TCM -- updates on the participants and the directors

HELLO!

I just saw this on TCM for the first time. I wish I had seen it back then when I just coming out.

Hats off to TCM for bring this to a larger audience!!!!!!!

I wonder if there is anyplace where it says what became of the lives of the wonderful gay men and lesbian women?

Enrique Sanchez

Miami

Thanks! Yes, the new DVD we brought out does have several films updating many of stories of the directors and participants. You can buy it here online!

Word is Out on TCM

Good morning,

I had never heard of your movie before finding it on TCM last evening. I found it remarkable on so many levels, mainly because I as a young teen in the 70s when it was made, and was apparently oblivious to all that was going on with gay activism. I found the stories to be so moving and the interviewees to be profoundly diverse.

But hands down, the best part of the “viewing experience” was coming to your website today to find what these remarkable people are doing today. Strangely, it was like seeing a dear, old friend after many years, even though I had “just met them” last night on my television.

Kudos to you for your groundbreaking work so long ago. I will definitely be buying the commemorative DVD.

Mark Newsome

Word is Out music

I am looking forward to the updated “The Word...”, the original of which I just viewed on TCM network, BUT...how can I get any/ALL the great music from that great flick.

Best regards,
C.K. Favreau

Thanks for the kind words! I'm sorry to say, that the music for the film is a bit scattered now. You would have to find the original Trish Nugent LP and I believe there are MP3's of some of Buena Vista's music up on websites. There's a little interview with the writer of the song "It's Okay" (in the film, "He's Okay"). You can read it here

and here.

Female Singer in Word is Out

Who sang the beautiful haunting song that opened the film?is there a recording? Did she record anything else?

Peace,
Jeannie

That would be Trish Nugent whose album FOXGLOVE WOMAN contains the song "Were You There" that's found at the beginning of WORD IS OUT. It was published by Olivia Records. More information can be found here.

Word is Out seen on TCM

Wow, I just happened to see the beginning of this movie last night on TCM! ( I had to check the schedule to verify I wasn't watching LOGO or DOC channel---for some reason, TCM was a surprise channel for this, at least to me!) This movie was terrific, both heart-wrenching in an understated way, and even hilarious---especially the vignette when the guy told his dad to get a whole pack of cigarettes when the dad told him he'd have the serious chat after he got a cig! I felt so bad for the people who were so scared for so long, and who have felt scared all their lives. We are a pitiful bunch of creatures to our fellow humans. My younger son came out to me at age 15, and I am so glad I did not chastise him. Honestly, I did not mind him being gay---it's just another way of being human! His friends have, some of them, been disowned, subjected to abuse, and other hideous treatment. That grieves me to no end.

Well, enough about me---but the movie brought out so many emotions. I was a college girl in 1977, and I will say now that gay discos were the place to be---better sound systems and play lists than the regular discos in our area of Madison, Wisconsin! I used to go to them with my best friend, and we may have been perceived as a couple, so we danced together like mad and had a blast. Sadly, one night after we left, we encountered a fellow looking for his retainer that had been knocked out of his mouth when some self-righteous frat boys smacked him in the face. We helped him find it---it had been broken. My friend and I were so angry for him, and also felt helpless to give him any hope. Have things improved at all? I hear such negativity by people in power.

Sorry to ramble, but that movie brought back so many feelings from that time. Sincerely, Nancy Huber

Word is Out

The movie was enlightening...still fresh after all these years. I am very curious about the lives of those chosen for the documentary, where are they and what have they done with themelves over the past thirty years?

To all ....Thank You,

Michael W.

Word is Out seen in Hartford

In Hartford, where I live.

I was six years old in 1977, and while I knew some of the culture of
that era from books, from talking to women at Michigan Womyn's Music
Festival or in potluck circles, it's so immediate seeing it on the
screen!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for doing this work, and I'm so glad
it's being redistributed for new audiences.

As they said so often in the film, it was 'right on!'

Love,
Mara

Lucy Massie Phenix in COLOR Magazine

Color Magazine. Click here to read the interview with Mariposa Film Group's Lucy Massie Phenix.

"At the time we just knew there were stories in the gay community that weren't being told, but that needed to be told. It was a very exciting time, and it's just as exciting all these years later to think people are still watching the movie and finding something they can identify with from these wonderful people. It's thrilling."

QueerSighted.com

QueerSighted.com

"Word is Out maintains its power by presenting its subjects as neither heroes nor martyrs -- just regular folks trying to make their way in the world."

Hollywood News review

Hollywood News: "You must see this movie. You must!"

