In 1987, in spite of a worldwide death toll of 500,000, AIDS was still a remote phenomenon for many Americans, unaware of the apocalyptic nightmare unfolding in, among other places, New York’s gay community. The afflicted were overcrowding hospitals, wasting away and dying with no hope of a cure or even viable treatment (AZT, an emerging drug known to somewhat work if it didn’t make you sicker, cost $10,000 a year, making it an impossibility for many). Local and national politicians spoke in the vaguest terms of the promise of research. And then a group of outraged activists changed everything.
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, quickly became known for its loud, large-scale protests and for being formidably knowledgeable about the disease — “we all had to become scientists,” as one member puts it. Faced with overwhelming institutional apathy as their friends and loved ones were dying in front of them, they began educating themselves about medical procedures and how to navigate the bureaucratic channels of the FDA, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. ACT UP and its splinter group TAG effectively pressured them into fast-forwarding research processes, leading to a drug combination that turned AIDS from a death sentence into a treatable condition — but not until many thousands of victims were already gone.
Journalist-turned-director David France has been covering the epidemic for three decades. The archival footage he’s amassed for this documentary, spanning nine years, creates a riveting, activist’s-eye-view of the bravery and the horror that fueled the movement. Featured ACT UP leaders include writer and agitator Larry Kramer; Peter Staley, a former closeted bond trader who went on to become one of the group’s most eloquent spokesmen; and Bob Rafsky, whose angry outburst at a speech by then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton evoked the now-famous phrase “I feel your pain.”
Video of protests, strategy meetings and the near-dead is interspersed with TV images of President George H.W. Bush merrily playing golf and Sen. Jesse Helms denouncing the “revolting” victims for not keeping their “sodomy”-related problems to themselves. (In one of their more lighthearted actions, the group memorably unfurled a giant condom over Helms’ house.)
France wisely waits until near the end to reveal which ACT UP members are still living, and which are not. “How to Survive a Plague,” while a shaggier-structured documentary than many, is a heart-wrenching portrait of one of the saddest, most heroic chapters in American history.