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Amos Lassen wrote on 03/30/2011:

We are all aware of the importance of the Stonewall Riots in terms of GLBT history and I still find it hard to believe that it was just 1969 that we began our fight for the freedom to me. This documentary looks at the people involved in the riots—the gay men, the lesbians and a police officer are interviewed here and we get first person reports what happened that night. This documentary goes just a bit further and shows us some of the television clips from 1967 that claim that we are not well and that we ourselves chose to be “deviants”. From these the film goes to the riots but unfortunately there is no footage of what happened that night. There are photographs and we have the eye-witness reports from those that were there.

I was looking forward to learning something new but it just was not there and we have seen it all before. Nevertheless, this is film cannot be discounted if for no other reason, it keeps Stonewall alive. The younger generation seems to have no idea about what went on and even worse, they seem not to really care. It s so important that they understand that the freedoms we have now are ours because we are standing on the shoulders of those that came before and worked hard.

Stonewall was our intifada and that night, June 28, 1969 marked the beginning of our liberation from a society that wanted no part of us. Those that fought that night were not the muscle men and the big guys but some drag queens, transsexuals and a lesbian who took on the New York Police Department and let them know that we had had enough.

The Stonewall Inn opened in 1967 on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village and it was run by the Mafia. It was also the only bar in New York that allowed men to dance with each other. Filmmakers Kate Davis and David Heilbroner used the book “Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the gay Revolution” by David carter as the basis for their film and they concentrated on those that were actually there that night. There is still a great deal that we do not know about that night. We are not even sure how long the riots lasted and there are three opinions about that alone and, I am sad to say, we still do not know. I am not even sure if those labeled as being actual participants actually were there or not. Some of those interviewed are Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott, who were reporters for “The Village Voice”, Virginia Apuzzo who gives us a rather unclear idea of what life was like for GLBT people in the 1950’s and 60’s, Martha Shelley who became active in Gay Liberation after Stonewall talks about what same sex love was like back then. We never learn if she was at Stonewall or not. Former New York mayor Ed Koch has something to say but then he has been in the closet for a very long time. As for the others, we are just not sure how accurate their memories are aside from a few people that were actually there—John O’Brien and Martin Boyce talk about that night and indeed have something to say. The policeman, who was there, Seymour Pine, tells us his side of what happened that night.

Davis and Heilbroner are very analytical in their approach to this documentary and they look at what was happening culturally at the time as well as the feeling of revolution that existed at the time in America and show how these when mixed with both fear and passion are what caused Stonewall to happen. We see a bit of footage and we hear Mike Wallace talk about homosexuals. Stonewall was not planned in advance—it just happened and that is what makes this film different than others. Even though there were feelings of revolution and desire to change America in the air, it was the spontaneity of Stonewall that makes it so special. So even with its flaws, this is an important film, a good film that could have been and should have been a great film. It seems that we will never know what really happened that night but we must rejoice that it did happen. It was our moment in history and we have since shown the world that we are not going back.