Tongues Untied (1989)
★★★ — Tongues Untied (1989)
Marlon Riggs made Tongues Untied in 1989 through his own production company, Signifyin' Works, on a shoestring budget supported partly by a National Endowment for the Arts grant (the same grant that would later make the film a flashpoint in America's culture wars, with several PBS affiliates refusing to air it). Riggs was primarily known as a documentary filmmaker, his earlier work Ethnic Notions having aired on PBS in 1987 to considerable acclaim, but Tongues Untied was a sharper, more personal turn, blending autobiography, poetry, and performance in a form that sat uncomfortably outside conventional documentary. The film arrived at a moment when the AIDS crisis was devastating Black gay communities largely in silence, and when mainstream America was still routinely ignoring or pathologising Black queer life.
Quick review It's a documentary by Marlon Riggs that is part poetry, part interview about the experience of Black LGBTQ men in America. I honestly didn't think I'd like it much as poetry isn't usually my thing but it opened my eyes. It breaks my heart to think that there are people in the world that are persecuted, abused, attacked and hated purely for things they can't control like skin colour or sexuality. You get one life. I also learned there is apparently a whole repertoire of finger snaps that mean different things, which was pretty fun.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 1989 | Watched: 2026-03-07
Where to watch (US)
Stream: OVID
Physical: Amazon UK
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