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And the Band Played On (film)

1993 film directed by Roger Spottiswoode

And the Band Played On is a 1993 HBO film about the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode. Written by Arnold Schulman, based on the book by Randy Shilts.
A threat no one dared face. A word no one wanted to speak. A fight for many, fought by few.

Dr. Don Francis

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  • This may be the first epidemic in history of which no one officially died.

Others

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  • Dr. Jim Curran: All right, what do we think? What do we know? What can we prove?
  • The Choreographer: The party's over.
  • Dr. Dennis Donohue: When the doctors start acting like businessmen, who do the people turn to for doctors?
  • Roger Gail Lyon: This is not a political issue. This is a health issue. This is not a gay issue. This is a human issue. And I do not intend to be defeated by it. I came here today in the hope that my epitaph would not read that I died of red tape.
  • Congressman Phil Burton: I'll introduce a bill. But if all the angels came dancing down to earth like the Rockettes, even they couldn't get a dime out of this administration for anything with the name "gay" on it.
  • Dr. Luc Montagnier: [In French] It's amazing to me that Americans can think a disease has a sexual preference. But that's all Americans think of... Sex. Sex. Sex.

Dialogue

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Bobbi Campbell: Well, you know, if the gay community doesn't start raising hell, do you think Reagan is going to do a damn thing?
The Choreographer: I wish I had your courage.
Bobbi Campbell: Courage... no. I'm scared to death. I just have this self-determination to live. Don't you?
Eddie Papasano: Let me tell you people something, no matter what happens here today, if you try to close my joint, I 'll sue the ass off you.
Dr. Don Francis: Doesn't it bother you knowing that the people who have sex in your bath-house are playing Russian roulette?
Eddie Papasano: Please just cut out this bullshit. We're all in this for one thing: money. I make'em when the guys come in. You doctors, you make'em when they go out.
Bobbi Campbell: Now for years and years and years people in my hometown were telling me I was a freak because of my sexual orientation, until I came to San Francisco, and I found a community of freaks just like me. We stood together. We stood together! And it took a long time. But we finally forced this one tiny spot of the universe, the Castro, to realize that how we choose to have sex, and where, is our own damn business. Which to all other people who haven't gone through what we've gone through sounds funny and they may laugh, but I know speaking for most of us, I would rather die as a human being than continue living as a freak.
Dr. Mervyn Silverman: Clearly there's a lot of strong feeling on the subject...
Voice in the crowd: What good is all the gay rights in the world if we are all dead?
Blood Bank executive: Is the CDC seriously suggesting that the blood industry spends $100M a year to use the test for the wrong disease because we have a handful of transfusion fatalities and eight dead hemophiliacs?
Dr. Don Francis: How many dead hemophiliacs do you need? How many people have to die to make it cost efficient for you people to do something about it? A hundred? A thousand? Give us a number so we won't annoy you again until the amount of money you begin spending on lawsuits make it more profitable for you to save people than to kill them.
Dr. Robert Gallo: All right, explain one thing to me. Ten times ten times ten, my name is in every book ever written on the human retrovirus. Why would you get in bed with the French instead of me?
Dr. Don Francis: Is it you against the French? I thought we were all against the virus. If you go to court now, everybody loses. You, the people who die while you quibble...
Dr. Robert Gallo: [Interrupting] What do you want?
Dr. Don Francis: I want to stop you from turning a holocaust into an international pissing contest!

Cast

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