Living and dying with AIDS

Actor Tom Hanks has shone in many productions over the course of his career: “Forrest Gump”, “Sacrilegious Ryan”, “The Da Vinci Code”, “Apollo 13” – the list is long. With “Philadelphia,” Kabel Eins is now repeating one of the films that helped Hanks make his breakthrough in Hollywood. He won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1994 for his role as Andrew Beckett, who suffered from AIDS.

There are many clichés in “Philadelphia,” and in the end the film even turns into an unwieldy courtroom drama. And yet at that time it was high time for a story that dealt with the AIDS problem in a way that would appeal to the public. Director Jonathan Demme describes the last months of homosexual lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks), who is suffering from AIDS. When he is fired on flimsy grounds, he goes to court with his initially homophobic defense attorney Joe Miller (Denzel Washington).

With “Philadelphia,” Demme directed the first major Hollywood film that critically examines how society deals with AIDS sufferers and homosexuals in the USA. The theme song “Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Springsteen also won an Oscar.