And the Band Played On

Rating:
Summary: Where were you twenty years ago?
Review: I never made it all the way through Randy Shilts's book so I won't presume to know whether this film did right by Mr. Shilts. Simply put, this is great drama. The patronizing statements about made-for-tv movies don't apply here. The drama, sadly, comes from the real events that are depicted--the collective denial about the reality of AIDS as that disease first began appearing in the gay and Haitian communities, the government's (read "Ronald Reagan's") persistent indifference, the professional jealousy within the medical communities vying to be the first to identify the agent (the virus) that causes AIDS, and how human beings resist having their preconceived notions about life challenged (as when a group of gay activists insists on keeping gay bath houses open even as it became apparent that AIDS was spread through sexual contact). This movie really took me back twenty years to when I first read a short article buried somewhere in the middle of the New York Times about a gay-related cancer little realizing how much my life would change from that point onward.

The performances across the board are great. I was especially impressed by Matthew Modine (I've liked him since "Birdy" and I like to see him get meaty roles as here), Alan Alda (not the likable mensch from MASH), Ian McClellan, B.D. Wong, and Phil Collins (who knew?).

Aside from some cast biographies this DVD has no other "extras". Nor does it need any.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Have!!
Review: This was a wonderful movie. Anyone in the social work field I highly recommend you view this movie. Matthew Modine's played his character wonderfully. I'm an Alan Alda fan and his character was very manipulative, unlike his usually fun-loving characters in other movies. A good learning experience for those wanting to be educated on HIV and AIDS. Great material for social work/sociology teachers to use as visual aid for learning about social aspects.

Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing evidence that demands a verdict.
Review: From the very first time I sat through this movie, my awareness of AIDS versus politics, and the gay rights movement versus gay peoples' self-examination into their personal activities and morals, increased 10 fold. The various band members portrayed -- "fast lane" homosexuals, the bathhouse owners, the San Francisco Health Department, Blood bank operators, Homosexual Rights Groups, and the Media, Public Health Authorities, and the Reagan Administration -- show a stunning portrayal of the responsibility we all share in the face of a crises that ultimately affects us all on one level or another.

Though not as thorough as the book upon which the fact-based movie is based (And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic; By Randy Shilts, St. Martin's Press), this made-for-cable film poignantly testifies to those few who fought desperately to get the band's attention and those who died horribly while it continued to play.

The movie proves that the issue does not necessarily surround, (in Shilts's paraphrase), "society's responsibility to find the medical technology to prevent all sexually transmitted diseases rather than the gay community's responsibility to keep sexuality in line with what medical technology can cure."

Rating:
Summary: **A Touch Of Reality **
Review: I am very glad Amazon.Com, was selling this movie on DVD.
Not your everyday subject, but yet it should not be ignored how the A.I.D.S virus got spread around.

The fight about the virus etc, how one came about inventing at least a test for the AIDS virus etc.

If you are a teacher, and want your students to really learn something, or you want your students to pay attention, show them this movie.
It is a real EyeOpener !!

Rating:
Summary: Deja vu all over again
Review: I first began treating patients with HIV infection when we were still calling the syndrome GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) and some of the best coverage a family physician could read on diagnostic and therapeutic advances was to be found in the pages of periodicals like *The Advocate* and Boston's *Gay Community News*. I lived through these horrible early years and all the uncertainty and suffering experienced by the characters in this movie, and I had to deal with the bureacratic waffling and the willful governmental ignorance so truthfully depicted in this film. The critics griping about the lack of dramatic tension and the supposed failure of the "star-studded" cast to chew the scenery to the reviewers' liking merely demonstrates that a brain biopsy on these eunuchs-at-a-gang-bang would come up positive for Portland cement. *And the Band Played On* is a minor cinematographic masterpiece, providing a readily-apprehended depiction of a complex and difficult time in public health and epidemiology, with a wonderful grasp of the historical flavor of an era that we must *never* forget. We learned some costly and very valuable lessons in the process of translating GRID into AIDS, and we need movies like this one to keep those lessons fresh in the public memory.

