Tom Hanks’s best-actor Oscar win for Philadelphia in 1994 was a landmark moment for many reasons—at a time when AIDS was still stigmatized in much of society, Hanks held his Oscar and said, “The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight.”
But just as the Oscars have had a spotty track record with honoring queer actors, they have sometimes struggled to recognize films about the AIDS crisis too. A recent, striking example is the 2017 French film BPM, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and was France’s submission that year for the best-international-feature-film Oscar—but didn’t even make the short list. Described by its director, Robin Campillo, as “a very gay film with a political topic and a long sex scene between guys,” BPM pushes boundaries in its frank depiction of the lives of the activists who made up ACT UP–Paris, which pushed for better treatment of AIDS patients in the early 1990s. But the film, which our critic Richard Lawson called the best of that year, is also joyful and energetic, capturing young people determined to live and love despite the specter of death hanging over them.
No comments:
Post a Comment