Philadelphia (1993)

Director: Jonathan Demme                           Writer: Ron Nyswaner
Film Score: Howard Shore                            Cinematography: Tak Fujimoto
Starring: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Jason Robards and Mary Steenburgen

Philadelphia is a real snapshot in time, a time when people didn’t know a lot about AIDS. But ultimately this isn’t a film about AIDS. When Denzel Washington is questioning Bradley Whitford he tells the courtroom, “Let’s talk about what this case is really about, our loathing, our fear, of homosexuals.” It’s a powerful statement that, fortunately, has lost some of its sting in the last twenty years. But make no mistake, that loathing and that fear is still present, still with us, and the partners of the fictional law firm of Wheeler & Associates are every bit as disgusted--and disgusting--as their real life counterparts are today who want to strip homosexuals of their rights. Fortunately the culture in the United States is changing, but at a pace that is no quicker than the racial discrimination that still pollutes our society. Which brings up another interesting point in the film.

One of the subtle undercurrents in Denzel Washington’s character is the dichotomy between his own outward distaste with Hanks’ lifestyle and his willingness to represent him in court. It’s not something that’s immediately noticeable, and I don’t think it is commonly explored in most analyses of the film, but the parallels between the racial discrimination that Washington faces on a daily basis--evidenced by the fact that he’s an ambulance chaser, presumably because none of the big firms want to hire a black lawyer--with the similar discrimination Hanks faces because of his sexual orientation. You can see it in the law library when he’s eating a sandwich and the white security guard eyes him like he’s dangerous, at the same time Hanks is being discriminated against at his table. It’s this, and not just time spent with him, that is a major factor in the evolution of the character by the end of the film.

Like all courtroom dramas the film isn’t about being in court, it’s about what brought the litigants into the courtroom. In this case it was an early discrimination case. When the partners at Hanks’ law firm found out he had AIDS it wasn’t really the disease that they feared, it was the fact that he was gay. They manufactured a near disaster, blamed it on him and then pretended to fire him for cause. Tom Hanks is still painfully young in the film even though it would only be two years later, with Apollo 13, that he would shed his goofiness completely and settle into a commanding screen presence. He gives a credible performance here, so much so that he was awarded the first of his two Oscars for best actor. Otherwise, the film was kind of snubbed. Ron Nyswaner was nominated for best screenplay but the rest were minor nominations for makeup and music.

The film was directed by Jonathan Demme who had stormed the Academy Awards two years earlier with The Silence of the Lambs, sweeping all the top five awards. Here his work is far more static, especially in the courtroom, but he brings interest by weaving flashbacks into the narrative and using some unexpected camera angles. It’s a moving film for a number of reasons. Obviously Hanks’ deterioration is painful to watch, but there’s also the reflection of that pain in the other actors, Antonio Banderas as Hanks’ partner, and Joanne Woodward as his mother. Plus there are a host of other great actors, Jason Robards, Mary Steenbergen, Bradley Whitford, Anna Deavere Smith, Daniel von Bargen, and Roger Corman. Philadelphia is a perennial favorite on cable and hopefully it will remain so. It is an undeniably powerful film that still has the power to confront us with our own deficiencies as a society, as it should, twenty years later.