I'm wondering why she felt the need to release a statement…All it does is re-open the question of why she never made the film. She held the rights for a decade. She had the money and the power to get it done. She didn't do it, for whatever reasons, and that's her right as an artist and a filmmaker. So why is she engaging in all this now? Of course Larry Kramer will express his opinion. That's what he does/who he is. I can't figure out why she engages in this.
Nevermind. I found it. In her defense she was responding to Kramer's distasteful accusation regarding her feelings on gay sex. She had every right to defend herself. He started it so she took it upon herself to finish it. He should keep his big fat mouth SHUT at this point he's.causing more harm than good.
There is irony here. No matter what either say/think, Hollywood was just not ready to make the film we have today. For sure Babs could have made something but getting it seen/promoted/broadcast would never have happened with the sex (scenes and dialogue) in the HBO film. I'm not sure how the work plays without it frankly.
IMHO this was one of the first mainstream gay and AIDS films with believable sexuality and romance. In many ways getting it made into a film was passionate people yelling at a brick wall.
One difference between the two is that, like him or not, this is Kramer's work...Claudia the NUT!!!!
"Carson has combined his passion for helping children with his love for one of Cincinnati's favorite past times - cornhole - to create a unique and exciting event perfect for a corporate outing, entertaining clients or family fun."
Fine- very well said. Hollywood is still not ready for gay films, proven by the fact that this film was produced by hbo and not distributed as a major motion release. Sadly, as a society we are still not there yet.
There's a story from the Anne Edwards "Streisand" biography about when Larry and Barbra were working on the screen play. To put it frankly, Larry wanted a cumshot in one of the sex scenes. And Barbra disagreed. She knew no major studio (specially at that time) would dare go near a film with something like that in it. That was basically the beginning of the end of their working relationship. We all know how Larry is, and we ALL know how Streisand is, so it wasn't exactly a fortuitous paring.
I think it's funny that even with the film just going to HBO, where film makers and screenwriters usually have free rein, Larry STILL didn't get his cumshot. Lol.
I don't remember that story from the Anne Edwards book. I read it back when it came out, which was what 17, 18 years ago? But I don't remember anything about a cumshot. There was a book that Larry described to Edwards as as "very graphic" (maybe Mapplethorpe?) that Larry showed to Barbra. She found the book "distasteful," which has now made its way into Larry's storytelling as Barbra finding gay sex distasteful in general.
I don't have the book anymore, but I'd appreciate clarification on both points if you do.
Take it with a grain of salt, but in The Normal Heart HuffPost roundtable interview, Murphy seems to imply that he didn't look very hard for a film distributor. He says something to the effect of: he was taking meetings with various distributors and HBO was so passionate he stopped looking.
I agree that I don't think any major film distributor would've taken the film as it, but doesn't seem like he even wanted to.
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA was released theatrically throughout the rest of the world. Here, no mainstream distributor would take it to theatres. I guess we should be thankful for HBO, huh?