Paris Is Burning

Truly remarkable.

One emerges from this film not only with a new vocabulary and a fresh way of viewing the straight world but with a bracing object lesson in understanding what society "role models" are all about.

Paris Is Burning preserves in cinematic amber a pre-'90s, pre-Giuliani New York City that looks and feels more hard and hostile, and yet seems more innocent.

For a little documentary, it has stayed with me for decades.

Even better for last year's book release, if you did not get a chance to see this movie thirty years ago, do not miss it now.

All these years later, 'Pose' fans will enjoy tracing its characters (not to mention plots) back to their inspirations...

More than anything, Paris is Burning is a thoroughly entertaining performance film. Beneath the theatrical trappings, though, sits layer after layer of poverty and abuse. Livingston manages to navigate those dueling moods of celebration and depression.