AMERICAN PRIMITIVE -- Behind the Scenes

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT by GWEN WYNNE
AMERICAN PRIMITIVE addresses a seminal American issue of the early twenty first century: the place of family and same sex relationships in our culture. I find it encouraging that the issue has finally become a civil rights conversation revolving around citizenship and the rights of gay partnerships and their children. In American Primitive I try to create a story that ultimately underscores the complex meaning of love and friendship and family.

After my mother died, I found myself in a situation where there was no vocabulary for discussing what it was like to grow up in a gay household. Indeed, it was rare to know anybody else in similar circumstances. One found oneself very much alone. Indeed, being a girl compounded the problem as there were very few female points of view presented in popular culture in the 70s. I was very much drawn to films and always hoped to find answers or comparable emotional stories to reflect upon.

Paying homage to and being inspired by Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut and Tennessee Williams, I have fictionalized the situation I found myself in hoping to support others experiencing challenging upbringings in a homophobic world. And, of course, I hope the story thoroughly entertains as it unfolds before us.

1973 is also central to American Primitives story. The films path parallels a countrys loss of innocence and a time period in which American society was redefining its national identity as well as its personal views. Gender and sexual identity preoccupied the citizens of America. Like many in the country, our heroes, Madeline and Harry, daughter and father, find themselves tackling ideas of sex and identity -- topics that seemed to be on the tip of everyones tongue in the early 70s but were actually still taboo in both traditional familial and personal settings.

In 2009, we are still not out of the woods.

Category:

Film & Animation

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• Introduction
• To
• American
• PRIMITIVE