The Film Reporter

The adventures of Forrest Gump. 

I came across Philadelphia (1993) around 2 years ago. When the films credits rolled up the screen, I found a few tears settling on my cheeks. The end of the climax made me think, what did Andrew Beckett (Hanks) really want in this film, did he want to survive, did he want justice, did he want to find something to do before he died? I came to the conclusion that he is a man, just like us, he loves, works, goes to sleep at night and wakes up in the morning. He was a man who worked hard for years as a lawyer, a profession he loved, and had his job at the firm terminated because of the identification of the aids disease, a disease that was so mis-understood and mysterious to the public.  Andrew Becket loved his job, the job being taken away from Becket was almost as bad as the disease he gained, as Becket once states on the podium “Sometimes, just sometimes, you get to be a part of justice, it’s a real thrill”, and Becket seeks out just that.

Aids is a disease that millions, possibly billions still have no idea about, they have the basic conception of it, but people are afraid of it, and back in the early 90’s when this disease appeared, people were terrified. Jonathan Demme (Director) does not turn the corner from this, he presents it in magnificent imagery (note the second Washington and Hanks encounter), Denzel is our hero in this film, he pioneers that the case wasn’t about sexual orientation, but for justice.

Indeed Philadelphia has presented the mis-understood bubble of Aids through a court room drama, which, sure, develops suspense and tension as we see Denzel grow as a character as he fights for Becket and justice, but at first this is just a case to him, but he soon starts to understand Becket, this ‘homsexual’ character, a label which he and many around him was terrified of, become close, maybe not in the conventional sense, but chemically, they understand each other.

Philadelphia is a film that is very focused on emotion, it emphasises this and makes this case of justice important to us, but more importantly Becket’s life is important to us, a man who is as kinda heart as we can find. Philadelphia is one of the modern classics of our film and should be watched by everyone, it’s a real testament to the people who have suffered this dreadful disease. 

A man against his own will, fights for justice against a problem he doesn’t understand. 

Philadelphia, 1993

It came to my attention just this moment that yesterday was the second anniversary of Cpt. Dick Winters’ death. He was a hero who championed the freedom of this world as we know it and grew a bond like no other with his men in his time on the battlefield.

Dick Winters: I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day, when he said Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?

Grandpa said no, but I served in a company of hero’s.

[last lines] 
Jim Lovell: [narrating] Our mission was called “a successful failure,” in that we returned safely but never made it to the moon. In the following months, it was determined that a damaged coil built inside the oxygen tank sparked during our cryo stir and caused the explosion that crippled the Odyssey. It was a minor defect that occured two years before I was even named the flight’s commander. Fred Haise was going back to the moon on Apollo 18, but his mission was cancelled because of budget cuts; he never flew in space again. Nor did Jack Swigert, who left the astronaut corps and was elected to Congress from the state of Colorado. But he died of cancer before he was able to take office. Ken Mattingly orbited the moon as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 16, and flew the Space Shuttle, having never gotten the measles. Gene Kranz retired as Director of Flight Operations just not long ago. And many other members of Mission Control have gone on to other things, but some are still there. As for me, the seven extraordinary days of Apollo 13 were my last in space. I watched other men walk on the Moon, and return safely, all from the confines of Mission Control and our house in Houston. I sometimes catch myself looking up at the Moon, remembering the changes of fortune in our long voyage, thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home. I look up at the moon and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be? 

Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) Comparing the size of the moon to his thumb, what a historical undertaking and momentous return home. 

Great Film.

Jim Lovell: Houston, we have a problem

Television Reporter: Is there a specific instance in an airplane emergency when you can recall fear? 

Jim Lovell: Uh well, I’ll tell ya, I remember this one time - I’m in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there’s no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone… because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was - it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I’m lookin’ down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can’t even tell now what my altitude is. I know I’m running out of fuel, so I’m thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there’s this uh, there’s this green trail. It’s like a long carpet that’s just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was - it was - it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn’t shorted out, there’s no way I’d ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh, never know… what… what events are to transpire to get you home.