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Born Denis Charles Pratt, Quentin Crisp was a writer, an artist's model, an actor and a raconteur. He became a gay icon after the publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant in 1968, and even more of a celebrity when the book was filmed in 1975 with John Hurt in the starring role. This documentary asks how such a public figure - and a queer icon - fits into ideas of family, and in particular into his own family. Through an exploration of photographs, home movies and interviews with relatives, UNCLE DENIS? reflects on how traditions of familial memory-making intersect with the more public image-fashioning of one of the twentieth century's most determinedly self-made men.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
EN
Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.
