Sharon Wood Movies

Academy-award winning documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman direct this harrowing, lyrical look at the persecution of homosexuals during the Third Reich. German historian and member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Klaus Muller interviews the dozen or so surviving victims, now frail and wizened, who recount their experiences. Jewish resistance fighter Gad Beck recalls how he posed as a Hitler Youth in an ultimately vain attempt at saving his lover. One man was freed from a sentence at Dachau only to be interned again a Buchenwald. Another recalls hearing, in the distance, a "singing forest" -- the sound of gays bound and tortured by Nazis in a local grove. Epstein and Friedman fashion a layered narrative consisting not only of interviews but also archival footage depicting background life in Weimar Germany. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1997, tells the story of the long and remarkable career of reporter and press critic George Seldes. Filmmaker Rick Goldsmith uses archival footage, still photos, and interviews with those who've known or have been influenced by Seldes (including Ralph Nader, Nat Hentoff, Victor Navasky, and Seldes' niece, actress Marian Seldes) to tell the story. Susan Sarandon provides the narration, while Ed Asner reads from Seldes' writings. Seldes himself provides a wealth of information and insight about his life for the film, made when the man was a remarkably lucid and energetic 98 years old. (The film wasn't completed and shown until 1996, a year after his death at the age of 104.) "There are powerful forces that don't want the facts," Seldes realized early on in his reporting career, and fought to expose the stories that needed to be told. Just after WWI, as a member of the Army press corps, he was nearly court-marshaled when he went to Berlin, against orders, and wrote about the suffering of the Germans. Throughout his career, he courted controversy by exposing the abuses of the Stalin regime, attacking Mussolini and predicting that fascism would lead to world war (at a time when others, including the New York Times, supported the fascist), and constantly decrying the influence of big money and big business on the American press. His own newsletter, In Fact, refused to accept advertising, and exposed the dangers of tobacco long before the mainstream media covered the story. The McCarthy era put an end to In Fact, but that didn't stop Seldes, who continued his writing. His appearance as a "witness" in Warren Beatty's Reds rekindled interest in his work. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

This documentary came about because the filmmakers were curious about life in a part of the United States that seemed completely alien to them from their perspective as gay men living in San Francisco. Thus, at the end of the Gulf War, they took a trip to the American South and asked anyone who would let them point a microphone at them such questions as: "What are your hopes for the future?" "Are You happy?" For the most part, the individuals questioned reveal such insular, even ignorant perspectives, that it gave even hardened reviewers a bit of a chill. One of the odder individuals they found along the way was a man who had created his own personal Graceland to please his wife, a rabid Elvis fan. No effort was made to create a coherent theme, as the documentary is basically a record of the men's trip. However, they do make an effort to investigate gay life in the South, and these investigations were reportedly the highlights of the film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide