflix documentary “Halftime” makes sure it happens. The multihyphenate’s accomplishments can stand on their own without, for instance, a single publicity baiting remark from her boyfriend, the actor Ben Affleck.His cameo is only a small part of the brand management at play here as the director Amanda Micheli does her best to effectively tell a full-bodied story that reaches beyond what it seems Lopez wants you to know.A political moment — like when Lopez calls President Trump an expletive for his remarks connecting Mexican immigrants and crime — is only a political moment for so long, and then it’s back to rehearsal or the makeup chair. Complex topics like being a woman in a male-dominated movie industry and Hollywood double standards are explored briefly; more often, Lopez comments on fan-service subjects like the tabloids and that iconic Versace dress from the 2000 Grammys.The most captivating arc is how and why Lopez became so outspoken during the Trump era. She says that worrying about her children’s futures, and “living in a United States she didn’t recognize,” galvanized her. But even those scenes build tediously to what should feel like a more triumphant ending, when she shares why she couldn’t, in good conscience, agree to take the Super Bowl halftime stage without standing against anti-immigration measures. By the end, Lopez wins her fight with the National Football League to include children in cages as a human rights statement.In “Halftime,” she is seen in top J. Lo form, an empowering Hollywood icon with an inspirational story to share. Is that reason enough to watch this scattershot portrait? It depends on if she had your love to begin with.HalftimeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      A Queer-Film Historian Discusses Movies That Provoke

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      Elizabeth Purchell, who has programmed a series on the documentaries of Rosa von Praunheim, sees Pride Month as a chance to discover, and uncover, the past.Elizabeth Purchell isn’t afraid of “Transexual Menace,” even though she is a transgender woman and the film sounds like the kind of hateful propaganda you’d find for sale at a convention of conspiracy nuts.But “Transexual Menace” is a cornerstone of documentary filmmaking about transgender people — a 1996 time capsule made by the maverick and prolific queer German director Rosa von Praunheim. And Purchell, 32, is a historian of queer film who has a soft spot for movies that provoke, arouse, tickle and otherwise stir the queer cinema pot.“It’s great that we have queer rom-coms, but I want to be challenged,” said Purchell during a phone interview from her home in Austin, Texas. “I don’t want to see the 200th coming out film.”“Transexual Menace” is one of six documentaries in “Revolt of the Perverts,” a new von Praunheim retrospective that Purchell put together for Brooklyn’s Spectacle Theater, where the series continues through June 27. Purchell will be in town at the end of the month to introduce some of the films in person.The series is one of the latest queer movie endeavors from Purchell. Her work as an archivist, historian and curator includes a podcast, Instagram account and experimental documentary about gay adult cinema history — all named Ask Any Buddy. She also recently recorded audio commentaries on new restorations of films by the gay adult film directors Fred Halsted and Arthur J. Bressan Jr.On Being Transgender in AmericaGenerational Shift: The number of young people who identify as transgender in the United States has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report.Phalloplasty: The surgery, used to construct a penis, has grown more popular among transgender men. But with a steep rate of complications, it remains a controversial procedure.Elite Sports: The case of the transgender swimmer Lia Thomas has stirred a debate about the nature of athleticism in women’s sports.Corporate World: What is it like to transition while working for Wall Street? A Goldman Sachs’ employee shares her experience.For custodians of queer film history, Purchell is a standard-bearer.“Elizabeth is doing amazing curatorial work in identifying significant and lesser-known things that deserve to be elevated,” said Jenni Olson, a queer film historian and archivist. “Sometimes I’m not sure how she finds things.”Purchell, who came out as a transgender woman just last November, recently talked about the state of queer cinema and what under-the-radar movie she’d recommend watching for Pride. The interview has been edited and condensed.What’s your goal as a queer-film historian?To get people excited about history and look beyond the surface of queer cinema. I think people want to see more queer films, not just the same five movies over and over. They want to see performances, actors and personalities they’ve maybe never seen before, like Holly Woodlawn and Taylor Mead.In what shape is queer cinema now?It’s remarkable that queer cinema has grown into this gigantic ecosystem of filmmaking. But I want more. I want trans filmmakers to make the films they want to make. I want to see filmmakers push boundaries. Queer cinema should be more than just X film but make it gay — thriller but make it gay or horror film but make it gay. I want to see what’s next.Anna Cobb in “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.”UtopiaIs there a queer film out now that does that?“We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” It’s about trans issues, but other people might not pick up on that. It’s undoubtedly a queer film that isn’t textually queer. I find that exciting.How did you first become interested in gay pornography?A few years ago, my partner and I went to a screening of “Bijou,” and Wakefield Poole, the director, was there to introduce it. It opened my eyes to this entire world I didn’t know about. I thought, if this one film exists, what else is out there? So I watched “Thundercrack!” and “L.A. Plays Itself” and it made me want to see more.What did you learn about the connection between pornography and mainstream gay cinema?I don’t think people realize there’s this hidden history of queer filmmaking contained in adult films. People tend to think queer cinema began with New Queer Cinema, but adult films laid the groundwork. The films were made for very little money, but the theaters they played at were safe social spaces for people to watch movies, cruise and meet other people.The other thing that struck me was how connected these films and filmmakers were to mainstream gay culture. If you look at old issues of The Advocate from the ’70s, you see stills from gay porn and reviews of the films. The genre was a crucial vehicle for gay ideas and imagery to make their way across the country.You came out as transgender pretty recently. How has that experience been?People have been very kind to me personally. Growing up in Tampa in the ’90s, there was no way for me to know what trans people were or what it was like to be trans or who could be trans. I settled on I’m a gay man and did that for about a decade. I was working on the Fred Halsted Blu-ray, and I slowly started to realize I was trans. “Sextool” is a Halsted film with a trans woman in it. She’s not in the sex scenes, but her presence got me researching all these trans people and trans history. It just suddenly began to click.Gerald Grant and Claire Wilbur in the Radley Metzger film “Score.”Audubon FilmsIs there an under-the-radar movie you’d recommend people watch during Pride?Radley Metzger’s “Score.” It’s an adaptation of the play by the great Jerry Douglas, a pioneering gay playwright, filmmaker and incredibly important historian. Jerry passed away last year. It’s one of my favorite movies. It’s about this swinging couple who have this game to see who can make it first with someone of the same sex from another couple. It’s a wonderful example of how sex and cinema can combine to create something honest.What is it like to be a transgender person working in queer cinema in Texas these days?You think of Austin as this big liberal bastion, but you’re still in Texas. You drive a mile outside the city and you see the pro-life billboards. I run a queer film series through the Austin Film Society. What I’ve been trying to do is build a community and give people a safe space to explore film. Our screening of “Cruising” sold out. People were in full gear.Full gear?There was a furry bear wearing nothing but a leather jock. It was really wonderful. More