Rating:
Summary: Superb account of the AIDS crisis 1977-1993
Review: Whilst Hollywood was busy congratulating itself for the critical and commercial success of "Philadelphia" (1993) - an awkward, uncomfortable drama which undermined its own sincerity for the sake of mainstream acceptance - HBO debuted Roger Spottiswoode's "And the Band Played On" (1993), an adptation of the late Randy Shilts' hotly debated chronicle of the AIDS crisis in America. Itself the subject of considerable controversy, the film took several years to develop and was eventually taken out of Spottiswoode's hands during the editing process, to be completed by Bill Couturie (co-producer of the Oscar-winning documentary "Common Threads Stories from the Quilt" [1989]), who's credited as an editorial 'consultant' in the closing titles. Not merely a 'gay' drama, the film has broad-based appeal, both as a narrative and as an invaluable history lesson.

From the first case diagnosed in Copenhagen in 1977 to the US death toll in July 1993, Arnold Schulman's script follows the heroic efforts of virologist Don Francis (Matthew Modine at his most earnest) to uncover the source of an unknown 'plague' which is killing gay men, hemophiliacs and intravenous drug users across America. Unfortunately, as the unfolding drama reminds us in no uncertain terms, the crisis coincided with Reagan's election to the presidency, establishing a right-wing administration which refused even to publicly acknowledge the problem until it began to spread beyond the gay community and affect 'ordinary' voters. Like the book on which it's based, the film vents its spleen on those who turned a blind eye to the escalating tragedy until it was too late, especially the blood bank industry which ignored repeated scientific warnings about possible contamination of the blood supply until lawsuits from people who became infected during transfusions forced them into action, and the gay community which railed against the proposed closure of bath houses in major cities as an infringement of their hard-earned sexual freedoms. Scientific divisions simply exacerbated the problem: Alan Alda portrays the eminent scientist Robert Gallo as an insensitive, vainglorious bully who was prepared to sacrifice lives whilst pursuing credit for discovering how the virus worked, an accolade which actually belonged to a number of extremely diligent French scientists! The film is careful to acknowledge Gallo's hard work in this field, but as depicted here, his arrogance leaves a rotten taste in the mouth.

With Modine's eminently sympathetic scientist-figure acting as the primary focus, the fast-moving screenplay conveys a wealth of information with remarkable clarity, keeping the viewer fully informed throughout. Paradoxically, if it wasn't for the all-star cast (including Richard Gere, Lily Tomlin, Ian McKellen, Phil Collins, etc.), the film might not have been made at all, but their contributions - often fleeting - are sometimes distracting rather than illuminating ("Oh look, there's Anjelica Huston, Steve Martin!", etc.), though the performances are uniformly strong, particularly since there's no time to sketch these characters in anything but the most basic terms. Evidence of production troubles is non-existent, and the film ends on an emotional highpoint with documentary footage of celebrities and individuals whose lives have been touched by AIDS, set to Elton John's 'The Last Song'.

If nothing else, AIDS forced society to confront its two greatest taboos, sex and death, and it also exposed a raft of prejudices which had been festering for decades. Galvanized by its sense of loss, and appalled by the state-sanctioned bigotry which prevented adequate funding of research and treatment while the US government allowed its defence budget to spiral into the stratosphere, the gay community finally shook off its complacency and launched a prolonged militant campaign which eventually forced the issue into the public arena. The film provokes anger and sadness in equal measure as it outlines the circumstances which incited the virus to epidemic proportions, and the inevitable devastation which followed.

But every so often, the story makes way for something more profound than mere anger, and reduces the viewer to heartbroken silence: A young man, once beautiful, waits alone for death in a room at the V.A. hosital in Los Angeles, slowly succumbing to the lesions which are beginning to destroy his brain. As the scene concludes, he turns toward a window overlooking an enormous cemetery featuring row upon row of gleaming-white gravestones which stretch to the horizon, an image that links the fallen victims of a bygone conflict to those of the present generation, dying in their thousands as a helpless world looks on.

