How to Survive a Plague

Before I watched David France’s 2012 documentary, “How to Survive a Plague,” I knew very little about the movement in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s by many members of the American gay population to move the government to be more expedient and have a greater sense of urgency in finding a cure for AIDS. As I learned in the documentary, there were some known drugs that could fight the progression of the virus, however, the government at the time was in no hurry to test these drugs which, in the end, could have saved many lives. The intent of “How to Survive a Plague” is not to drum up anger towards the conservative government of the time, even though the film suggests that it would not be a bad idea for the viewer to be a little pissed off about their seeming lack of interest at the time. The film is about the vast and vigilant group of men and women known as ACT UP who fought and fought and fought to gain the ear of the government so as to find a cure for a disease that had stricken their community, had stricken their friends and the people they loved. France’s film is composed 90% of video and film footage from the time. The other 10% is current-day interviews with those who participated in the movement and some scientists who assist non-science major viewers like me with the biology of the AIDS virus and how the drugs that were eventually made available to slow the process work. I greatly enjoyed the fact the the film is comprised mostly of this 25-30 year old video and film footage. It gives the viewer much more of an experience of being there at the time, sharing, though fleetingly, in the ACT UP movement. The editing of all of this footage and the subdued and tasteful interview segments is perfect. There is no narration. The story of the movement is told completely in the mentioned video footage and interviews. This makes the perfect job of editing witnessed within this documentary that much more important as the pieces of video and other footage have to be able to connect for the 100 minute running time without any gaps of information cropping up. My two favorite scenes in the film are when activist and advocate, Larry Kramer, at an ACT UP meeting, having grown tired of the level of in-fighting amongst members of the ACT UP group, shouts out his anger:

“Plague! We are in the middle of a fucking plague and you behave like this!” There is complete silence in the room at this point. He continues: “Plague! 40 million infected people is a fucking plague! We are in the worst shape we have ever, ever, ever been in!....ACT UP has been taken over by a lunatic fringe. They can’t think together, nobody agrees with anything. All we can do is field a couple of hundred people in a demonstration! That’s not gonna make anybody pay attention! Not until we get millions out there and we can’t do that! All we do is pick at each other and yell at each other!”

My second favorite is when Democratic senator Dale Bumpers from Arkansas, in Senate chambers addresses North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms after Helms has suggested that the gay population “keep their mouths shut.” Helms states that “they don’t like me and I don’t like them.” Bumpers’ response to Helms is as follows:

“Sir, when we started this colloquy, I thought I was on your side, particularly on the first amendment and under the first amendment, people don’t have the shut their mouths, they have a right to speak.”

The film has two significant achievements. The first is telling the story of the ACT UP movement and teaching the viewer about events that occurred in recent history that are still significant today. The second is on a technical level in it’s excellent achievement of being constructed in such a way that it conveys all the information it sets out to tell in a seamless way using mostly previously existing footage. This could not have been an easy task. I am very glad that I made the effort to watch “How to Survive a Plague.” Being one of the films nominated in the 2012 Oscars for Best Documentary Feature, I found myself interested in pulling it up on Netflix streaming. I have now seen three of the five nominated documentaries. Though “How to Survive a Plague” is not my favorite of the three, it is not far behind the other two I have seen, Kirby Dick’s “The Invisible War” being my favorite and “Searching For Sugar Man” being my second favorite. Again, all three of these documentaries are outstanding. I feel much more informed after having seen “How to Survive a Plague.” I am glad to have been exposed to information about the movement to get the government to rapidly move towards finding drugs to offset the symptoms of AIDS. There is still no cure, however, the actions by those in ACT UP between 1987-1996 clearly led to a more serious attitude by the United States government to devise a way for those inflicted with the disease to live longer.