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      ‘The Janes’ Review: Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

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      This HBO documentary spotlights the women activists who banded together to form Jane, a clandestine group providing safe abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade.“The Janes” is a straightforward, talking-heads documentary from HBO that provides a brief history of the Jane Collective, a clandestine abortion group working out of Chicago in the late 1960s and early ’70s.Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that protected a women’s right to an abortion, had not yet been handed down, meaning the procedure was illegal in most states, forcing women with unwanted pregnancies to turn to exploitative abortion providers (like the Mafia) or resort to dangerous methods to self-induce an abortion.This situation — and the can-do spirit of the times, cultivated by the civil rights and women’s liberation movements — sparked the members of Jane into action.The documentary, directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, relies primarily on testimonies from the Jane Collective’s women volunteers, tracing their efforts from the beginning — when the group was merely a referral service — to their final days contending with law enforcement.Ultimately, the Jane Collective provided close to 11,000 abortions by the time Roe v. Wade came into effect, at which point the group ceased its activities. (Though the renewed push for restrictive abortion laws today, and reports of the present Supreme Court’s ruling on a case that could overturn Roe, casts a sense of bleak uncertainty over the film’s otherwise triumphant conclusion.)Cookie-cutter though it is, “The Janes” does have something going for it: its interview subjects, the former Janes, who all speak about their beliefs and shared past with striking clarity. They remind us that their work — their commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of other women — was not really all that radical, but a measured, intelligent response to the inadequacies of a system that refused to fend for its own.The JanesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More