GreenCine review

GreenCine review: "This terrifically produced new DVD... offers an equally terrific package of Bonus Features (you could spend a whole day with this DVD!): Word is Out, Then and Now: Thirty Years Later, featuring both the filmmakers and some of the participants, is a must. Seeing and hearing these people now is a lovely experience and, at the end of this feature, seeing those lost to AIDS and time, is a particularly moving one."

Word Is Out in Bay Area Reporter

Bay Area Reporter review is here.

"What is especially admirable about each person is his/her courage."

How Word Is Out helped make history...

Read about Word Is Out's moment in history when it showed 30 years ago in the Netherlands. Click here.

Philip Martin in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Philip Martin in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives may be the most important movie you’ve never heard of, much less seen. It was the first feature length documentary about gay people, made by gay people, and one of the first to treat homosexuality as a naturally occurring phenomenon...

WORD IS OUT playing in Hartford, CT this week!

WORD IS OUT playing in Hartford, CT this week!

View the schedule here.

Jeffrey Anderson in Combustible Celluloid

"Warmly, heartbreakingly human..."

Read the review here.

Rob Epstein interviewed in Windy City News

An interview with Mariposa Film Group's Rob Epstein to celebrate the DVD release of WORD IS OUT. Read it here!

Today's review in The Onion's AV Club

Read the full review here.

Except: Word Is Out staggers its interviews with a few musical interludes and slice-of-life vignettes, and the interviews themselves are cut together so they flow as one long, engrossing narrative. But again, the personal moments and anecdotes stand out more than the attempts to find commonalities. It’s fascinating to listen to wry old lesbian Pat Bond talk about the butch culture of the army (before hundreds of lesbians were dishonorably discharged in one infamous sweep), and how for all the refreshing openness of the ’70s, she misses the illicit romances and clearly defined codes of the past. Similarly, George Mendenhall weeps while talking about the feeling of freedom when he discovered New York gay bars in the ’50s, and how his friends would stand up to the cops by putting their arms around each other and singing, “God Save Us Nelly Queens.” The Mariposa Group contrasts that with young people realizing that now, out in the open with their sexuality and relationships, they’ll have to make their own rules for what gay romances and gay families should look like. Thanks to Word Is Out, those kinds of problems were made just a little easier for the generations that followed.

Thank you for helping to bring this film back into my life

I picked up a copy of the DVD at Amoeba on Haight Street in San Francisco. Thanks!

Several times yesterday when I talked about the impact that the film had upon me tears came to my eyes. I also had cried when I told the film makers the same story after the movie was screened at the Gay And Lesbian Film Festival a couple of years ago. And that is how as a Gay man of 18 or 19 years I had seen the film in Minneapolis, on a local PBS station. I was blown away! I hoped that my future could be as bright and wonderful as what I saw in that film....then a friend said that he was moving to San Francisco and would I like to move with him. That was in late September or early October of 1978. I said yes. (I went to my first Gay bar in Des Moines, Iowa with that friend. That was the day that we first met, and after that we would become roommates, but never more than just very good friends.)

I would have to study the film to find out if there are stronger clues now, but I do not recall being struck by the fact that a whole lot of the film was shot in San Francisco. Imagine my surprise then when I started meeting and becoming friends with people in the movie. What came first was going to see Pat Bond in her one woman production about Gertrude Stein. And then Tede Matthews and I became very close friends next. Years later I would meet and become very close with Harry Hay and John Burnside.

How is that for tear inducing wish fulfillment?!!!

Thank you for helping to bring this film back into my life,

Bruce E. Beaudette

DVD reviewed by Provincetown Banner

Provincetown Banner

By Howard Karren

“Word Is Out,” the landmark documentary about the lives of 26 articulate gay men and lesbians — ordinary yet extraordinary, joyfully out, ethnically diverse and movingly candid. The film, put together by the Mariposa Film Group, a collective of gay filmmakers, was released in 1977 (and later broadcast on PBS) and had a profound and dramatic effect on the public perception of gay life. Now, 33 years later, it is finally being released on DVD, along with some remarkable bonus material, including interviews with many of the original participants today and memorials to those who have since died. “Word Is Out” is an unforgettable film, relevant to audiences young and old, straight and gay.

DVD Beaver review of WORD IS OUT

Click here to read the review and see frame clips in DVD Beaver.

"This remains impacting and viable piece of cinema and the DVD release is an important one that we wholly endorse."

Word is Out dvd reviewed in IFC.com

"Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives (1977), then, is a gift, not just a film preserved and sold as product, but a piece of the 20th century that will now never quite fade completely from view."

To read the review, click here.