From the "People" Archives:

by Erin Torneo/indieWIRE

The Cockettes were an experimental theater group that arose, resplendent in glitter and thrift store drag, from the ideologies of the Haight-Ashbury counterculture at the cusp of the sexual revolution. Founded by a commune member who believed in free theater, the Cockettes quickly and completely accidentally became stars. For a bright, brief time, these bearded drag queens and kings reigned the stage at North Beach's Palace Theater, and their exuberant shows celebrated a pastiche of cultural influences fueled by LSD and an idealism that was utterly pure -- and utterly short-lived. With the sexual and political rebellions of the '60s and '70s slouching toward the dark hours of heroin addiction and the AIDS crisis, the Cockettes were part of a time in the U.S. that could not last for long.

In their first feature, David Weissman and Bill Weber chronicle the long-overdue story of The Cockettes. With some 13,000 still photos ("I'm sure another 13,000 will show up," quipped Weissman), never-before-scene footage of The Cockettes' Broadway appearance, clips from their hilarious 16mm films (must see: Tricia's Wedding, "an interpretation of Nixon's daughters nuptials"), and interviews with surviving members of the troupe and fans like John Waters and Sylvia Miles, the documentary is as rich and colorful as The Cockette show "Journey to the Center of Uranus" must have been.

"I hope it will provoke people to ask questions that are not asked very often in contemporary America, around the role of art and the role of corporate marketing in art, and the importance of creativity just in gratifying people's lives."

indieWIRE's Erin Torneo caught up with director David Weissman (co-director Bill Webber could not be present) after the "The Cockettes" screening at New York's New Festival to discuss Haight-Ashbury, the loss of urban bohemia in America, and dealing with the many private losses he encountered when creating their cinematic legacy. Strand Releasing opens the film on Friday.

indieWIRE: I see you started out making fictional shorts. Why for your first feature length film did you make a documentary?

David Weissman: It insisted itself upon me. To some extent, once the idea started to germinate, I realized that everything I had done, both film and otherwise, was leading directly towards doing "The Cockettes." The movie embodies so many things that have been important to me really since I was a teenager, so many cultural and political and artistic changes and inspirations. And the work that I had done reflected a sensibility that I had learned very early from seeing the Cockette movie "Tricia's Wedding" when I was about 18 or 19 years old.

iW: How did you find the surviving members of the Cockettes?

Weissman: Actually finding them was one of the easiest parts of research. Most of them hadn't gone too far away. Unfortunately, you know, the majority of the troupe has died, from drug overdoses beginning in the '70s and from AIDS during the past 20 years.

iW: Did any members decline or did any people who were part of the Haight-Ashbury scene then not want to be involved with the project?

Weissman: There were a couple of people who chose not to be in it. Both were affiliated with the KaliFlower Commune, although we did have two KaliFlower people appear in the film. The KaliFlower Commune plays an important role in the story of the Cockettes, because that was where Hibiscus had founded the Cockettes. It was a very ideological commune, which had very strong beliefs about not participating in the money economy. They felt all beer and all art and all food and everything should be free that there should be no capitalism, and that everything should be bartered and exchanged on a totally different basis.

iW: So by that token, they would feel that the documentary you were making was part of a contrary ideology?

Weissman: Yeah. Irving Rosenthal, who was the sort of guru of the KaliFlower commune, felt that the movie was going to involve commerce and that it was going to be impossible to tell the story with any real depth and truth. He also thought that there was certain subject matter that he didn't want us to be dealing with.

iW: Like what?

Weissman: Some of the welfare issues. The way that people survived back then, on disability. But I am happy to say that Irving and the other person who was a Cocketter but declined to be in the film have both been quite pleased and supportive of the film, the way it came out. But otherwise no, there was very little reluctance. Everyone was very willing.

iW: Are any of these organizations or communes still in existence?

