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Home » Culture and Criticism

The Bridge

Submitted by on August 24, 2008 – 11:16 AM30 Comments

The Bridge is sporting a 70% “fresh” on the Tomato-meter as of this writing, but the 30% who dislike it do so with a virtuous dudgeon. “This could be the most morally loathsome film ever made” (Andrew Pulver, Guardian). “Little more than a snuff film dressed up as an art house flick” (David Cornelius, efilmcritic.com). “After a while you may feel that you’re watching a particularly scenic snuff film” (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune). “This is death porn, shocking for the sake of being shocking and little else” (Glenn Whipp, L.A. Daily News).

I hesitate to call reviewers who disagree with me “stupid” or “wrong” — a review is an opinion, and if we don’t share it, that fact doesn’t have a value judgment attached — but that breed of sound-bite self-righteousness is lazy and parochial at the least. Dislike the film all you want; feel uncomfortable with the subject matter, or the execution (The Bridge gives you ample grounds); ask questions of it. But…ask questions of it, instead of dismissing it out of hand as snuff.

Snuff is extreme and offensive; an image of death, of a suicide in the act of commission, is also extreme, but to call it offensive is weak, inexact writing just for starters. The Bridge is not intended for enjoyment; it’s not supposed to be easy to watch. It is a document. People kill themselves; this is a fact. The Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular place in the world to do so; this is also a fact. The way Eric Steel chose to record these difficult truths is controversial — he trained two cameras on the GGB during every daylight hour of 2004, and while he claims that he and his team immediately alerted bridge authorities to any suspicious or jump-likely behavior, the cameras (one of them a handheld) still saw plenty.

But if he had arranged the narrative more traditionally, alternating interviews with mental-health professionals with interviews of city planners and councilpeople, and the occasional shot of the bridge in fog, the same reviewers who indicted the movie for exploiting the desperate would have blown The Bridge off as boring and unimaginative. This is not to say that Steel shouldn’t have made his filmmaking process more clear within the movie itself; at times, I didn’t know for sure what I’d just seen, and the instinct is to assume it’s not real because you don’t want it to be. In the case of one jumper in particular, it seems odd, given the ample time he spends onscreen, that nobody would have intervened before he went through with it, and letting the audience wonder about the process does have the effect of opening Steel up to criticism, misplaced and otherwise.

But I cannot object in strong enough terms to writing an entire film off as “offensive” because you would rather not have seen what it showed you. As a critic, you have an obligation to avoid that Giuliani-type conflation of “I feel uncomfortable” with “this is offensive.” The film is enormously discomfiting; so is The Accused. So is Schindler’s List. A documentary is a different animal, but its presentation of real-life tragedy is not per se exploitive, and averting your eyes and muttering about poor taste is willfully irrelevant. It abdicates responsibility for answering the very questions I think the documentary is trying to raise. You have to see past the footage itself to what the footage is trying to tell you, or ask you, via your reaction or some other means. What is our responsibility to people who want to kill themselves? Should we make every possible effort to stop them, or is there a point at which we should respect their need to end the pain that torments them? Would erecting a barrier on the Golden Gate help any but the most impulsive attempters, or will the determined merely find another means?

What can we do when faced with others’ despair? Have we become too disconnected from one another? The New Yorker piece that inspired Steel to make the film, written by Tad Friend, implies that a physical barrier is perhaps not the correct focus:

Dr. Jerome Motto, who has been part of two failed suicidebarrier coalitions, is now retired and living in San Mateo. When I visited him there, we spent three hours talking about the bridge. Motto had a patient who committed suicide from the Golden Gate in 1963, but the jump that affected him most occurred in the seventies. “I went to this guy’s apartment afterward with the assistant medical examiner,” he told me. “The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, ‘I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.'”

The almost-unbelievable bleakness of that is not about the jump. It’s about the “will not,” and the “did” that followed anyway. Let yourself get affronted by the what, you’ll miss the examination of the why that makes it worthwhile.

Question Steel’s methods all you like; he made mistakes. But Steel also shows us Kevin Hines (also mentioned in the Friend piece), a guy struggling with bipolar disorder who went up to the bridge by bus and then paced around on it, sobbing the entire time; not one passerby expressed any concern for him, and one oblivious tourist asked him to take her picture. Seeing that as proof that he’d be better off ending things, Hines went over the side — and as he cleared the railing, he changed his mind. Hines turned himself around in midair to land feet first, and survived despite myriad internal injuries. And he’s alive and telling you the story, so you want the whole story to have a Hollywood ending — he turned a new leaf, the doctors sorted his meds out, and so on. But it’s not like hitting the water knocked the bipolarity out of him, and Steel doesn’t gussy that up.

