>Date: 23 Dec 93 18:39:48 EST
>From: anon@queernet.org (Anonymous Sender)
San Francisco Chronicle                                   December 20, 1993

                     Is There an 'A' in 'Philadelphia'?
                    Film's ad campaign skirts AIDS issue

                           by Christopher Michaud
                               New York Times

'Gay lawyer with AIDS sues the firm that fired him."

That synopsis might work for TV Guide, but it wouldn't go far in promoting
Tri-Star Pictures' major Christmas release, "Philadelphia," a prestigious
drama the studio hopes will gather several Oscar nominations.

As Hollywood's first big-budget film about AIDS and discrimination against
homosexuals, the $25 million film (opening in San Francisco on January 14)
is considered a bellwether project.  Its box office success (or failure)
may well determine Hollywood's willingness to invest heavily in other AIDS
films, and response at the box office may well be shaped by its national
marketing campaign.

"Philadelphia" confronts Tri-Star with the problem of attracting a wide
audience to a film about a dying man that does not shy from showing gaunt
AIDS sufferers with lesions on their faces and bodies.

Tom Hanks plays a lawyer in a big downtown firm whose partners find out he
has AIDS and fire him.  Denzel Washington plays the homophobic
persona-injury lawyer he hires to sue the firm.

The poster and newspaper and magazine ads for "Philadelphia" - which shows
the two stars with the words "No one would take on his case ... until one
man was willing to take on the system" - suggest that Tri-Star is inclined
to obscure AIDS as the focus of the film.  But executives involved in
production and marketing deny such a desire.

To bolster their argument, they point to the film's lengthy trailer, which
includes several references to AIDS, gay people and discrimination.  And
Buffy Shutt, Tri-Star's president of marketing, says several commercials
produced for television were designed to call attention to as many of the
movie's elements as possible:  a man battling AIDS, his courtroom battle,
his family life and the discrimination he faces.

Other television commercials focus on positive quotations from critics who
saw the film before its official opening.  At least one commercial "makes
it clear that Tom Hanks is a person with AIDS," Shutt said.

"There was never any consideration given to trying to obscure what the
movie is about," she added.  "Our decision early on was to be very bold
about the narrative and the emotional impact of the movie."

Ron Nyswaner, who wrote the screenplay, conceded that he was aware that the
film's poster and print ads avoided the subject of AIDS in favor of
addressing the film's major subject - discrimination.

Edward Saxon, who co-produced "Philadelphia" with its director, Jonathan
Demme, said:  "It's difficult to sum up any movie in a single image or a
single ad line.  This was the best of the choices available to us."

He compared "Philadelphia" to films like "Gentleman's Agreement," which
attacked anti-Semitism; "In the Heat of the Night," which attacked racism,
and "Love Story," which had a heroine doomed by cancer.  "This picture is
about discrimination as well as being about AIDS," he said.

Several people involved with the production and marketing of "Philadelphia"
also likened it to "Terms of Endearment."  The 1983 film, which Shutt also
worked on, was a critical and box office success that dealt with a fatal
illness and won several Oscars.

But Saxon noted, "There is no movie just like this one."  So when the
makers of "Philadelphia" sat down with people from the studio to develop a
marketing plan, Shutt said, the decision was made to emphasize "a great
script; Jonathan Demme is an Academy Award-winning director; it's cast with
two very big stars."  As a result, print ads for the film trumpet the
quality of the film and of the talent involved.

Two weeks ago, a newspaper ad that occupied three full pages conveyed no
hint of either gay or AIDS-related themes but dwelled instead on Demme as
an Oscar winner, the courtroom drama of "Philadelphia" and enthusiastic but
vague quotations from critics.  The studio expects the film to appeal
equally to men and women in the 18-to-49 age bracket.

"In doing the publicity for the picture, we'll be talking a lot about
AIDS," said Saxon, alluding to interviews by the stars and the film makers.
"The movie is not simply about somebody dying of AIDS; it's about a man who
lives with AIDS and what happens with his life."

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