Common Threads - Stories from the Quilt
by Jeffrey Friedman, Rob Epstein
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DVD details
Actor: David Mandell, Sallie Perryman, Sara Lewinstein, Suzi Mandell, Vito RussoDirector: Jeffrey Friedman, Rob Epstein
Writer: Jeffrey Friedman
Writer: Rob Epstein
Producer: B.Z. Petroff
Producer: Bill Couturié
Producer: Carol Baum
Writer: Cindy Ruskin
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 79 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-06-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: New Yorker Video
DVD Reviews of Common Threads - Stories from the Quilt
DVD Review: a powerful documentary that puts a human face on a really scary health crisis
Summary: 5 Stars
Common Threads - Stories From The Quilt certainly deserves the Oscar it won for best documentary in the spring of 1990. This moving motion picture paints a most human face on the HIV/AIDS crisis through interviews with family, friends, parents and lovers of those who either died of AIDS or who were themselves slowly dying of AIDS when this was filmed in 1989. The movie goes along at a good pace; you certainly won't feel bored by these heartbreaking stories which are moving and inspiring at once. The cinematography is excellent as well.
While the film spends most of its time on interviews with so many people who have had to face AIDS and deal with it all in their own personal ways, we do get news footage of the government not doing much about the epidemic until the situation became particularly bad in 1987. Rock Hudson's death from AIDS also encouraged people in mainstream society to finally take notice of the health crisis. Unfortunately, however, the government took too much time debating over what to do instead of acting; while Surgeon General Koop wanted to educate children, President Reagan essentially preferred to teach only abstinence as a way to fight AIDS.
But if there is a focus on the politics of AIDS and HIV in this motion picture, it is the real life stories we get that make this film infinitely more powerful and memorable. We see people from all walks of life talking so candidly about losing their loved ones and the extreme emotional angst they felt as their loved ones were dying and there was nothing that could be done about it, at least at the time this documentary was filmed. Specifically, one of the people we learn about is Dr. Tom Waddell, a former Olympic athlete, losing his life to AIDS before his very young daughter ever had a chance to know him. There's also a good amount of footage of a naval officer who, after he divorced his wife, spent five years with his partner; and the retired officer remembers his partner so fondly as he himself is dying of the disease. There's footage of Bobbi Campbell, "the AIDS poster boy;" and we see parents who are deeply scarred by the loss of their very young son David to AIDS which he contracted from a blood infusion; David was a hemophiliac. There's archival news footage of families with a child who had contracted AIDS being forced to leave town after their home was burnt to the ground in a case of suspected arson; and we eventually see people making the first pieces of the AIDS quilt in San Francisco back in 1987.
The DVD has some good extras, too. There's an "ACT UP" speech by Vito Russo, a gay man infected with HIV/AIDS; and there's a bonus short film of researchers and others speaking about AIDS that is very well done. There's an optional running commentary and a photo gallery as well.
All in all, this remains a fine documentary about the AIDS health crisis that I recommend for people with AIDS as well as their families and loved ones; and anyone in the health care field should watch this as well. It will be a good addition to your DVD collection.
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