The movie isn’t trying to find, or offer, titillation in watching people end their lives in such dramatic, grisly fashion; I think the movie is trying to figure out how those people got there in the first place — how they got all the way there, finding not one thing to hope for on the way, not one thing to change their minds. I absolutely did not want to see, or enjoy seeing, that shot of the Coast Guard, in their hazmat suits that gave them a misleadingly benevolent puffiness, fishing one of the victims out of the water with a gaff…all the hopes and tics and private jokes that make up a person, slung up on the deck like the catch of the day, it’s horrible to see. It’s horrible to see one victim’s friend wondering aloud, as she’s probably done every day since his death, what she could have done differently, trying to talk herself into forgiving herself — or another victim’s father, compulsively stroking the dachshund in his lap and struggling to speak evenly about his son’s pain, and the man has an amazing compassion for his son, accepting that he had to do what he did somehow. It’s devastating.

The Bridge is heartbreaking. Calling it “snuff” doesn’t change that fact; it just lets you avoid confronting what the film tries to: that we don’t know what to do with weeping strangers. That despair isn’t dispelled by our unwillingness to look. That midair is too late to do things differently. And you don’t have to confront those things at the multiplex if you don’t want to, but if you choose to review it, it deserves a better and more intellectually reliable assessment.

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30 Comments »

  • tulip says:

    man. I hadn’t heard about this documentary and I don’t know that I could watch it. I have such empathy for people in this situation (bipolar/suicide survivor) and I know I would have a hard time watching. I appreciate movies that make you confront uncomfortable facts and make you think about our response as a society as well as your own response personally.

    “And you don’t have to confront those things at the multiplex if you don’t want to, but if you choose to review it, it deserves a better and more intellectually reliable assessment.”

    Exactly right.

    Thanks for the link back to the weeping strangers post. The comments were a good review of what to do in such an uncomfortable, for everyone, situation.
    whoo. After all that crying I’m going to go watch my 4 year old’s “show” which includes a lot of giggling so hard she can barely stand up. :)

  • Jen S says:

    Sars, I heard about this on Jim Emerson’s Scanners site (you can find it over at Roger Ebert’s official site, rogerebert.suntime.com ) with a very good essay and lots of insightful comments.

    Yeah, people, calling a documentary about suicide a snuff film is really, really insulting. If it was some kind of exploitation thing where the idea was to get off on it, okay, but that clearly is not the intent. Critique what’s actually there.

  • Molly says:

    “And you don’t have to confront those things at the multiplex if you don’t want to, but if you choose to review it, it deserves a better and more intellectually reliable assessment.”

    I love you so much I could propose marriage.

  • Liz C says:

    I was in San Diego on Friday, looking at the Coronado Bridge, and immediately thought of this documentary. Along with all of things Sars mentioned, one of the scenes that totally sticks with me is the young woman who is standing on the ledge on the other side of the railing, and a group of people talk to her to keep her from jumping, and ultimately some big guy just hauls her back over the railing. I’ve walked across the GG Bridge 5 or 6 times, and wondered “what would I do if?”, and I thought that part was sort of instructive and hopeful.

  • Isabel says:

    Really well done review. I don’t know, honestly, if I could bring myself to watch the movie, but this was a good treatment.

    About the physical barrier though, you (and other interested people) may be interested, if you haven’t seen it already, in this very well-done article from the NYTimes Magazine a while back about the idea of preventing suicide by making it harder to do, since while there are some people who have become determined to do so, it seems that for a lot of others it’s a more impulsive thought than it would seem. A barrier decreased the suicide rate at one popular (oy, what a word to use) bridge without raising it at a very nearby bridge. There are other examples suggesting that physical barriers might prove more effective than it would seem (the British coal gas story is particularly intriguing). Like I said, the article is very well-done, highly recommended if anyone’s interested in the subject.

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    I think the Tad Friend piece I link to has a couple of paragraphs on whether that would work (apparently, in other places like the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower, it’s reduced the number of “incidents” to almost zero). He does discuss, rather sarcastically, why it still hasn’t been done.

  • Kate says:

    A close family friend of mine committed suicide almost four years ago now jumping off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. This was a brilliant, talented, beautiful person who lived in our home for a time, who was like a member of our family, and who struggled for her entire life with crippling depression. I have heard about this movie, and I don’t think I’ll be able to see it; I have to drive over that bridge every few months, and I still am overcome with grief and anxiety every time I cross it. But I applaud your critique of the reviews. Because even though I probably won’t see the movie, I think it’s thought-provoking and important. Even if the filmmaker’s thesis is flawed, if he is coming at it from a good place then it has some worth.

  • Catherine says:

    I saw this movie a few months ago…and calling it snuff is an oversimplification of epic proportions. I found this one of the most difficult films I’ve ever watched. But it does what a good documentary should do…it made me think. This film put faces and contexts to statistics. I though the subject matter was handled with respect and while I wouldn’t watch it again…it was a worthwhile film to be made.

