Ptown Diaries

Documentary filmmaker Joseph Mantegna (not to be confused with actor Joe Mantegna) presents an entertaining view here of Provincetown, MA, an iconoclastic community at the tip of the Cape Cod peninsula. Visited by the Pilgrims, Provincetown was, for much of its history, a sleepy fishing and whaling village. But over the years, Provincetown reinvented itself as an artists' and writers' colony that attracted the best and brightest of American culture, with Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Jackson Pollock, John Waters, Norman Mailer, and Michael Cunningham among its most celebrated seasonal and full-time residents (clips of interviews with Mailer provide colorful footnotes here). Provincetown also made history as one of the earliest locations where gays and lesbians could enjoy an open lifestyle; indeed, its level of unapologetic tolerance made Provincetown a progressive business leader in cultivating profits from the LGBT community. Cheerful narration by Alan Cumming overlays the archival and contemporary footage, and while the film occasionally lapses into a standard-issue travelogue approach—complete with visits to notable museums and monuments, plus a tour of popular nightspots—Ptown Diaries also offers some amusing surprises, most notably its coverage of the “Bear Week” events aimed at a distinctive gay subculture of large, hairy men. A fine tribute, overall, to a unique location, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)