Weissman: Well, Irving still lives in the KaliFlower house. And it still remains a kind of center for people coming and going, providing free services. They do a lot of good things, so I think KaliFlower exists in a minimal way. Jilala and Ralph, who were in the film, were until recently doing a free Vegan dinner in San Françisco for a range of people, from homeless to young anarchist earth-first types to artists to old hippies. It was an incredible event because it's not like a soup kitchen. They decorate the tables and the place and they have all these kids who volunteer and dress up. It's something that could only exist in San Francisco. Two hundred people being served a free Vegan dinner by all these people in costumes! So there is very much a feeling that that spirit still exists in the city and within the people in that scene.

iW: Is there anything in current pop culture that you see as a legacy of the Cockettes?

Weissman: Well, there's this incredible thing going on called the Burning Man Festival. I think the cost of putting it on has become astronomical, so unfortunately it has become more expensive to go to. But once you're there, there is no commerce allowed, so once inside it's all about radical self-expression for the love of doing it and for the love of doing it for others. It's a kind of exhibitionistic, bartering, free-spirited, drug-taking extravaganza. Creativity for the sake of creativity -- the whole ethos of "Burning Man" is spreading around. That has so much in common with the Cockettes.

iW: Did the story already have a shape when you endeavored the project or did structure come about through research and editing?

"There's this feeling that we did this at just the right moment. I think that for all of them it has been a real lift in their lives that the movie happened."

Weissman: Fairly early on, we had a sense of how the story was going to go. There was a Cockette named Martin Worman who was doing his Ph.D. dissertation for NYU, which he never completed because he died from AIDS. He had a lot of audio interviews that he had done with people, many of whom had already died. The beginning of the synopsis of his dissertation provided us an incredible road map and a context for viewing the story. I don't think it varied a lot once Bill and I had a sense of how he wanted to tell the story. It got richer but structurally we kind of knew how he wanted it and we had an idea on the breadth of the themes that the film could address.

iW: Death seems to be a silent bystander in the film. How did the death of Reggie [one of the Cockettes featured in the film] affect production? Did it make you work more urgently, or did things slow down?

Weissman: Reggie died only about a month before the premiere. Reggie was someone who had really had nine lives, he had been close to death so many times. Even the day we interviewed him, he had been for 10 days before in almost in a coma, not speaking, not functioning, and he somehow just revived and said 'I'm coming down for my interview,' and gave us an incredible interview. Then Reggie got sicker and sicker as the premiere got closer and he called me up and said, "I don't think I'm going to make it." And I said "Reggie you've been so close to dying so many times, I don't really believe you, but if you're concerned about it, I'll come over and show you the movie on tape" And, it was a good thing. It was very powerful for him to die knowing that he was being immortalized. "Dusty Dawn," who is the mother of Ocean Michael Moon, died of a stroke three months after we finished it. So there's this feeling that we did this at just the right moment. I think that for all of them it has been a real lift in their lives that the movie happened.

iW: When did Strand take on distribution? Did you have any other financing before?

Weissman: Strand acquired it before Sundance, but we were constantly fund-raising. It was not easy to do fund-raising for a film like this. I was fund-raising until the end. And we didn't raise nearly enough money as the movie cost. It's hard cause I'm almost winding up broke at the end of this. So I'm seeking my gratification from the feedback we're getting about the film. Being a documentary filmmaker is not lucrative, and we're so much more fortunate than most. To the extent that this film is getting seen, it doesn't happen very often. So I'm extremely grateful. I just wish that we'd raised more money when we were making it. We had to pay off a lot of debt.

iW: What do you hope the audience will take from the film?

Weissman: I hope it will provoke people to ask questions that are not asked very often in contemporary America, around the role of art and the role of corporate marketing in art, and the importance of creativity just in gratifying people's lives. For young people in particular, questioning the total emphasis on earning and spending and so little emphasis on adventure and exploration.

I hope it inspires people and enriches people's sense of happened in the '60s and broadens its beyond the commercial clichés about the counter culture. I don't think people really are aware of how utopian the aspirations were in that era. It wasn't just goofiness, it was really a desire to create an alternative to the mass-marketed plastic America and a desire to create something that was more human, more humane, more psychedelic.