Main Cast: Richard Ganoung, John Bolger, Steve Buscemi, Adam Nathan, Patrick Tull
Release Year: 1986
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Gay yuppie Robert (John Bolger) accepts an assignment in Africa that will put his strained relationship with his lover, Michael (Richard Ganoung), in limbo for the next few years. Michael, meanwhile, tends the needs of his ex, Nick (Steve Buscemi), whose punk band's video is getting MTV airplay even as he battles HIV and bittersweet memories in a claustrophobic apartment. After a farewell dinner thrown by Robert's foppish boss and his luminous wife, Michael and Robert fret and frolic with a host of Manhattan hipsters at a party thrown by their artist friend Joan (Kathy Kinney). These various crowd scenes set the stage for a series of one-on-one interactions that explore the romantic and other tensions of early AIDS-era Manhattan without offering too many easy resolutions. Buscemi would become an indie regular, while Kinney would go on to achieve fame on The Drew Carey Show in the 1990s. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
A minor classic of both gay and independent cinema, this smart, sad, and funny ensemble piece gave Steve Buscemi his first film role and writer/director Bill Sherwood his only feature credit -- he died of AIDS in 1990. Loopily episodic in structure, Parting Glances nevertheless accumulates emotional gravity and narrative momentum as it drifts from one well-heeled gay Manhattan milieu to another. From chic loft parties that chronicle the remains of New York's hip downtown scene to formal dinners where Bloomsbury marriages receive sly if complicit ridicule, the film gathers a wide cross section of queer hipsters and sophisticates whose lives are all touched, if only glancingly, by the twin spectres of AIDS and urban loneliness. Many critics have pointed out that Buscemi's AIDS-afflicted punker makes the most indelible impression, and it's true that he gives the picture its emotional center, but it's the interconnectedness of these characters, from the naïve but cute cashier to the lovers who can't learn to live happily together, that makes Parting Glances such a luminous pleasure. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Nicholas Hill - Cab Driver; Kathy Kinney - Joan; Daniel Haughey - Commendatore, Ghost; Yolande Bavan - Betty; Cam Brainard - Ricky; Theodore Ganger - Klaus; Hana Hartowicz - Chris' Mother; Sylwia Hartowicz - Chris,Little Girl; Bob Kohrherr - Sam; Kristin Moneagle - Sarah; Nada - Liselotte; Patrick Ragland - Ex-Seminarian; Jim Selfe - Douglas' Sidekick; John Siemens - Dave; Richard Wall - Dougles
Credit
Daniel Haughey - Art Director, Mark Sweeney - Art Director, Sylvia Heisel - Costume Designer, Barrett Sherwood - Director, Bill Sherwood - Director, Bill Sherwood - Editor, John Franco, Jr. - Makeup, John Loggia - Production Designer, Jacek Laskus - Cinematographer, Arthur Silverman - Producer, Yoram Mandel - Producer, Anne Mitchell - Set Designer, Bill Sherwood - Screenwriter
Parting Glances is an American film shot in 1984 and released in 1986. With its realistic look at urban gay life in the Ronald Reagan era and at the height of the AIDS crisis, many film critics consider it an important movie in the history of gay cinema. It was also one of the first American films to address the AIDS-HIV pandemic. First-time director Bill Sherwood died of complications due to AIDS in 1990 without ever completing another film.
The story revolves around a gay male couple, Robert and Michael, in their late twenties, living in New York City. Robert (John Bolger) is leaving for two years on a work assignment in Africa while his partner, Michael (Richard Ganoung), stays behind. Michael's ex-boyfriend, Nick (Steve Buscemi), for whom Michael cooks, looks after and is still in love with, has AIDS.
Parting Glances plays out over a two-day period with scenes taking place at a farewell party for Robert hosted by the couple's friend, Joan (Kathy Kinney), and at a dinner party hosted by Robert's employer, Cecil (Patrick Tull), and his wife, Betty (Yolande Bavan), who have an unconventional marriage.
While classified as a drama, the film also contains many comedic moments. Critics praised the movie's witty, realistic dialogue and detailed evocation of gay and gay-friendly urbanites in 80s Manhattan. Parting Glances was also one of the first motion pictures to deal frankly and realistically with the subject of AIDS, and the impact of the then relatively new disease on the gay community. In one scene, Nick talks fondly of the 70s and early 80s era of decadence to a younger, college-aged gay man.
Bronski Beat songs "Love and Money," "Smalltown Boy" and "Why" are included in the film.
Preservation and Restoration
In 2006, Outfest and the UCLA Film and Television Archive announced that the film would be the first to be restored as a part of the Outfest Legacy Project.
On Monday, July 16, 2007 as a part of the Outfest Legacy Project, a restored print of Parting Glances received its world premiere at the Director's Guild of America in Los Angeles. The four major stars of the film, Richard Ganoung, John Bolger, Steve Buscemi and Kathy Kinney were all in attendance, and participated in a panel discussion after the viewing.
The restoration print received its New York City premiere on October 29, 2007 at Lincoln Center.
Reviews and recognition
Parting Glances gave Steve Buscemi his first major movie role. "It is to both his and the film's credit," wrote Janet Maslin in her New York Times review, "that the anguish of AIDS is presented as part of a larger social fabric, understood in context, and never in a maudlin light."[1]