  • Mike B. says:

    You touched on the two parts that didn’t work for me in this film:

    I read the director’s statement on the film’s site (which is a little tasteless, opening, as it does, as if it’s some sort of monster-movie — like The Host — with the bridge looming out of the fog and the link to “enter” the site falling from the bridge and splashing into the water), where he mentions the rules he and his fellow crew members followed: “From the start, it was clear that we needed to establish a set of guidelines about when we were simply to observe and when should [sic] intervene. If someone was walking alone, if he or she looked sad, lingered too long at one spot, paced back and forth — this made them logical subjects to be filmed. If someone set down a bag or briefcase or removed shoes or a wallet…trying to save that life was more important than getting footage.”

    Couple that with the suicide that closes the film out — the long-haired guy who leaps on the rail and falls backwards. Clearly he presented attributes that made him a “logical subject to be filmed.” However, because he didn’t think to take off his shoes or set down a bag or briefcase, he didn’t present attributes that made him a logical subject to be saved.

    If your documentary thesis is: Lots of people commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, then it’s going to behoove you to show people leaping to their deaths off the Golden Gate Bridge. So, while I agree with you that calling it a “snuff film” is histrionic, watching the film — and I watched the whole thing; I was mesmerized — left me agreeing more with Andrew Pulver’s statement that “this could be the most morally loathsome film ever made.”

  • Mike B. says:

    Liz C wrote: “One of the scenes that totally sticks with me is the young woman who is standing on the ledge on the other side of the railing, and a group of people talk to her to keep her from jumping, and ultimately some big guy just hauls her back over the railing.”

    And the documentary film crew gets all of that on film. It’s possible someone from Eric Steel’s crew called some authorities when the girl stepped on the other side of the railing; it would have been nice to see that happen. And maybe that was an artistic decision Steel made: we’re observers; we shouldn’t be in the documentary. This still left me feeling compromised as a viewer.

    (On a lighter note — the boy who survived his fall: I loved that, when he hits the water and then fights his way to the surface, he feels something brush against his leg and he says, “I’m thinking, ‘Great. I survive the fall from the Bridge only to be eaten by sharks?'”)

  • Celendra says:

    I’ve watched this one a few times now, when it was showing on IFC. I find myself in both the “moving” and “what a sleezebag” camps.

    The last guy who died, the geek (said with love – they are my people) with the long hair, I just kept listening to his best friend and thinking “I know that guy, I’ve met him at a thousand Cons, some of my best friends could be him.” When he was looking for love on the internet and the way he kept “joking” about killing himself, almost as if to see when it ceased to have a reaction. It was so powerful – it gets me everytime.

    Ditto with the Dad you mentioned, Sars. It just broke my heart how fair he was about it, how understanding. It just feels like if he was that understanding, why did this have to happen, etc. etc.

    The sleezebag part for me is that he interviewed these people, knowing full well he had footage of their loved ones death and was going to put it out in the world on display, and didn’t tell them that beforehand. They had no idea that he had that footage. It just…..boggles my imagination, the lack of humanity you have to have to be sitting there, teasing these intimate memories out of someone whose trust you’ve gained under false pretenses. Knowing perfectly well that they’re going to find out, that they’re going to sit there and feel duped and foolish on top of , hello!, the death that they’re already dealing with.

    I can understand the rules about when to call for help. But not telling the loved ones about the footage before you get them to open up to you is gross. I’m sure the argument could be made that he couldn’t have made the movie if they had known because they wouldn’t have talked to him, blah, blah, blah. Oh well. Part of the documentary process in something like this is to showcase the pain of the survivors. But I would hope as a human being, you would feel the obligation not to make it worse.

    Well, that turned out much longer than anticipated.

  • Mike B. says:

    Celendra wrote: “The sleezebag part for me is that he interviewed these people, knowing full well he had footage of their loved ones death and was going to put it out in the world on display, and didn’t tell them that beforehand.”

    Wait, really?

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    I didn’t know that either. What is the source on that?

    I hope it’s exaggerated, or that he at least told them *something*, because…can you imagine going to the documentary, as a family member, not knowing that was coming? It would be hard enough to go, I think.

    It’s still not a snuff film, but it would make Steel…a sociopath.

  • BethH. says:

    “When Steel got the permits necessary to set up cameras and tape the bridge for a year, he didn’t say why he was doing it. And when he interviewed the family members of suicide victims, he didn’t tell them in advance that he had captured the suicides on tape.

    When asked why he declined to notify anyone about the purpose of his filming, he cited a concern that people would come to the bridge to commit suicide to be in the film.

