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newvision · 7 months

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Just watched Hannibal put on Will’s jacket in Mizumono and sobbed so hard I gagged! What kills me about it is that Hannibal is so clearly heartbroken over Will’s betrayal. It must have been so difficult and terrifying for him to reveal more and more of what was underneath his carefully construed mask to Will throughout the episodes, something he hasn’t done for anyone but his victims since he lost his sister. Throughout S2b we see him warm up to the idea of a companion. He tests Will and Will passes the tests, until Hannibal smells Freddie on him and knows she’s not actually dead. He could have left, then, with Abigail and they couldn’t have proven anything, he could have had a comfortable life somewhere else, but instead he chose to give Will the benefit of the doubt, presumably against his better judgement. Will did what I imagine must have been the very worst thing anyone could have done to Hannibal. He didn’t not understand him, he pretended to understand him to serve his own agenda. He sensed Hannibal craved understanding and gave him just enough to be able to turn on him. I think that’s why Hannibal gutted Will and killed Abigail, Will is the only one with the ability to truly hurt Hannibal and he does, so Hannibal hurts him in the way only he can — and by doing so imagines he will be able to leave Will behind, start a new life, just as alone as he has always been, as the promise of companionship was a hoax — but again, he’s doing it half-heartedly. He could have watched the life drain out of Will, but he leaves instead of really killing him, so Will isn’t truly gone from him. He leaves, yes, but he takes Will’s jacket and wears it — so Will isn’t truly gone from him. And that begs the question — would he have done that for anyone before meeting Will? I do not think so and neither did Will. When Hannibal asks him “Do you believe you could change me, the way I’ve changed you?” it seems like he wants Will to say no, but Will doesn’t, he say’s he has already altered him, that he is just as much a part of Hannibal as Hannibal is a part of him. They are both so so torn - Will, who betrays Hannibal, but says he did want the gift Hannibal gave him, Hannibal, who guts him but in a way that won’t allow him to die. Will, who wants to catch Hannibal, but seems so accusatory and hurt when he says “you were supposed to leave”. He’s a good fisherman, but begs the fish to swim away, and Hannibal swims towards him although he can see the fishing rod. Everyone talks about Will running towards his own destruction for him, but so does Hannibal. They’re crashing into each other. I cannot get over it, ever

#the way mads delivers the lines ‘I let you know me - see me’ is one of the best performances in all of cinema #the pain in his voice dear GOD #also will moving closer when Hannibal pushes the knife into his stomach #he takes what he can get from Hannibal!!! whatever it is #thank god I don’t relate to either of them 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣 feeling normal and fine #its the most heartbreaking love story of all time perhaps #Hannibal #emmys thoughts on Hannibal #nbc Hannibal #will Graham #hannibal lecter #Mads mikkelsen #hugh dancy #hannigram

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wen-kexing-apologist · 22 days

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Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

I am currently working my way through Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley, the totally light-hearted, definitely not agonizing section of @bengiyo's queer cinema syllabus where I get to watch countless acts of violence be committed against queer people. Thank fuck I have Lesbians waiting for me at the end of this unit. The films in Unit 4 are: Bent (1997), Strange Fruit (2004),Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Parting Glances (1986), Philadelphia (1993), The Living End (1992), Holding the Man (2015), Jeffery (1995), and Boys on the Side (1995).

Today i will be talking about

Philadelphia (1993) dir. Jonathan Demme

[Run Time: 2:05, Available on: YouTube for rent, Google Play, Amazon, Lang: English]

Summary: When a man with HIV is fired by his law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.

Cast: * Tom Hanks as Andrew Beckett * Denzel Washington as Joe Miller * Antonio Banderas as Miguel

___

To steal a comment from @lurkingshan, it has been awhile since I’ve watched a good legal thriller. Philadelphia is brilliant, and I don’t just mean in the general sense, I mean it is smart. It is smart in how it sets itself up. We start with Andy and Joe on opposites sides of a court room, we can see the rapport between them, but we set them up on opposite sides from the beginning. We move from there to Andy at the hospital, receiving his transfusions, looking across the way to a man whose karposi’s sarcoma has advanced to the end stages a look to where Andy himself will end in this film. And then to Andy’s law office where there is physical touch, after physical touch, after physical touch. Some that happen so quickly, others that linger, that the camera focuses in on, and I only wish that we’d seen Andy the day after that meeting, because I would be curious to see if and how the physical touches changed with people in the office.

