[b]ROBERT MAINOR IN BEFORE YOU KNOW IT[/b]

Old and gay, happy and sad

Laval has made a documentary about being gay and old that focuses on three men in separate parts of the US and their lives. It starts with 76-year-old Dennis Creamer, who is lonely and long-closeted. He was in the Air Force, and once a racquetball champion but "those days are long gone." When his wife died, he was lost and suicidal. Now he has a literal closet full of women's clothes he only dares to put on at home. He contacts people via gay sites but has made no real connection. Ty Martin is a black activist with SAGE in Harlem who does outreach to older gay men. Harlem does not have a single gay bar, he says. He talks about his serious relationships, with a longtime lover, and a longtime friend met in the Navy. Robert Mainor, 73, runs a gay bar in Galveston, Texas. He is jolly, highly social, and a bit nelly, and seems always surrounded by pals and his bar, Robert's Lafitte, which has a long-running drag show and many party events. The comic and obscene show would make John Water's Divine jealous.

What we see here is a rainbow cross section. All three men went through early years of invisibility and hostility: unfortunately Dennis stayed forever marked, while Ty and Robert found ways to thrive. It's never too late, though, since later Dennis crosses the country to join Rainbow Vista, a gay retirement home in Portland, Oregon. Here, he risks going out on the street at night in drag, and to a club. Who would have guessed? But he's only there part time, still maintaining residence in Florida, to be close to his family there -- to whom he is not open about his sexuality. Are these three men, with their very different, and well-examined, lives, sufficient to provide a picture of growing old while gay? Probably not. Laval "puts a human face" on issues, even if it's not enough faces.

The film has other surprises: Ty says there is more homophobia in Harlem now than when he was young. But his outreach table on Harlem day does well nonetheless. Ty is trying to extend family in Harlem to gays. When New York votes for gay marriage, there is wide celebration and a big public step forward which Ty shares in. But despite this, Ty's less public and older longtime lover Stanton is not ready. Robert's Texas bar is a essentially big gay family for the aging and the outcast that parties a lot, with the help, of course, of plenty of liquor. Sometimes it might seem as though Dennis, who still does yard work, may be healthier, without the false jollity of alcohol. But clearly even if he can't share in the social victories he has worked for, Ty is the most articulate of the three and his activism and public awareness have helped make him not only the most positive but the most aware of how gay people stand in the world today.

This must be the point of the film's constant shifting back and forth among the three men, which otherwise would have no special point: to compare them, to assess their solutions. It doesn't seem altogether right, but then this is a thing documentaries about a certain group tend to do. And this is as much a film about growing old as about being a gay man in America, and about the choices people make and how it is to live with them. Laval has made interesting choices in focusing on these three men, and in following each of them for a year, provides a sense of their journeys.

Robert's bar is threatened with closing, his health is deteriorating, and he's involved serious legal trouble; some of the jollity was an escape. Dennis, remaining lonely and grim, can't choose between Florida and Oregon, though his life is opening up a little bit, or seems to. He goes on gay cruises, though that's hard too, to do it older and alone. Ty is concerned about dying alone, too. And when his best friend is getting married and he isn't, but is best man, it's obviously uncomfortable for him even though he denies it.

And so on. Back and forth we go between the three very different men and lives. And the material is all personal and touching. And it is never quite enough. But also too much, because the editing isn't tight enough, and it goes on too long. One thinks of Edmund White's long-ago book Travels in Gay America and can't help thinking that in purely social terms, this film is far too narrow a picture. Any treatment of the topic with such complex public ramifications, is welcome, but we need more such films, with different approaches. The larger issue, that LGBTQ seniors may have less access to health insurance, social services, is only touched on. To do so would be a larger project.

Before You Know It, 110 mins., debuted at SXSW, other festivals followed including San Francisco and Edinburgh. Theatrical release begins May 30, 2014 in NYC (Quad Cinema). Screenings in other cities in June can be found on the film's Facebook site. OPENING: June 13, 2014 Laemmle Music Hall, LA; June 20, Arena Cinema, LA.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.