Angels, Reagan and AIDS in America - Frank Rich

[Khephra]

Tonight is the night when Americans might have tuned into Part 1 of "The Reagans" on CBS. But the joke is on the whiners who forced the mini-series off the air. Just three weeks from tonight, HBO will present the first three-hour installment of Mike Nichols's film version of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," starring Al Pacino and Meryl Streep. (Part 2 is a week later.) This epic is, among other things, a searing indictment of how the Reagan administration's long silence stoked the plague of AIDS in the 1980's. If "Angels" reaches an audience typical for HBO hits, it could detonate a debate bloody enough to make the fight over "The Reagans" look like an exhibition bout.

That's not such a big if. "Angels" is the most powerful screen adaptation of a major American play since Elia Kazan's "Streetcar Named Desire" more than a half-century ago. It's been produced not only with stars but at four times the budget of "The Reagans." People are going to talk about it, and, as they do, HBO will replay it relentlessly to rake in more and more of the country. Threats of a boycott against a channel soon to unveil a new season of "The Sopranos" will go nowhere.

"Angels" is only minutes old when Mr. Pacino appears as a real-life crony of the Reagans — Roy Cohn, in his post-McCarthy-era incarnation as a still-powerful Republican fixer, closely tied to the Ed Meese justice department. A photo on his office wall shows him arm in arm with both the president and his vice president. Cohn is also a closeted gay man dying of AIDS. When he takes a sexual partner to the White House, he gloats, "President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand." Eventually Cohn will threaten to reveal "adorable Ollie North and his secret contra slush fund" unless the White House secures him a private stash of AZT, then the most promising AIDS drug and still unavailable to all but a few. Cohn gets his pills while thousands of other dying Americans are placed on hold.

How much of this really happened and how much is fantasy? Mr. Kushner is not making a historical documentary, or practicing journalism, any more than those behind "The Reagans" were. Whatever his script's fictions, it accurately conveys the rancid hypocrisy among powerful closeted gay Republicans in Washington as AIDS spiraled. And though "Angels" takes note of the falling of the Berlin Wall, it doesn't feel that it owes a president any sanctuary from free speech. "If he didn't have people like me to demonize," says one angry non-Republican gay character, Reagan would have ended up the "upper-right-hand square on `The Hollywood Squares.' " The Reagans are "not really a family," goes another riff. "There aren't any connections there, no love."

more.....................

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/arts/16RICH.html

[MoonAndSun]

1. I just may have to get HBO just to see this. And I'm surprised

at the tone of this article from Rich. He is going to upset the repukes big time. I wonder if he is ready for the onslaught.

It will serve CBS right if this HBO show is a big hit.

[KC21304]

3. Frank Rich never gives a hoot whom he upsets.

His are some of the best articles written about selection 2000 and this phony I call the turd from Crawford.

[realFedUp]

2. How rich.

meow.

[kskiska]

4. This is what gets me…

No less ridiculous were two of Mr. Moonves's loudest critics, Patti Davis and Michael Reagan, both of whom got big paydays for tell-all books trashing Ronald and Nancy Reagan far more ferociously than anything reported to be in the CBS mini-series. In "The Way I See It," published in 1992, Ms. Davis presented her mother as a pill-popping tyrant who slapped her around for years for such sins as refusing to urinate on demand.

[wabeewoman]

5. A very dysfunctional family....

one or the other was on the outs with the president or his wife the whole time they were in office. And if you haven't read "The Band Played On", a true story about the AIDS epidemic and the government's criminal behavior in refusing to acknowledge the disease. The author later died of AIDS.

[kskiska]

6. Michael was never "in" with the Reagans

As an adopted son of Jane Wyman and Reagan, he wasn't even allowed to live with his father when he remarried. They "didn't have room." Reagan didn't even recognize his son as he shook hands with him at his graduation, and asked his name. While in office, Reagan asked his son not to use his name in letters promoting himself. Now that his father is a veg, Michael's created a fictitious version of the relationship between him and his dad – one that can no longer be 't be challenged by his father.

[Grins]

8. Got a source?

I'v never heard this one. Got a source for it? I may add this one to my "Republican Family Values" file. What a gem.

[KC21304]

11. I believe it is in some dumb book that Michael Reagan wrote

when he was trying to cash in.

[baby_bear]

7. What a great article! Deserves a big kick here!

One really needs to read the whole thing. As is typical with Frank Rich, he saves his big punch for the end.

I love his articles especially now that he is off the op-ed page and on Sunday's Arts and Leisure. His articles are longer and much more in-depth.

Thanks for the post, khepra!

s_m

[Khephra]

9. Thanks!

I'm usually up on entertainment, but this show flew in under my radar. We need more people to hear about this show.

[baby_bear]

10. I was wondering if Diane Sawyer will review it on GMA....

That would be interesting, her being Mike Nichols' wife and all (but I rarely catch it anyway). I just love Frank Rich and even if I never see this film -- but I will -- I'm glad I read this article. Thanks again for the post, Khephra. Let's make sure to post more notices about the HBO special when it starts airing 3 weeks from now.

Didn't you love the photo of Al Pacino as Roy Cohn??

s_m

[Khephra]

12. Pacino looks great in that picture

I hope we get the "good" Pacino and not the "bad" (overacting) Pacino for this. He's an excellent actor, but he can ham it up at times too.