‘By Hook or By Crook’: A trans breakthrough revived 25 years later

Back in 2001, the world wasn’t ready for Silas Howard and Harry Dodge’s “By Hook Or By Crook.” It wasn’t exactly ignored. After playing Sundance, the film was released to theaters and on DVD, while also airing on cable, but it vanished from sight quickly. Its importance has only gradually been recognized, as trans directors like Vera Drew, Louise Weard, and Alice Maio Mackay are now establishing themselves. Howard is queer and trans masc, while Dodge identifies as a butch dyke. “By Hook Or By Crook” came along after the heyday of New Queer Cinema had faded. Early ‘90s indie cinema had long since been co-opted, particularly by Miramax and Harvey Weinstein. A decade later, no-budget thrillers typically represented careerist Quentin Tarantino cosplay, not a genuine outsider’s perspective. In their history of the trans film image, “Corpses, Fools and Monsters,” Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay wrote, "By Hook Or By Crook’ deserves to take its place alongside other canonized movies because it has a lot to say about masculine expression and, through the specificity of gender nonconformity, remains fresh, provocative, and exciting." Following his father’s death, Shy faces the threat of his house getting repossessed by the local bank. He (Howard) leaves his Kansas hometown and hitchhikes to San Francisco. Upon arrival, he’s attacked for his androgynous looks. Valentine (Dodge) steps in and saves him from further violence. She lives with her partner Billie (Stanya Stark). Absent any job prospects, Shy supports himself as a thief. He steals Valentine’s wallet, but then returns to apologize. They team up to commit petty crime across the city, while Valentine struggles with her mental health and yearns for her mother, whom she’s never met. Howard and Dodge’s ever-moving handheld camera becomes an accomplice. The film’s visuals access the characters’ inner thoughts: While Valentine lies in a mental hospital, it shows impressionistic memories of her childhood. While I had seen “By Hook Or By Crook” online in 2022, the video dubs floating around didn’t flatter it. Its grit is an inevitable by-product of the circumstances under which it was made. Coming from backgrounds in music and performance art, Howard and Dodge started a trash removal company to help raise funds for its production. Intimate mini-DV cinematography almost makes it look like a home video. This restoration allows one to figure out how much of that grubbiness is intentional. Heard through a movie theater’s speakers, lesbian musician Carla Bozulich’s country-tinged score and a selection of punk and indie rock songs carries far more weight. This version of “By Hook Or By Crook” presents the film in the best possible condition. Howard and Dodge looked to John Schlesinger’s “Midnight Cowboy,” with its queer-coded duo of impoverished men, and the Dogme 95 movement, which championed a lack of artifice, for models. The dialogue mentions “Bonnie and Clyde.” The clean-cut Shy, who sometimes wears a suit and tie, resembles James Dean. “By Hook Or By Crook” knows that it’s steeped in Americana, opening up the story of an outlaw couple on the run. As in “Midnight Cowboy,” its concern with class comes out as strongly as its interest in LGBTQ characters. The images vibrate with disgust at the country’s abuses of marginalized people. Kansas is a dusty wasteland, and while San Francisco may be more accepting, it’s no easier to be poor there. The city is not liberating or glamorous. Joan Jett’s version of “Androgynous,” originally performed by the Replacements, serenades the audience over the end credits. As she sings about a loving couple whose relationship is enhanced by defying gender norms, she underlines the basic tenderness of “By Hook Or By Crook.” It’s a film about people who stand by each other. Central to the film’s queerness is the fact that friendship matters so much to them. While the cruelty of homophobia and transphobia affects Shy and Valentine’s lives, the film never becomes a lecture aimed at cis spectators. It doesn’t even attach a label to their gender or sexuality. What’s unusual about “By Hook Or By Crook,” then and now, is that its commitment to the characters’ emotional lives so thoroughly overwhelms the genre tropes it uses. As Hollywood throws LGBTQ narratives back in the closet, the film’s very scrappiness is instructive. It follows the DIY spirit of punk: If you don’t see yourself being represented, create your own art, as cheaply as you can make it work. “By Hook Or By Crook” | Directed by Silas Howard and Harry Dodge | Altered Innocence | Opens at Anthology Film Archives June 12