Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt

I was on staff at the Names Project during the making of this film and am honored to have been so. This film won the 1989 Academy Award for Feature Documentary. As has been stated by others, this is not an easy film to see, but I would encourage anyone who wants a greater understanding of the devastating impact of AIDS to view it. To have worked in the Names Project workshop and seen firsthand the care and love poured into each panel of the quilt was both a privilege and, ultimately, a devastating experience. Some of the people I worked with there are now gone - died of AIDS themselves - and I still think of them and miss them. See this film.

As for the comment about a world view, the film does mention some worldwide statistics. However, one of the main points of the film is that the United States government was abysmally slow in its response to the AIDS epidemic - so there is a reason for the focus on the U.S.

I've got to say that I hadn't thought of this incredible film in a while, but it came up recently (the current year is 2009) and I decided to check out the reviews here. The reviews, all by themselves, and the memory of the film, and the music, and of what the film meant and of the stories of the people in it, made me cry all over again--THAT'S how powerful it is, memories of it in my heart 20 years later.

In my view, this movie should be required viewing for all those people out there who still hate. And for all those precious people out there who genuinely love, this movie will find a welcome home in your heart, whether this be a first viewing, or a refreshed memory from decades ago.

Every life has a story. Here are a few of the stories of people who died from AIDS, told by their survivors.

More than three quarter of a million Americans have died from AIDS since we began to notice it, about forty years ago. Worldwide, the figure seems to be a bit more than 40 million. Do a little math, and we as a nation look lucky. Human lives are not measured statistically, and people do not die by nations, but individually. Try to speak of the enormity of something, saying eighty million people have died from AIDS, or 6.9 million from COVID-19 or what have you and the horror and sadness gets lost in the the crowd. But one by one, with those they leave behind to assess the values of those lives. "My son died"; "My lover died"; "My friend Jim died": these are the words that make me weep. That's why this movie is so effective.

Winning the 1990 Oscar for Best Documentary, this originally aired on HBO. Watching After Stonewall reminded me of this documentary, and even just seeing the Quilt on THAT program made me tear up - simply from the memory of this documentary.

As a documentary, it's not very impressive - it's pretty rote and basic. However, in 1990, AIDS was still a strong fear - remember, the next year Bruce Davison was nominated for Longtime Companion - but the Bobby McFerrin music and the visuals affected me, in the same way that the Vietnam War Memorial scene from In Country.

This is a must-see documentary.

I was actually looking for something else today when I came across this. I remember seeing this several years ago & still recall it clearly. I've never been a big bobby McFerrin fan, but the theme music that he came up with is deeply human and touching. It accents the somber tone of the presentation extremely well. I remember sitting there struck silent by the magnitude of human suffering expressed in the form of those quilts. If more filmmakers had the kind of heart those two have, the world would be a better place for all of us. Gay and Straight alike.