SESSION FIVE: 18 FEB 2012 USA (coproduced with
France/UK/West Germany)
WAITING FOR THE MOON Dir. Jill Godmilow, 1987, 88 min. English. Script: Mark Magill Starring: Linda Bassett, Linda Hunt, Jacques Boudet  A beautiful film about married life “in illness and in health”, based on the relationship between the poet Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Paris in the nineteen twenties: a bunch of
rich expatriate lesbians were having a blast. In their spare time between parties, salons, and picnics, a
handful of these women wrote some of the most exciting and radical books ever
published. One of them was the poet and art patron Gertrude Stein, a close
friend of Picasso, Hemingway, and Apollinaire (all of them appear in the film),
who made a formidable team with her partner Alice B. Toklas. Together they
created a home and became the most famous lesbian couple in the world, together
they revised Gertrude’s experimental poems, and together they faced her cancer
diagnosis. Stein had an exquisite command of the written word, but when it came
to talking about her feelings, she was reserved and uncertain, so Alice had to
teach her what ‘sharing a life’ truly meant. Although it is a bit annoying that the script eliminates any
signs of physical affection between the couple, we are left with a moving
portrait of unshakeable love and devotion, and with the magnificent
performances of the perfectly cast Linda Bassett and Linda Hunt.
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