Philadelphia

From AIDS Wiki

Philadelphia is a 1993 movie written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Jonathan Demme. It stars Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Joanne Woodward, Jason Robards, Antonio Banderas and Mary Steenburgen.

Hanks's character, Andrew Beckett, is a homosexual attorney working for a prestigious law firm in Philadelphia. When he is unable to hide the fact that he has AIDS from the partners in the firm, he is fired. Beckett hires a homophobic attorney, Joe Miller (Washington), to fight for him.

The movie won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks) and Best Music, Song (Bruce Springsteen for Streets of Philadelphia).

The film was the first Hollywood big-budget, big-star film to tackle the issue of AIDS in America and also signaled a shift in the early 1990s for Hollywood films to have more realistic depictions of gay people. However, the fact that Hanks' and Banderas's characters do not display normal relationship affections such as kissing, and the absence of gay women drew criticism from some gay film critics. In an interview for the 1996 documentary The Celluloid Closet, Hanks remarked that some scenes showing more affection between him and Banderas were cut, including a scene showing him and Antonio in bed together. The DVD edition of the film includes a scene with Banderas and Hanks in bed and many of the principals discuss the criticisms leveled at the film.

While critics like Robin Wood asserted at the time that the film marked the legitimation of gay male experience in Hollywood, the film did not open doors, closet doors included, in the mainstream industry. The film emerged at the height of mainstream interest in the AIDS epidemic, and really marks the beginning of a decline of interest in AIDS in North America as deaths also declined and the heterosexual epidemic failed to appear.

Cast

• Tom Hanks (Andrew Beckett)
• Denzel Washington (Joe Miller)
• Jason Robards (Charles Wheeler)
• Antonio Banderas (Miguel Alvarez)
• Joanne Woodward (Sarah Beckett)

External links

• Outrate.net review of Philadelphia

Credit

This page uses content from the Philadelphia_(film) article on Wikipedia, captured on 19 Nov 2005. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the AIDS Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.