Innovative on its initial 2021 release, directors Harry Dodge and Silas Howard’s “By Hook or By Crook” sustains its reputation as a unique, self-described “trans and butch buddy film that chronicles three weeks in the life of Shy . . . and Valentine.” Anchored in the happily trans Shy, the opening images set the stage. As a young boy, in his blue Superman t-shirt and red cape, Shy is picked up, put on his father’s shoulders, smiles happily, and in the next shots leaps twice into his father’s arms. As a teenager, in voiceover, Shy remembers, “When I was a kid, I used to want to fly.” In silhouette, exiting a door, he adds, “Right about here, I just wanted to jump.” These two contrasting actions, flying and jumping, nicely define Shy’s rambling adventures after, in the next scene, he learns through the mail that the local Hoxie, Kansas bank is in the process of repossessing his house with a mere 48-hours to vacate.
Thus begins Shy’s enforced life on the road a year after his father died. Heading to San Francisco, Shy admits a preference to avoid entanglements, afraid if he got close to anyone, they would die. But his self-proclaimed policy will change once he saves Valentine from a beating. Searching for her birth mother, escaped from a psychiatric ward, Valentine will learn that Shy never really knew his own mother who left shortly after he was born. And so an on-again, off-again connection develops between Shy and Valentine, best described in Shy’s comment that “they say a drowning man ain’t afraid of rain. I think they’re wrong.” Factored in will be Valentine’s girlfriend Billie (Stanya Kahn), petty theft, attempts to get a gun, and ricocheting through varied encounters.
On the way to discovering that “at least I know with certainty that a man’s work is nothing but the long journey to recover the two or three simple or great images that first gave access to his heart,” Shy will aid Valentine, a butch individual with two arresting strands of twirled hair hanging from each side of her chin. The trans/butch pair will upend conventional narrative expectations as they drift in and out of each other’s lives, two non-binary individuals doing, in Shy’s words again, “the wrong thing for the right reason.” Considering all the crooks in the world, philosophically inclined, Shy concludes, “What on earth can you do on this earth but catch at what comes near you with both hands until your fingers are broken.”
Adding context for this landmark film, Silas Howard (Shy) identifies as trans-masculine and queer; Harry Dodge (Valentine) as butch dyke and bulldagger. Howard explains that “we didn’t explain ourselves to anyone, we were non-binary and didn’t justify our characters’ gender expressions and experiences or define it to the audience. We wanted to make a film about a third gender, which is where I felt I personally lived, at the time.” Dodge (Valentine) adds that “we were hungry for it, butch representation; tomboys we were called.” In fact, in the first third of the film, asked by a young girl if he’s male or female, Shy asserts “both.”
Technical choices complement the unconventional subject matter. In a 4K restoration, it’s still obvious, as press notes explain, that cinematographer Ann T. Rossetti shot on mini-DV and Super-8, a badge of authenticity to “one of the first successful queer indie films shot on available low-tech formats.” There are some sloppy scenes, in production values and story coherence, those liabilities redeemed by the good-hearted sentiment that shines through. On a miniscule budget, shooting throughout the Bay area, a community supported the production with kindness and sacrifice, as did local bands and Joan Jett who makes a “special appearance” as a news interviewee. In a new 4K restoration marking its 25th anniversary, “By Hook or By Crook” screens at Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium one night only, Saturday, June 20, at 7:30 p.m. that evening. For more information, you may visit the film series website at: Webster.edu/filmseries