Actors - Longtime Companion

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	Actors - Longtime Companion

Longtime Companion is a 1990 film with Bruce Davison, Campbell Scott, and Mary-Louise Parker.

Storyline

(Spoiler Warning)

The film chronicles the lives of a group of YUPPIE gay men, who vacation on one of their friend's Fire Island homes. One mourning, one of the men reads a July 3, 1981, article in The New York Times about the rise of a new "gay cancer." The man quickly call the other friends, who are initially dismissive of the article, but soon watch as gay people begin to die from this new cancer, that is identified as being a deadly virus called AIDS-HIV. The virus impacts each of the men differently, but all of them face the loss of their friends, careers, and longtime companions.

The film ends in 1989, with the once large group of friends reduced two a gay couple, and one of the men's sister who are working to defend the civil rights of persons infected with the virus, and volunteering to help out Haitian heterosexual drug-users that have become infected. The survivors walk about the Fire Island beach and imagine a day when a cure is found to the virus, and see all their dead friends returning.

Response

Longtime Compasion was the first widely released film on the subject of AIDS. A television special called Early Frost aired in 1985 and two independent films were given a limited release around the same time. Its success and praise, paved the way for the first Hollywood film to address the issue; Philadelphia
(1993).

Trivia

The title of the film, Longtime Companion, refers to how the more liberal newspapers would refer to the surviving gay spouse whose partner had died from AIDS. It is a precursur to the concept of civil unions or same-sex marriage.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Longtime Companion ]

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