NEWS

Now Showing on HBO: Cancer Documentary Makes Prime Time

Bob Kuska

Nearly 20 years ago when his sister Tricia was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer, Joe Lovett noticed something remarkable happen to her. Instead of acting as though she just had been handed a death sentence, as he had seen happen to so many other people, Tricia battled the disease with the personal resolve of a runner training for a marathon. By vowing to be an aggressive, informed cancer patient, Lovett said his sister lived several, high-quality years longer than her original "say-your-last-good-byes" prognosis.



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Joe Lovett

 
It was a lesson that Lovett has never forgotten.

So, in 1996, when executives at the Home Box Office television network contacted Lovett, a New York-based independent film maker, to produce a documentary on cancer, he decided to follow his sister’s lead. He would seize the opportunity to celebrate the worldwide fight against cancer and alert people touched by the disease to the mountain of information that is now just a telephone call or a computer mouse click away.

"I approached the project wanting people to know that they have the ability to deal with their own lives—that they could be living with cancer, rather than dying of cancer," Lovett said.

The result is a 21/2-hour megadocumentary entitled "Cancer: Evolution To Revolution" that debuts on HBO on March 30 at 8 p.m. EST. The film features the personal journeys of four people diagnosed with cancer as well as interviews with numerous experts and activists in the field, including Harold Varmus, M.D., now president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York; Richard Klausner, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute; and Ellen Stovall, executive director of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.

In an unprecedented move, HBO is encouraging local cable operators to open the network’s for-pay channel free of charge to non-subscribers while the program airs. The network also gave Lovett the thumbs up to take periodic intermissions during the program to flash the names, telephone numbers, and Web site addresses of numerous cancer information services. In addition, HBO plans to assist interested viewers via its own Web site (http://hbo.com).

Who Is That Man?

The documentary is also unique in that Lovett, as the film’s director and producer, does not hide behind his camera. At the prompting of John Hoffman, senior director of documentary programming at HBO, Lovett said he agreed halfway through the project to become a fifth on-camera character, a story line seldom seen in television documentaries.

"To me, it felt more honest," said Lovett, who has had five members of his immediate family battle cancer, four of whom have died from the disease. "My concern on camera is real, and I think anyone who watches the show can see themselves in my situation and see themselves asking the same questions."

By exposing the ever-present threat of cancer in his life and even agreeing to have an on-camera colonoscopy, Lovett said he also put his money where his mouth is in challenging people to talk openly about the disease.

"I think the biggest problem preventing people from becoming informed consumers is the stigmatization of cancer in our society as a horribly debilitating, deadly disease," he said, noting that many patients still keep their diagnosis a secret to avoid the whispers of friends and coworkers.

Lovett noted that so pervasive is this veil of secrecy that it also extends over many families in the United States. "One of the things that we found while researching the program—it was very common for people to say to us, ‘I didn’t think there was any cancer in my family until I started to ask, and it turned out that this uncle and that aunt had cancer.’ It was all a big secret."

Voices Carry

But Lovett said he sees the veil beginning to lift, as signified by the words "evolution to revolution" in the film’s title. Emblematic of this shift in attitude, he said, was last year’s march on Washington, D.C., by tens of thousands of people whose lives have been touched by cancer, an event that the documentary presents. Another is the relatively recent explosion in specialized help groups and consumer information, particular Web sites, now available to cancer patients.

In fact, HBO’s Hoffman said the network’s interest in airing a special program on cancer grew out of a very personal need to know. One of Hoffman’s colleagues at HBO was fellow producer Anthony Radziwill, who was being treated for a sarcoma. "Anthony was someone who was a great inspiration to us in how he was fighting his cancer," said Hoffman. "He defined for us what an active patient should be, and it really pointed us in this direction."

Radziwill originally joined Hoffman and executive HBO producer Shella Nevins in working on the documentary. However, last August, Radziwill succumbed in his 10-year battle with sarcoma. He was still in his 30s.

"The point is you don’t have to be cured of cancer to win," said Lovett. "It is getting the most out of life while you still have it that counts."

According to Hoffman, it is precisely this message that HBO hopes to convey for 180 minutes — more than twice as long as any of its previous health specials. "We are calling it a ‘public service special,’ and it is a pretty unique notion that a network would devote so much of its prime-time air time to a cause like this," he said.

Now that the film is ready for prime time, Hoffman said he and his colleagues at HBO are excited about getting out the word. "Everyone is really proud," said Hoffman. "I know this sounds like cheerleading, but the people here are used to promoting programs such as boxing, ‘The Sopranos,’ and ‘Sex in the City.’ But cancer affects two out of three people, and everyone has some personal connection to the issue. So, it is really amazing how engaged everyone at HBO has gotten about the program."



             
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