Barbara Hammer – Nitrate Kisses (1992)

Excerpt from Nitrate Kisses by Barbara Hammer.

Barbara Hammer – Nitrate Kisses, 16 mm film, 67 min, B&W/sound. 1992.
Toronto International Film Festival: “Her first feature-length film, Nitrate Kisses may well be Barbara Hammer’s masterpiece. Shot on grainy black-and-white Super 8 and blown up to 16mm, Nitrate Kisses focuses on the marginalization of lesbian and gay sexuality in the twentieth century. Archival footage taken from the first gay film in US history, James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber’s Lot in Sodom, frames extended sequences of lovemaking by couples, including two elderly lesbians, a mixed-race gay couple and an S/M lesbian couple. In the unashamed intimacy of its lovemaking sequences, Nitrate Kisses is taboo-busting provocation, politically charged polemic and, above all else, a rapturous visual ode to the sensual pleasures of love and intimacy.”