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DVD Common Threads - Stories from the Quilt
As of 2004, a variety of drugs have been developed to resist, if not cure, AIDS--yet Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt remains as emotionally powerful as it was during the height of the crisis, when people were dying by the thousands every year. With a combination of photo-montages, interviews with friends and family members, home movies, and news footage, this 1989 documentary captures the grief of those who have survived victims of AIDS. It's wrenching to hear the mother of a hemophiliac boy describing giving him blood transfusions in the middle of the night, or seeing pictures of a former Olympic athlete with the daughter he fathered with a lesbian mother, or hearing a Naval officer describe his relief when he learned that he, like his dead lover, had the virus--that the stress of waiting was over. A moving combination of art and politics. --Bret Fetzer
Review(s): DVD Common Threads - Stories from the Quilt
The Fabric of Love
This emotionally stunning film deservedly won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Friends and family tell the stories of five disparate individuals whose lives are lovingly represented by panels in the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt: David Mandell, Jr., an 11-year-old hemophiliac; Dr. Tom Waddell, Olympic athlete and organizer of the Gay Games; Robert Perryman, a former drug addict turned proud husband and father; Jeffrey Sevchik, the lover of film historian, author, and gay activist Vito Russo; and David C. Campbell, a gay "everyman" whose story is touchingly told by his dying partner, Lt. Commander Tracey Torrey. The threads of these persons' courageous battles with AIDS are interwoven with archival news footage detailing the history of the disease's spread throughout America, and examples of how the United States government and public did - or perhaps more accurately, often did not - respond to the growing crisis. The film ends with the surviving loved ones describing the experiences of making the Quilt panels, and then details the first national exhibition of the Quilt in Washington, D. C. in October 1987. (The Quilt was last displayed in Washington in 1996, and had grown to over twenty times the size shown here.)
The raw emotions of the storytellers are incredibly powerful in their purity and honesty; it's impossible not to be moved to tears as David Mandell's father speaks of his child's last Christmas, or Russo tells the story of visiting his partner's body in the morgue. The film footage is beautifully supported by Dustin Hoffman's eloquent narration (his voice has never been so convicted yet quietly subdued in any of his film roles), and hauntingly underscored by the music of Bobby McFerrin performed by Voicestra.
"Common Threads" is an absolutely must-see film that not only reveals the human face of HIV and AIDS, and gives voice to those who are left behind to grieve in the wake of death and suffering. With each scene, the movie also offers larger evidence of humanity's capacity to cope with devastating tragedy; to express compassion and selflessness; and above all else, to love wholly and unconditionally through even the worst of circumstances.
Film to touch the heart.
This film in done well. Since the time of this film the quilt has grown. I think it is time for HBO to do a new version and shown a new generation how the AIDS Memorial Quilt has many stories to tell. I was honored in 1990 to be asked to help in making of a panel. Thank you HBO.
Please don't forget us by not putting this on DVD
I am probably one of the few people that has this on LaserDisc. I was extremely touched by the dedication to this video. It was self evident in the quality of the sound and video, as well as the choice of narrators and musical background.
The Times of Harvey Milk has probably topped this one, but the AIDS crisis has not gone away. Please ... please publish this one on DVD. Thanks.
rcc
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