'Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders' Documentary Review: Examining the Legacy of a Controversial Queer Film
By
Guy Lodge
Pulled from the oven just right. Trustworthy, fact-dense, deeply satisfying.
Summary
A review of Jeffrey Schwarz's documentary 'Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders,' which examines the controversial 1980 film 'Cruising' by William Friedkin. The documentary explores the film's complex legacy within the queer community—initially denounced but later reclaimed as a rare mainstream depiction of pre-AIDS gay subculture. It delves into the production history, the climate of 1970s LGBT life, and the real-life murders that inspired the film, capturing a tipping point in queer culture before the AIDS crisis.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledJeffrey Schwarz's engaging, impassioned documentary takes on plenty else besides, delving not just into the film but the climate of 1970s LGBT
A film long vehemently denounced by the queer community it purported to represent, and more recently reclaimed as a rare mainstream portrait of a vanished social scene
It is many things to many people — and in disentangling its onscreen achievements and errors in judgment from its heated production history
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