‘Paris Is Burning’ director Jennie Livingston chats to i-D about the film's legacy. 💃 Read here:
was that it focused too heavily on tragedy – much of the documentary shows the performers talking to the camera about homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS and poverty, with the film ultimately ending with the revelation that one of the performers, Venus Xtravaganza, was found murdered in a hotel room.
Livingston defends her decision not to end on a lighter note. “We had to think a lot about, you know – if you just make it really upbeat and fun, that’s a lie, because people are struggling. But if you make it all struggle and drugs and AIDS and death, that’s not really respectful either, because the balls are sustaining, they are amazing. So we tried to be realistic.”
Following the film’s release a number of the subjects also attempted to sue for a cut of the profits. Ultimately the suits were dropped, but the producers still distributed $55,000 to 13 members of the cast. “The truth is, there was nothing deceptive in the making of the film. If it feels unfair that people in the film didn’t get paid, well, that’s kind of how every documentary is. We did pay people something, because we said we would. We made a sale, we took some of the money and we gave it to people in the film,” she says. “The idea that I got rich and they didn’t? Well, first of all, I didn’t get rich.
Livingston says she still regularly gets people coming up to her to tell her the film encouraged them to be themselves. She recalls a gay man approaching her at Sundance Film Festival a few years ago. “He was like, ‘I grew up in a small Texas town, and your film helped me realize there was a life for me outside of my town.”who I made the film for!” she exclaims. “Everybody doesn’t have to love it, everybody doesn’t have to love you, everybody doesn’t have to resonate with the ball world.
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