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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Poignant, well-received documentary that reveals the community of New York's minority drag queens, gay black and Latino men who cross dress as women and invent the dance style of 'voguing,' imitating the fashion poses on the covers of the magazine Vogue. As director Jennie Livingston discovers, her subjects band together into family-like 'houses' for protection, taking the same last names and competing in drag balls where awards are given out for authenticity or 'realness,' as well as other categories like 'evening wear' and 'executive wear.' Both an embracing and a refutation of the world of high fashion, the balls become the social locus of this underclass, underground society of outcasts defiantly refusing to be ignored by a world that scorns them. Paris Is Burning (1991) was one of several critically acclaimed documentaries of the late 1980s and early 1990s excluded from Academy Award nominations, eventually leading to a reappraisal of the Academy's stodgy selection process. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Berlin International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, ...Paris Is Burning (1990) ( The Children Are ) ( To Be Real )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I saw repeated clips of this documentary while dancing on Sunday nights at Horsemeat Disco in South London, and made my mind up to find and watch the film. I'm so glad I did.
PIB provides us with painfully honest insight into the lives of the poor, largely black, gay, disenchanted New York youths who relied on the Harlem drag ball culture for their only source of personal and socio-familial identities. Through belonging to the various cultural 'Houses', these kids (some shockingly young) found a place where they could be themselves and celebrate their sexual, social and racial identities without fear. Bold and beautiful if home spun, the Balls they attended were a life focus for many of the youth featured in the film.
Rivalry and passion are all there in this subcultural exposé, but unlike their straight counterparts on New York's streets, these gay kids used dance to air their differences and settled for being 'out-shaded' as a means to calm bad air or disputes. Theatrically utopian as it may sound, would that modern day gang members would resort to such non-lethal means as dance to settle grudges!
PIB is as much about inspiration and dreams as it is about the hottest dance movement ever to collide with this world. When voguing, these kids can become the stars they so desperately want to be. There are no economic or social barriers in dreamland, which is where their dancing takes them, as individuals and as a group. To see this astounding aspirational narrative played out is at once a privilege and a sad indictment of America's inclination to negate her forgotten youth.
With many of the film's main protagonists working as hustlers and prostitutes to survive, it is ruinously ironic that a rudimentary internet search reveals how the 'families' in the film have been decimated by AIDS. What the film displays in rude definition is that dreams and fantasies can only provide a limited protection and that too much dreaming can be as dangerous as none.
It is hurtful and deeply disturbing to know that such young, vibrant, creative and beautiful individuals are gone. What is doubtless is that the Paris they created has scorched its indelible mark on the cultural subconscious of the modern world - a fact which would plainly thrill all the mothers and children of every House, living and dead.
If Paris truly burned, the epicentre of it's heat would be a drag ball in Harlem.
Burn, baby...burn!
PIB provides us with painfully honest insight into the lives of the poor, largely black, gay, disenchanted New York youths who relied on the Harlem drag ball culture for their only source of personal and socio-familial identities. Through belonging to the various cultural 'Houses', these kids (some shockingly young) found a place where they could be themselves and celebrate their sexual, social and racial identities without fear. Bold and beautiful if home spun, the Balls they attended were a life focus for many of the youth featured in the film.
Rivalry and passion are all there in this subcultural exposé, but unlike their straight counterparts on New York's streets, these gay kids used dance to air their differences and settled for being 'out-shaded' as a means to calm bad air or disputes. Theatrically utopian as it may sound, would that modern day gang members would resort to such non-lethal means as dance to settle grudges!
PIB is as much about inspiration and dreams as it is about the hottest dance movement ever to collide with this world. When voguing, these kids can become the stars they so desperately want to be. There are no economic or social barriers in dreamland, which is where their dancing takes them, as individuals and as a group. To see this astounding aspirational narrative played out is at once a privilege and a sad indictment of America's inclination to negate her forgotten youth.
With many of the film's main protagonists working as hustlers and prostitutes to survive, it is ruinously ironic that a rudimentary internet search reveals how the 'families' in the film have been decimated by AIDS. What the film displays in rude definition is that dreams and fantasies can only provide a limited protection and that too much dreaming can be as dangerous as none.
It is hurtful and deeply disturbing to know that such young, vibrant, creative and beautiful individuals are gone. What is doubtless is that the Paris they created has scorched its indelible mark on the cultural subconscious of the modern world - a fact which would plainly thrill all the mothers and children of every House, living and dead.
If Paris truly burned, the epicentre of it's heat would be a drag ball in Harlem.
Burn, baby...burn!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Subculture? How sub do you want it? PiB allows the viewer an insight into the hidden world of the 'ball' - a form of predominantly Black and Latino gay male performance art consisting of a combination of fashion show, dance off, and battle of wits.
Our cast of characters inhabit a twilight world of hustling and hanging out, and often find that their companions in the world of the ball provide more of a family than the one most of them have left behind.
Life's not easy when you're young, poor and gay in 1980's New York, and Paris is Burning proves that the most exciting cultural moments are often the product of adversity.
Beg, steal or borrow your party gear, and let's have a ball!
Our cast of characters inhabit a twilight world of hustling and hanging out, and often find that their companions in the world of the ball provide more of a family than the one most of them have left behind.
Life's not easy when you're young, poor and gay in 1980's New York, and Paris is Burning proves that the most exciting cultural moments are often the product of adversity.
Beg, steal or borrow your party gear, and let's have a ball!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
a classic movie , a must for any gay men or simply for anybody curious to see how people were leaving in the poor areas of new york and how they were able to reinvent themselves in order to escape from 3 of the worst nightmares of wasp america..being gay being black and being poor.the glamourisation and the efforts put together by these people in order to live the dream or simply enjoying the moment or escaping from dreadful family situations is still inspiring 20 years after this was filmed.in case anybody has seen strictly ballroom by baz luhrmann ( moulin rouge ,romeo and juliet )please remember this came first.and for the madonna fans do notice that the vogue movements the posing and all the rest was in a certain way stolen from these people...
enjoyable ,lively, full of sense of humour and in some moments deeply touching...as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
enjoyable ,lively, full of sense of humour and in some moments deeply touching...as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The master piece of the documentation of club culture.
This is the master piece of the documentation of NY club culture in 1990, directed by Jennie Livingston. Read more
Published 16 days ago by Lily
paris is burning
great dvd and document of the nyc-dragscene of the late 1980's! a must for everybody who's interested in drag, transvestism and gender-performativity!
Published 7 months ago by Philipp Fernandes do Brito
Just Brilliant!
A fascinating documentary about the life and times of real people set around the ball and vogue culture of the black/latino gay community during the mid eighties in New York. Read more
Published 24 months ago by E. Abidi
Capture the moment
Really capture the moment!!!
Great fun and takes you into the birth of Vogue dancing
Great fun and takes you into the birth of Vogue dancing
Published on 1 July 2009 by F. J. M. Vallaeys
Unforgettable
Jennie Livingstone's documentary about drag queens in New York in the late 80's is a beautiful, intelligent and inspiring piece of work. Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2009 by Olivier Weber
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