There have been some great movies about the AIDS pandemic that plagued the gay and IV-using community in the ’80s. Philadelphia was a notable one. I was attending Union Theological Seminary during the years of that outbreak and that crisis wove its way into many, many conversations in the Pit, in the Chapel, in the refectory. We cut our theological teeth on grappling with this suffering. This past year another movie surfaced, The Normal Heart, starring Mark Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Matt Bomer and Jim Parsons. The last scene in this movie shows Ned Weeks, the main character trying to enter back into his life. The quadrangle and the refectory at Union are the setting for this scene.

UTS Cinema #4