Resident Alien

Resident Alien

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew
  • Recommendations

Status

Released

Release Date

Sep 14, 1990

Runtime

1h 23m

Genres

Documentary

User Score

53%

Original Title

Resident Alien

Production Companies

Crisp City Productions

Director

Jonathan Nossiter

Description

At age 73, writer and melancholy master of the bon mot, Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), became an Englishman in New York. Nossiter's camera follows Crisp about the streets of Manhattan, where Crisp seems very much at home, wearing eye shadow, appearing on a makeshift stage, making and repeating wry observations, talking to John Hurt (who played Crisp in the autobiographical TV movie, "The Naked Civil Servant"), and dining with friends. Others who know Crisp comment on him, on his life as an openly gay man with an effeminate manner, and on his place in the history of gays' social struggle. The portrait that emerges is of one wit and of suffering.