But that’s not what we get, and we don’t really need it because what is truly important is that Andy is sicker than he originally let on. The point is that the law firm set Andy up while he was away. The point is that at so many stages in this film I was mad. And that was how I was supposed to be. I was mad at all the homophobic pieces of shit that were sitting there making excuses, that based a significant portion of their legal argument about not discriminating against Andy because he was gay with HIV, by trying to discredit Andy’s character because he was gay. [and of course the law office used a woman as their representation and had a Black man at their table as well…you know they were really trying to look good]

gif by @rancidtofu

You might know by now that I love a complicated relationship, so I was really thrilled that Joe eventually decided to represent Andy. Because Joe was homophobic as fuck, and he very much did not want to take the case. But again this film is smart, we never have to hear from Joe’s mouth or anyone’s for that matter that Joe decided to work with Andy after seeing how he was being treated by the librarian, but we know there’s no way it isn’t informed by experiences of racism in Black communities. The way Joe was stared at by a library worker when he was sitting at his table, the way Andy was stared at by a library worker when he was sitting at his table. The way Andy was being suggestively ushered away to somewhere out of view to other library patrons.

I loved that Joe was viciously homophobic because it demonstrates so well the boundary between work and personal life. Joe is able to do his job and do it well, and eventually after months of working with Andy, is able to come around, even touching Andy’s face which we know even has a lesion on it, by the end of the film. That is huge from someone that started the film literally running immediately to the doctor to make sure he didn’t have AIDS from shaking Andy’s hand. From a modern lens I can totally see how that would probably feel stereotypical or derivative or something like that but I think it is important to keep in mind that this film was one of the first Hollywood movies to feature HIV/AIDS and also portray gay people in a positive light. I haven’t actually been adding the for/by/about designations to the Heartbreak Alley films because something about doing that didn’t really sit right to me when we’re discussing the violence to and death of queer people. But this film definitely was not made for queer people, and Tom Hanks acknowledges that he was cast in the role for his “non-intimidating screen persona” and that “one of the reasons people weren’t afraid of this movie was because I was playing a gay man.”

The casting here was strategic to further assist audiences in sympathizing with a gay, HIV positive character.

gif by @rancidtofu

I really love all the little moments of solidarity, the smiles between the Black secretary at the law office and Joe because They Know™ about experiences of discrimination in the workplace. The solidarity between the secretary with AIDS and Andy. I loved that a Black woman was teaching Andy how to apply make up to cover his lesions. I loved that Andy’s entire family knew that he was gay, knew he had AIDS, knew he had a partner and that they all loved and accepted him, and that he had so many people in his life that truly, well, and deeply cared for him.

And I love how that is used to deliver maximum emotional impact, at least to me, in one single stupid opera line.

I genuinely enjoyed essentially sitting in a court room for two hours watching Joe strategize, and execute his traps for the jury to win them over. I love how you know that they have won the second that a juror repeats verbatim a line Joe had said repeatedly throughout the trial. I am grateful the film was kind enough to let Andy be awake and alert enough to know that they had won. That his one of his last acts on earth was getting to engage with the part of law he loved most: “that every once in awhile, not often, but occasionally, you get to play a part in justice being done” Justice was done here, Joe and Andy both played a role in what could potentially become another precedented case in the roster to build towards a stronger future for gay people in the workplace. I think that (though likely coupled with how much his body was beginning to fail) is what finally made him ready to go. Because for so much of this film he would hesitate when it came to death.

gif by @rancidtofu

He froze over the line “the actual physical [death]” when quoting the line about AIDS causing a social death. He talked about planning his memorial to try to get a reaction out of Miguel, and when Miguel gave him a response he very much did not want to hear “maybe you should” he took Miguel to a party, he talked about opera instead of practicing his Q&A.

I am grateful the film ends at his memorial, not just for the memories, though I am especially glad it ends on a video of Andy as a child (to appeal to the ‘he was somebody’s kid type of crowd) but that the memorial was not entirely gloomy. There was life, there was conversation, there were smiles, it made things feel more real. Just like all “see you tomorrow” lies everyone knew they were telling themselves felt real.

Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington are such powerhouses of actors and I am so so grateful that they did this project together.

Favorite Scene

(I am acknowledging that these gifs by @antoniosbanderas have nothing to do with my listed favorite scene, but I just need you all to know that the scene of these two laying in bed was cut from the final edit of the film, so I didn't actually get to watch it, so now you know it exists if you didn't already)

My favorite scene is when the law firm is questioning Melissa Benedict, a secretary that used to work with one of the lawyers in his previous firm. Melissa was diagnosed with AIDS after a blood transfusion, and she was put on the stand to prove one of the lawyers knew what AIDS lesions looked like and therefore was able to identify that Andy had HIV a week before he was fired.

I was ready to reach through my screen to smack a bitch when the law firm’s representation started trying to make a moral argument, that Melissa’s AIDS was acceptable AIDS to have in an office because she involuntarily contracted the disease through a medical procedure, whereas Andy had had gay sex and therefore voluntarily risked acquiring HIV. And you can just see Melissa looking over at Andy so often when the law firm is trying to make this argument, and trying to get Melissa to answer questions in a way that would make her seem like she is actually of the law firm’s opinion.

And she doesn’t let them do that to Andy. Instead she looks right at him and she qualifies her response saying: “But I don’t consider myself any different from anyone else with this disease. I’m not guilty, I’m not innocent, I’m just trying to survive” and it is just a beautiful moment for me. Especially because this film is trying to portray queer people in a positive light, having a straight, white woman with a disease she had no way of preventing say that she was just like anyone else with AIDS is hugely important to driving that message home.

Favorite Quote

gif by @fran-kubelik

I am so sorry in advance for how long this quote is, and that 90% of it is technically just Andy translating an opera but:

“‘Look the place that cradled me is burning.’ Do you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it Joe? Now in come the strings and it changes everything. It’s like the music, it fills with a hope. And that’ll change again. Listen. Listen. “I bring sorrow to those who love me” oh oh that single cello. “It was during this sorrow that love came to me.” (sobbing) “A voice filled with harmony. It said, live still. I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. It’s everything around you. It’s the blood and the mud. I am divine! I am oblivion. I am the god that comes down from the heavens to the earth and makes of the earth a heaven. I am love. I am love.”

The level of emotion, the implication behind each and every line that he translates, the way that those lines spoke to me as a queer person. “Look the place that cradled me is burning” this body, his body is failing; this life, his life is coming to an end. “I bring sorrow to those who love me” we see that with Andy’s mom, with his entire family for that matter, we see how loved he was and know that his death is going to be a devastating blow for a lot of people. “It was during sorrow love came to me” Miguel is there for all of it, through all of it. When he collapses in court, his family is the first to get to him, to try to help him. When he’s in the hospital the entire hallway is flooded with people that love him. Andy breaks at this point in his monologue, choking out the line “A voice filled with harmony. It said, live still. I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. It’s everything around you. It’s the blood and the mud.” I do not think Andy was ready to go until the very end when he finally said he was. Live still. Andy wants to live still. I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. It’s everything around you. It’s the blood and the mud. He will see Heaven soon, he is looking at the world through the lens of a dying man. “I am the god that comes down from the heavens to the earth and makes of the earth a heaven” We have one life to live, we should use it well, Andy has so much love in his life, that’s truly such a heavenly thing to have. He is seeking justice, in such a way that others might be protected the way he wasn’t. “I am love. I am love.”

I just.

I don’t know y’all I just really liked this film.

Score

9.5/10

I’m salty that Denzel wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, though I am wholly unsurprised, and I am glad Tom Hanks won and that his speech included praise of Denzel.

““And an actor who put his film image at risk and shown because of his integrity, Mr. Denzel Washington who I very much share this with”

Lovely film, highly recommend. Now on to The Living End

#bengiyo queer cinema syllabus #queer cinema syllabus #unit 4: heartbreak alley #philadelphia #philadelphia (1993)#denzel washington #tom hanks #antonio banderas #and with this film I am now 60% of the way through Unit 4 #I can see the finish line

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