Though produced for television, the film - which runs 141m 32s - was photographed by Paul Elliott ("The Broken Hearts Club A Romantic Comedy" [2000]) with theatrical screenings in mind, allowing HBO to provide a letterboxed (1.85:1) print for their region 1 disc, anamorphically enhanced. Picture quality is excellent. There's a choice of 2.0 or 5.1 surround tracks, and while they're both impressive, there really isn't much to distinguish between them. Closed cpations are provided along with English subtitles, and the only extra is a series of potted biographies for the main cast. Incidentally, the film's R rating seems unusually harsh, unless the MPAA was concerned about some brief dialogue references to certain sexual practices; otherwise, there's nothing here which warrants anything more than a PG-13.

Rating:
Summary: Educational
Review: I've seen this movie several times so when my daughter showed interest from viewing the DVD cover, I watched it again with her. We don't realize how little our children actually know about such concerns as AIDS/HIV until a movie like "And the band played on" explains it. My daughter was amazed at the years of research and detective work involved before this disease was even given a name. The actors did a brilliant job portraying the many involved especially Lily Tomlin and Matthew Modine. I'm glad this movie won awards because it made more people watch this riveting non-fiction masterpiece and hopefully, made more people aware of facts they otherwise didn't know. To me, the most moving part of this film is the last scene showing the blanket which travels the world and the lovely voice of Elton John singing in the background.

Rating:
Summary: Best Docu-Drama of all Time
Review: Absolutely wonderful movie. I watch it once or twice a month, every month and still find it compelling. Makes you want to strangle Alan Alda! The ending with Elton John singing in the background is heart-wrenching. So many people have died needlessly of this disease. This movie should be required viewing for every High School student in America. I highly recommend this movie to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: This is literally my favorite movie ever. Everything from the story to the score is just beautifully done. A lot of star studded movies tend to lose something amidst all that star power but this one does not. Every star in there does an excellent job with their part. There just aren't enough good things I can say about this movie. Expecting it to be the book, which is wonderful in its own right, is a little unfair but it really does an admirable job making these horrible events come to life. Whether you know everything about the AIDS epidemic or nothing at all I'd definitely recommend this film. It's heart breaking but important.

Rating:
Summary: For those who dared to make a difference.....
Review: First off, this is one very real and very sobering story of maybe the biggest plague we may see for a long time to come (AIDS)and how it affects so many people in so many ways. The story evokes a myriad of emotions in you in the way that the plot is developed and how the actors bring it to life.

This is also a story of how our govenment and other high scale institutions decided to avoid what they believed to be "a sensitive issue" that did not deserve the importance it actually needed. The bureaucracy, by not acting in an intelligent and timely matter, delayed precious time and funds needed to research this disease and help those with AIDS that were literally crying out for support.

Enter Matthew Modine as the CDC researcher Don Francis who dared to stand up to the system only to have that system censor him, hamper his research and continually quell the urgency of his mission. On the other hand, we have Alan Alda playing another doctor who, seemingly on a mission to also help fight AIDS, is only out for glory and does more to hurt the fight than help it. This is really sad when you consider such an esteemed doctor could have given so much but did not see the bigger picture....the plight of the many outweighs the need for this one doctor to glorify himself.

The cast in this movie is absolutely stellar and provides for such a diverse aura of talent that shines throughout. How can you go wrong with Matthew Modine, Alan Alda, Richard Gere, Steve Martin, Angelica Huston and Lilly Tomlin to name just a few?

To finish off, the movie closes with a very heart wrenching picture montage of famous celebrities who have died of AIDS over the years. This montage is simultaneously done with an incredible Elton John song in the background, "The Last Song", that will completely floor you. I almost broke down during this part of the movie. Those who have seen the movie will know exactly what I mean. A very impressive and excellent movie worth watching time and again.