Tongues Untied

A man looks at the camera and speaks. Then a poem comes. Then a group on the street. The documentary describes the lives of black gay men and does not do it through one narrator; poetry, dance, memory, street interviews and archive are put together. Marlon Riggs tells his own story too; what he was called as a child and what came after. There is exclusion from both sides: from the white gay world and from the black community. AIDS is inside the narrative and the losses are counted. The film ends on a slogan. Marlon Riggs directs and is in the film himself. The poet Essex Hemphill is an important part of it; Brian Freeman and Michael Bell are in it too. It is an American production and short. The documentary was shown on public television in America and caused a large controversy. Because it had taken public money it was targeted by politicians and a national argument about arts funding began. Some local stations cancelled the broadcast. Its form is mixed; documentary, performance and experimental video are used together. The matter it treats is being silenced; the title comes from there. Riggs died of AIDS a few years later and his films were reassessed afterwards. Its limit is form; the narrative is in pieces, the structure experimental, and it gives the viewer no context. Who it is for: viewers who like experimental documentary and narratives of identity. Who it is not for: it is in pieces, short, and the ending is a call rather than a close.