Two films about activists. I wish I could stream them both on DU.

[Bluenorthwest]

Last night I watched back to back to very different films that are in many ways about the same things. Both are films which might be missed by some because of content which people think is unrelated to their own lives.
The first is a documentary about Melvin Van Peebles. It's title comes from one of Melvin's early essays 'How To Eat Your Watermelon In White Company (and enjoy it)'. More people know Melvin's son Mario than know about Melvin. I got to work for and with Melvin for a short time and he is one of the most amazing people I will ever meet. Among other things, Melvin was the first African American to write, produce and direct a feature film in the US and the first black writer to have two shows running on Broadway at the same time, 'Don't Play Us Cheap' and 'Ain't Supposed To Die a Natural Death'. Melvin makes things happen. I love him and wish everyone knew about him in detail. If you can, see 'How To Eat Your Watermelon' which is not new, it's from 2005.
Here is Melvin's album 'Brer Soul' which I love. Melvin is not a singer, but he made a new way of doing things, that's part of what he has to teach us. Make your own way.

The other film is the HBO production of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart. This play, it saved lives, perhaps even my own. When it was new, it was the news. It was agit prop, it was an announcement and an incitement to action. It was so important. People passed out watching it, it was that true, that immediate, it was telling the future and that future was frightening. It asked us to leave the theater and change that future. No, it did not ask. It demanded that we do so.
Like Melvin, Larry Kramer is a man who knows what he believes is right and simply will not be stopped. Both men are artists as well as activists. Both men are fine examples to anyone who wishes to make change and live to see it carried out. Both were not always beloved by even their own community's leaders. Both of them are now elders who helped us get to where we are, which is not where we are going but thank God it is not where we've been.
I hesitated to recommend The Normal Heart to DU when it first aired on HBO because it is at times very difficult to watch. This might be extra true for straight people. I myself could not watch it until last night, I had to be alone, it had to be the right time.
At first I wanted to recommend it because it chronicles recent history that, like that of the movement Melvin was central to, is greatly unknown by those outside the tribe. I wanted to say 'watch this to understand us gay people better'. Now that I've seen it, I want to say 'watch this to understand yourself and your country better'. Because it is about the earliest days and deaths from what we later called AIDS in a very direct and uncompromisingly personal way, but it is also, and in a larger sense a play about love and how love drives activism. About what love and activism can cost and what it can create.
The HBO version is remarkable, the performances are superlative, Mark Ruffalo is perfect, Jim Parsons who everyone loves as Sheldon Cooper made me cry big old gay tears and I love the people who made this, I love Larry Kramer.
I am so glad, so thankful that Melvin and Larry were unstoppable loudmouths. I want us all to be love driven unstoppable loudmouths.
I wish you would all go find these films. Right now. They are about you. Both of these films are about your people, the people who want a better and more just world. Because those people are your people. I'm your people, Larry is your people, Melvin is your people. You are my people.
And may we the People rise.

[PeaceNikki]

1. Thanks for the reviews!! The Normal Heart absolutely shook me to the core.

I was alive, but quite young, when the AIDS epidemic started but between that film and "Dallas Buyer's Club" I am just learning about the real history.

I am looking for the Melvin Van Peeples film. Is it available to stream anywhere?

[Bluenorthwest]

2. I don't know if it is streamable but I did find the trailer for the documentary.

When The Normal Heart was new, I was in my early 20's, single for the first time....so glad I got the news, so glad no one could shut Larry up, everyone tried. God bless him.
The trailer:

[PeaceNikki]

3. Thanks, it's on backorder on Amazon as well. I'll add it to my list.

It looks great!

[Bluenorthwest]

4. It is very good, and I'm glad you will see it.

I'm also very glad we all get a second shot at The Normal Heart with the film. When it was new I really could not perceive the piece itself because the content was so intense and present. Imagine this: the set was covered with names of those who had died, covered. While the audience was being seated, people came out and painted new names on the walls. Every night, wet paint, new names shouting 'this is real, this is now, what will you do about it?'.
Of course Larry also started ACT UP, which gave many of us a conduit for doing something about it.

[PeaceNikki]

5. Wow. Yeah, I can't imagine that. The strength and power of the frontline activists is incredibly

moving.

HBO's "Iron Jawed Angels" was another that really got me.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. That's another really good one. HBO gets some props for making that which others will not make....

nt

[PeaceNikki]

7. And you reminded me that I also have a film I have been waiting for the right

time to watch. Is called "Leona's Sister Gerri". It's about Gerri Santoro who was an American woman who died because of an illegal abortion in 1964. A photograph of her after death, published in 1973, became a symbol of the pro-choice movement. Her daughter is a DUer.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/leonassistergerri/