The Painted Veil will open this week in New
York and Los Angeles. The film is premiering to accolades
and good reviews, including two nominations from Film
Independent's Spirit Awards. The nominated
screenwriter, Ron Nyswaner, wrote about his experience as a
gay screenwriter and director in the May 2003 issue of The
Advocate when another of his acclaimed films,
Soldier's Girl, released. The
following is his essay about the motivation behind
Philadelphia, being a young screenwriter and
capturing the story of Pfc. Barry Winchell and Calpernia
Addams.
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When Soldier's
Girl airs on Showtime May 31, 9 1/2 years will
have passed since the release of Philadelphia. And
the world has changed, more or less: Gay and lesbian
characters are staples on television, and same-sex
kisses are featured in The Hours. Perhaps being
gay isn't the issue it once was.
Homosexuality
seemed controversial in the pre-AIDS era, when, in film
school, a screenwriting teacher barred me from reading aloud
my gay-themed script. Although I protested, the seeds
of compromise were sown: My second script told the
story of a wedding, with no gay characters, not even a
wisecracking caterer.
I continued
writing scripts about heterosexuals and found success. It
didn't seem cowardly at the time; after all, I was open
about my homosexuality with everyone, including
employers.
In the mid 1980s,
during the teen film craze, I developed a script at Fox
about a gay teenage boy and his best friend, a straight girl
(presaging Will & Grace by a decade). The project
was abandoned after three drafts. I heard a rumor that
a junior executive had campaigned to keep the story
line alive, only dropping the gay aspect. This executive, by
the way, is gay.
My first
writing-directing foray, The Prince of
Pennsylvania, features Keanu Reeves battling his coal
miner father. The character is ostensibly straight but
artistic and sensitive. This is what is known as
subtext.
Philadelphia was born of grief when a beloved
young relative was diagnosed with AIDS. While I understood
the outrage that others had the courage to express, my
own anger was muted--each of us reacts
differently to pain. Hence, Philadelphia is somber
rather than fiery and was--by
some--harshly criticized. I accept the criticism.
Philadelphia did a lot of good; I meet people all
over the world who tell me that it changed their lives.
Still, I agree that it is incomplete.
Soldier's Girl-- the story of the murder of
Pfc. Barry Winchell--has given me the opportunity to
come all the way out of my closet: to be sexual,
explicit, funny, furious. Ironically, it isn't really
a gay film. The characters' sexual identities are difficult
to categorize: Barry Winchell was in love with transgendered
Calpernia Addams, who considered herself to be a
woman, despite her male genitalia. The gay issue
seems, in a way, dated. To quote my own script: Very few
people are 100% anything these days. Still, Barry Winchell
was hounded and murdered because--to his
tormentors--he was a f****t.
Have we reached
the mainstream? Is our moment running out of steam?
Perhaps this question ought to be posed to the parents of
Barry Winchell, Allen Schindler, or Matthew Sheppard.
Or Eminem.