Extraordinary lives

By Kevin Thomas

July 10, 2003 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Outfest, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, has long been a major annual event attracting an ever-larger crossover audience. Here are several outstanding films that suggest the variety and range of the 21st festival:

Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer’s comprehensive yet concise “Brother Outsider” charts the fearless life and career of civil rights leader Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) and confronts why he was sometimes sidelined in the very events and movements he so skillfully organized. The reason was simple: Rustin was openly gay decades before it was remotely acceptable, and the turning point occurred when he was arrested on a morals charge in Pasadena in 1953.

For once he was jailed on a matter that wasn’t an issue of conscience, and the record of his arrest was used against him by his enemies. We learn that he sold Martin Luther King Jr. on staging civil rights demonstrations at the conventions of both parties in the 1960 presidential elections but that Adam Clayton Powell Jr. told King that if he did not back down he would spread the rumor that King and Rustin were lovers. King did back down, but so great were Rustin’s organizational skills and his knowledge of the tactics of nonviolence that Rustin was called upon to organize the 1963 March on Washington. And when the late Strom Thurmond attempted to derail the march by exposing Rustin’s 1953 arrest and his onetime membership in the Young Communist League, King and the black community as a whole stood firm.

Rustin, who had been arrested for refusing to give up a seat on a bus years before Rosa Parks, gradually shifted his tactics from protest “where there can be no compromise” to politics “where there always is compromise,” aligning his civil rights activism with the trade union movement. He spoke out against the separatist policies of Malcolm X and decried the violence espoused by the Black Panther Party; he was committed to the equality and justice of all humanity, reached out to oppressed people the world over and became active in the gay rights movement. Kates and Singer illuminate Rustin and his remarkable life with an astute blend of interviews and clips, and they end with Rustin’s observation: “We are all one, and if we don’t know it we will learn it the hard way.”

CHRISTOPHER Herrmann aptly says that his “Ghostlight” pays “impressionistic homage to Martha Graham” (1894-1991), the great pioneer of modern dance. It is a collaboration between Herrmann, a Graham biographer and confidant, and Richard Move, celebrated for his performances as Graham.

Graham emerges here as an imperious high priestess of dance and a woman of awesome courage and determination who grappled with mortality and the chronic threat of financial disaster. Not surprisingly, Herrmann and Move show us a woman of outrageous hauteur and savage cruelty who could also be kind, encouraging and not without a sense of humor.

Ann Magnuson plays a tenacious documentarian who has won the exceptional permission from Graham to shoot her rehearsing a new work, “Phaedra,” in which she casts herself as the aging Greek queen obsessed with a younger man. In its staging she confronts her own mortality, caught up in a fierce struggle to control her body movements while the young man who runs her company wonders where he will find the money to pay the dancers and get the work produced. Move is 6 feet 4, which makes Graham all the more commanding, and although he doesn’t resemble her physically, he seems to have caught her spirit, personality and unique style. He aims for an ageless-goddess look, which Graham strove so hard to attain herself.

In the pursuit of high art, his Graham risks pretentiousness and, yes, high camp. The production of “Phaedra” and the glimpses of other re-created Graham works are timelessly stunning in their passion and expressive stylization. And “Ghostlight,” which is perhaps inescapably and even rightly arch, becomes quite moving by the time it is over.

Tracy Flannigan’s “Rise Above: The Tribe 8 Doc” captures the raw energy and free spirit of the San Francisco-based Tribe 8, which describes itself as “the first totally queer women’s punk band.” Founded in 1991, the band’s five original members stayed together until two recently moved on to other projects, but Tribe 8 persists. This is the story of five young lesbians who rebelled against conventional existence and who overcame, in some instances, impoverished and unstable childhoods (and later, a lot of drugs) to discover themselves in their creativity and determination to live open, independent lives. They are all articulate, likable women with the wry humor of survivors, capable of reflecting upon and learning from their experiences, some of which are pretty extreme. On stage they tear loose, as exuberant as their audiences. On a more serious level, their lyrics are confrontational and political, but also cathartic. “Rise Above” exudes the sheer exhilaration of individuals who have learned how to live liberated, fulfilling lives.

The bleak industrial cities in the north of England have been the settings of many a gritty drama. With “Between Two Women,” writer-director Stephen Woodcock has made a notably lyrical film amid a grim setting. It is 1957, and a 10-year-boy is attending a new school. His gifted young teacher (Andrina Carroll) encourages his artistic ability; meanwhile, an instant attraction sets in between her and the boy’s mother (Barbara Marten), a woman who admits she married a cloddish, closed-minded factory worker (Andrew Marten) because she thought he might be able to “control” her. Her word choice is revealing, suggesting she feels threatened by emotions she seemingly has been afraid to confront -- understandable given her time and place. Yet she is an inherently superior and intelligent woman, unhappy in her marriage, and Woodcock generates considerable concern over what these two women will do -- or not do -- about their feelings for each other.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Outfest sites

1. Directors Guild of America

7920 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood

Limited $3 parking available beneath the complex.

2. Ambassador Hotel

3400 Wilshire Blvd., L.A.

$3 parking available at 3450 Wilshire Blvd.

(enter on Mariposa).

3. John Anson Ford Amphitheatre

2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood

On-site parking, $5; off-site parking, $3, at structures at 1718 N. Cherokee Ave. and 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. With free shuttle to the Ford starting two hours prior to the event.

4. Orpheum Theatre

842 S. Broadway, L.A.

Parking in downtown lots and structures.

5. Pacific Design Center

8670 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood

$5 parking in PDC structure at San Vicente Blvd.

6. Regent Showcase

614 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood

Valet parking, $5; self-parking in lot in alleyway behind Melrose and La Brea avenues, $5.

7. L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center

The Village at Ed Gould Plaza

1125 N. McCadden Place, L.A.