In celebration of June’s Pride Month, the New Queer Cinema trans classic film “By Hook or By Crook” will play theatrically across the US in late June at Alamo Drafthouse theaters across the country as well as digitally throughout June on the Criterion Channel streaming platform. We have the filmmaking team behind the 2002 film: co-directors/co-writers Silas Howard and Harry Dodge. Provocatively exploring issues of queer representation, gender and trans identity in ways that contemporary LGBTQ+ culture and cinema are still catching up with, “By Hook or By Crook” has created a powerful cultural impact that endures today. It was an immediate sensation upon its world premiere at Sundance in 2002, galvanizing audiences of all stripes with its never-before-seen portrayal of two working-class, trans/butch buddy grifters willfully existing on the margins of society.
This is filmmaker Nancy Buirski‘s 4th time on the podcast. She has appeared to discuss such prior films of hers as “By Sidney Lumet”, “The Rape of Recy Taylor” and “A Crime on the Bayou”. Nancy is back to discuss her latest work of non-fiction, “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy”. Nancy avers that the film is inspired by former Filmwax guest Glenn Frankel’s book “Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic”. In fact, Glenn acted as an ongoing consultant on the film. Nancy’s film —which opens Friday, June 23rd at NYC’s Film Forum— uses extensive archival material and compelling new interviews to illuminate how the 1969 film “Midnight Cowboy” captured the essence of a time and a place, reflecting a rapidly changing society with striking clarity.
