Essay on Film: The Age of Aids

What were Edwin S. Porter's significant contributions to the development of early narrative film? In what sense did Porter build upon the innovations of contemporaneous filmmakers, and for what purposes?

The movie, And the Band Played On, illustrates the beginning of the AIDS virus and how it unexpectedly spread across the world. It used the Ebola disease to indicate that there will be another severe disease surfacing. The world was not prepared to handle such a transmissible disease. Doctors globally presumed that the first cases of the HIV virus to be just a deformity of a specific disease. Their negligence of this issue was the beginning of the spread of this AIDS. Throughout the movie, it shows various points, such as the start of HIV, the misunderstandings it gave, and the fear it stimulated amongst doctors and everyone else.

Article Three – Author: David Bordwell / Title of Article: The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film

Semen containing white blood cells infected with HIV comes into contact with tissue in the rectum and vagina. The virus can then enter the bloodstream of the host through perforations in the tissue surface. The risk of this happening is greatest in anal intercourse, either between two men or a man and a woman.” HIV is spread through a direct exchange of blood or blood products. This mode of transmission is most frequent among IV drug users who share injection needles. It includes, as well, hemophiliacs and other persons who receive blood transfusions, and fetuses of mothers who carry the AIDS virus.” AIDS has sparked considerable interest and controversy since the start of the epidemic. However, in trying to identify where AIDS originated, there is a danger that people may try and use the debate to attribute blame for the disease to particular groups of individuals or certain lifestyles. When the AIDS epidemic became offical in June 1981, it was widely considered exclusively a "gay disease” and this was because many people were confused and uneducated about this new, foreign disease that faced and ravaged our society as a whole. There is no doubt that many people coming from all walks of life were subject to discrimination when other people discovered that they were suffering as victims taken by the disease. The cultural and social response to AIDS portrayed in the film Philadelphia (1993) covered all of these aspects and was

“some way must be found to permit the SIV to remain at high levels in people for long enough that such spontaneous mutations might take place. He suggests that the required mechanism is "serial passaging" of virus through unsterile needles. That is, a cut hunter might get an injection while he is still harboring large numbers of viral particles in his bloodstream; that same needle would then be used to infect another person, who might soon receive a second injection, and so forth. High viral population levels can thus be maintained in a series of different people getting shots. With each transfer via contaminated needle, the virus finds itself in a fresh host, with an opportunity to proliferate before the infected person can mount an immune response. Chance mutations can thus accumulate, and eventually the SIV adapts, becoming HIV.”

The epidemic started in late 70s due to prostitution, blood transfusion and unprotected sex. Around the same time the epidemic was discovered in the USA, and the virus was found in Haitians immigrants. Because of that Haiti become one of the “risk factors” for HIV. The stigma brought disastrous consequences to the whole country, including the collapse of tourism.

This history of HIV/AIDS as a blurry timeline before the 1980’s since that was around the time reports came in which eventually become an HIV report. The origin of HIV can be traced back to the early part of the century. Some believe that in the 1920’s chimpanzees from the Congo came into contact with humans (Avert, 2016). Though reports were not identified as HIV until the 1980’s, the belief that HIV was already scattered throughout four other continents may have been incident (Avert, 2016). Even though for the past 30 years the world has been diligently working to find a cure and pushing prevention, we are still struggling each year with increasing diagnosis. The beginning of HIV did end with lots of death, but now with our improved antiviral medication there is hope for many.

As part of their reaction to AIDS, Haitians had a propensity to attribute the existence of AIDS to poor populations. AIDS is indeed more prevalent among the lower socioeconomic class in Haiti, but the perception as to why this pattern occurred went beyond the simple interpretation that AIDS was a disease of the poor. In The Exotic and The

Throughout the Age of AIDS film many topics that were related to AIDS were brought up that I did not know anything about before. I did not know that there could so many strings attached to a disease and have such an influence in people’s lives whether it was negative or positive.

In the documentary “The Age of AIDS,” FRONTLINE examines the outbreak of AIDS since its first diagnosed case in 1981. The film investigates different medical, political and social environments under AIDS pandemic in the US and worldwide. The film not only focuses on the scientific research and progress in treating the disease, it also looks at the social stigma, government strategies and public campaigns around different countries.

The United States has long been a country that has accepted that change is a necessity for prosperity and growth. However, each change within the nation's history was hard fought against those who resisted such change either through racism, bigotry, and blatant discrimination. African American cinema is enshrouded in history that depicts these themes of racism, struggle, and deprivation. Yet, this same cinema also shows scenes of hope, artistic spirit, intellectual greatness, and joy. Black actresses, actors, directors, producers, and writers have been fighting for recognition and respect since the great Paul Robeson. The civil rights movement of the 1950's and 60's was fueled by black cinema through films like A Raisin in the Sun.

When the AIDS and HIV virus crept its way into the human-race, it quickly, and without warning, claimed the lives of millions. Then when its destructive wake had finally been abated, it left behind several untold mysteries. Throughout the course of this class, all the new material we have been exposed to has added some unique piece to the puzzle of the AIDS epidemic. Each puzzle pieces have ranged from speculations on how the AIDS epidemic had begun, to what exactly has the epidemic done. We have also tackled the question and how it forced a change in society. Our newest piece of the puzzle is the documentary “The Age of AIDS,” by William Cran. Although this documentary did not surprise me in its content, it did, however, affirm certain types

According to a report published in the February 1998 edition of “Nature”, scientists identified what they believe is the earliest case of AIDs in a man from the Congo in 1959. (Lerner and Hombs 39) By the end of the year 1980, 80 men would have been diagnosed with at least of the opportunistic infections that are a characteristic of AIDs. (Lerner and Hombs 40) AIDs cases in the 1980s increased dramatically not only around the world but in the United States, primarily in larger cities like Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. The numbers of AIDs diagnoses and deaths spiraled out of control throughout the 1980s and towards the end of 1989 there were 117,500 cases of AIDS reported and 89,000 related deaths.(Lerner and Hombs 54) In the

It is believed that the first case of HIV/AIDs was first recorded somewhere in West Africa somewhere in the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, it has spread across central Africa, undetected for a long time. But the question that has bewildered many, is how HIV spread in the first place. According to “Natural Transfer Theory”, HIV was spread to humans through chimpanzees. “Africans have been killing and eating monkey for at least fifty thousand years” (43). It was common for small African communities to hunt and eat chimpanzees. Chimpanzees were said to have “SIVs, simian immunodeficiency viruses that closely resembles HIV” (41). The virus is said to have spread to humans through these infected chimpanzees. The blood of these chimpanzees could have

In the film, “Age of AIDS”, there were several scenes that were quite impactful. In my opinion, the three most powerful scenes in the documentary film were: President Ronald Reagan‘s speech about transmitting HIV (1a), William Dodge triple cocktail trail (1b) and Bill Clinton’s handshake with HIV positive man in the Chinese conference (1c). These sections in the documentary were instrumental in conveying a compelling story about the effects of AIDS.