Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders

USA

English

From a controversial flashpoint to a celebrated classic, the film CRUISING has played many roles in gay culture. But before it was a classic of gay cinema, in the summer of 1979, the gay community of New York City’s West Village came together to loudly protest its filming. Spurred on by a series of articles by Village Voice writer Arthur Bell, these activists took offense to a film where homosexuality was explicitly linked to murderous depravity. Yet, 45 years later, CRUISING is widely considered to be a classic of gay cinema. How did this transformation from exploitation to acceptance happen? Director Jeffrey Schwarz (VITO, I AM DIVINE, TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL) takes viewers down dark industrial stairwells and into sweaty clubs like the legendary Mineshaft, where leathermen pushed the boundaries of sexual expression in the 1970s. It’s also where director William Friedkin went to party while he was researching for the film, one of many colorful details from behind the scenes. Part elegy for a lost world and part tribute to the forgotten victim at the center of the case —Addison Verrill, whose horrific 1977 murder inspired Friedkin to write CRUISING — MINESHAFT combines true crime and cinema history to capture decades of gay life through the lens of a single film. — Frédéric Boyer