A view from 'The Bridge'

I haven't seen the film, so I could be wrong, but just from the things i've read about it, it seems not only a bit explotative, but also a little, for lack of a better word, sick. It's certainly an interesting concept for a documentary to look at, but i'd be more than a little unsettled if the film was a "Faces of Death: San Francisco." Rosenbaum seems to think it is.

I'm sure some critics will look at it that way -- just a little surprised one of them would be Rosenbaum. I think he's dead wrong in his characterization. But there's a lot of squeamishness about suicide in our culture, even though the suicide rate is twice as high as the murder rate. People who jump off the bridge do it in full view of hundreds of other people -- that, in itself, is worth documenting and discussing. There's nothing gorey or gruesome -- just a small distant splash of water. That's part of what's so disturbing about the attitudes passers-by have toward the jumpers -- like they are just human detritus that can be flushed away into the bay. "The Bridge" raises a lot of uncomfortable questions about what brings someone to throw him/herself off the Golden Gate, and I don't think there's anything undignified or exploitive in witnessing these people end their lives. Of the 30,000+ suicides in the US every year, only 20 or so are done in broad daylight off one of the nation's busiest bridges and premiere tourist attractions; somehow, these jumpers want to get noticed, and I don't like the idea of sweeping suicide under the rug for fear of inspiring "copy cats." (The media tries it here in Seattle, too, hushing up the news of suicides off the Aurora Bridge, even when the bodies land on or nearby houseboats moored below.) Golden Gate tourists themselves often wind up with jumpers in their Kodak moments. The movie is about the romance, and suicidal romanticization, of the bridge, by the mentally ill and the culture at large -- and any moviegoer will be haunted by "Vertigo" when they see it. Next week, after my review comes out, I may respond to some of Rosenbaum's charges against the film in his capsule review.

I shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion, I want to see the film anyway, which is why Rosenbaum's capsule review worried me. Suicide most definately shouldn't be swept under the rug, and I hope "The Bridge" is an insightful look at that.

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W. H. Auden

The final part of that poem accompanied the image of Brueghel's painting in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The Breughel picture has proved to be quite an inspirational picture: W.H. Auden wrote a similar poem about it, "Musee des Beauz Arts":

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

First memory of the Golden Gate Bridge... Roger Moore as Bond almost falling to his death!

I saw it for the first time over the summer,
it's metal leg reaching into the water,
from the heavy mist where it's body remained hidden.
It was almost bigger to me than I imagined it could be,
hidden like that,
playing with the imagined image I've kept with me since childhood.

And don't forget Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts":
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

I too was surprised by Rosenbaum's negative review of Eric Steel's The Bridge. Sadly, the logic that Rosenbaum utilizes in order to reach his conclusion seems flawed. I learned long ago that it is not what a film is about, but rather how the filmmaker goes about exploring the subject matter in question. For example, a filmmaker could probably make a good movie about fornication amongst ants, as long as the filmmaker in question went about it in the proper fashion (and if he or she was so inclined...). Rosenbaum seems to intimate the following: "I find the idea of filming suicides to be obscene. Thus, Eric Steel's film is obscene." Moreover, he flat-out states that "Steel shows no special insight into the subject, though even that couldn't justify such hideousness." Yikes. Taking shots out of The Bridge of people jumping from the Golden Gate bridge is akin to taking out the close-ups in Bergman films. Sure, they would still be great films, but they would lose the haunting aspect of their emotional impact on the viewer (which contributes to their lasting affect on our memories). I love the work of Rosenbaum (online reviews, books, etc.), but I disagree with him about this film.
Needless to say, the sad part is that Rosenbaum's review is a capsule review. If it was a full-length review, I might be able to understand where Rosenbaum is coming from. That is what I love about Ebert. Sure, I may occasionally disagree with Ebert's opinions of certain films (e.g., Blue Velvet -- one star from Ebert, four stars from me). However, I always respect his opinion of the film in question since he explains at length the logic behind his views. As a result, I can see where he is coming from and I can understand why he feels the way he does about a particular film. In sharp contrast, capsule reviews short-change both the reader and the author. Thus, I cannot respect Rosenbaum's opinion of the Steel's film because he does not explain the logic behind his analysis. Case in point: According to Rosenbaum, filming people jumping from the Golden Gate bridge is "voyeuristic surveillance" and thus obscene. Um, doesn't all cinema constitute "voyeuristic surveillance" in one sense or another (from the "non-fictional" Grey Gardens to the "fictional" Satantango...both great films)? I wish that Rosenbaum would write a full-length review of The Bridge, as he does for other films (his full-length reviews are typically fantastic). In any event, The Bridge is the best film that I have seen so far this year (Although it is worth noting that 2006 is shaping up to be a slow year when compared to 2005, which is when we saw new films from Bergman, Cronenberg, Solondz, Herzog, Allen, Van Sant, Hou Hsiao-hsien, etc.). Everyone owes it to themselves to see The Bridge at least once. It will stay with you. Simply put, The Bridge is a great film and, more importantly, a necessary one.