Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt

Don't take this film lightly. It has to be one of the most heart-breaking films ever made. I saw this only once - 9 years ago! - and to this day, I still have Bobby McFerrin's depressing little theme in my head. Don't plan on doing much after this has ended. It's like SHOAH packed into less than 90 minutes. I never thought the presence of something so stupid as Alf (from the sitcom) could bring tears to my eyes. See this and find out why.

I'm shocked and saddened that I'm only the 9th person to vote for this film.

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.

This documentary accomplishes what most films sent out to do; move and transform audience members. What we have here is a remarkable movie which managed to change the way people viewed the AIDS crisis.

The success of the film's impact lies in its structural simplicity; we hear from the survivors of AIDS victims in ways which humanize their suffering.

Much has been written about the haunting musical score.

I had one slight problem with the film; its Amnerican-centric message. I wish the filmmakers would have paid more attention to the subject matter by giving us more of a world-view. This would have increased the film's credibility.

However, this is a quibble. What we have here is a motion picture which gives lasting testament to the personal courage exhibited by both victims and survivors.

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.