    He had the same reasoning for not informing friends and family of the victims of his filming.

    “All the family members now, at this point, have seen the film,” Steel said. “Every one of them was glad that they had participated in it. So in the end, I think, you know, I made the right choice.”

    This is from an ABC story about the filming and the controversy. Steel didn’t inform the families and believes he made the right choice. I’d be interested to find out what the families thought.

  • Teresa says:

    Here is one source indicating that the families were not informed that Steel had filmed the deaths:

    http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/28/local/me-bridge28

  • Mike B. says:

    @ Sarah and Celendra:

    I found this ABC News article from October 2006. From the article:

    “When asked why he declined to notify anyone about the purpose of his filming, he cited a concern that people would come to the bridge to commit suicide to be in the film.

    He had the same reasoning for not informing friends and family of the victims of his filming.

    ‘All the family members now, at this point, have seen the film,’ Steel said. ‘Every one of them was glad that they had participated in it. So in the end, I think, you know, I made the right choice.'”

    I’m uncomfortable only taking Steel’s word that “all the family members [are] glad that they had participated.”

  • Andrea says:

    Nope, it doesn’t appear to be exaggerated. According to ABC news:

    “When Steel got the permits necessary to set up cameras and tape the bridge for a year, he didn’t say why he was doing it. And when he interviewed the family members of suicide victims, he didn’t tell them in advance that he had captured the suicides on tape.”

    http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2592841&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

    I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t comment on it, but that seems pretty horrible.

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    “When asked why he declined to notify anyone about the purpose of his filming, he cited a concern that people would come to the bridge to commit suicide to be in the film.”

    Okay, so you don’t put that shit on Craigslist, but why wouldn’t you tell the families? Not to put too fine a point on it, but as far as anyone *they’re* going to tell about it, the people they know who might jump…already jumped. (I’m sorry that’s so crudely stated; I’m on 3-ish hours’ sleep.)

    Maybe you don’t put everything on the permits, maybe you don’t let it get around that that’s what you’re doing, but what he’s basically saying is that he thinks people will bruit it about. And if he’s really dialing 911 and bridge authorities to head off possible jumpers, wouldn’t that cover any additional potential suicides — which probably wouldn’t number more than two or three, probably?

    I can *sort* of see his reasoning at first, but then it doesn’t hold up; I just don’t think the outcome he says he’s trying to avoid is all that likely in the first place.

  • patrick hines says:

    It was my son who lived.

    Eric Steel was clear open and honest. He presented me with a document explaining to me exactly what he intended to do with my interview. He did the same for all of the families in the film.

    One other point. The girl who was pulled from death – watch the scene again.
    No one – helped the man pull her over – no one tried to talk to her – in fact you will notice that people just walk by… and glance at her not caring that she is about to die.

    That scene is a metaphor. Every week someone dies at the Golden Gate Bridge and we just walk by…

    The Bridge Authorities have been well aware of the horror for over 70 years and have done everything they can to keep it San Francisco’s dirty little secret.
    The rails are very low access great and the presumption is that it is an easy death. What the film does not show is the horror of people drowning in their own blood – most dont die of the impact.

    So to those that call this a snuff film shame on you – what it is is a heroic attempt to bring light into the darkest corner of San Francisco – and attempt to wake up the public to the shame that in many ways they are responsible for due to their apathy.

  • Jaybird says:

    I am less sure that this film will open any eyes about the horrors of suicide than that some people will, as they do on the movie’s message boards, claim suicide is a “brave” step. My high school boyfriend committed suicide on my birthday, and there was nothing brave about it. Nor was there any courage involved in my uncle’s jamming a gun into his mouth at the breakfast table in 1994. Courage and suicide are just about mutually exclusive. That isn’t meant to insult or denigrate anyone or their loved ones, but associating the two makes as much sense as asserting that introversion = musical talent.

    While movies like this one don’t MAKE anyone do anything, it’s nauseating and unsettling to see people who seem to applaud suicide given a center around which to coalesce.

    And if I had been one of the family members interviewed under false pretenses, I’d be going after this guy with a hammer, probably.

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    Mr. Hines: Thanks so much for the clarification; it’s much appreciated. (And a relief, frankly.)

    This is perhaps a strange thing to say, given the subject matter, but I read that Kevin is doing outreach now, so I hope he takes it as a compliment, which is how I intend it — but please pass along to him that he’s a great storyteller, and his part in the film is funny and touching.

    He’s welcome to stick his head in over here as well, of course. Best of luck to you both.

  • Jaybird says:

    Mr. Hines, I posted what I did before I saw your post. I’m so glad that your son survived, and glad as well that we were wrong about Eric Steel’s actions. I sincerely hope that your family and especially your son continue to recover from what had to be an ordeal. Please forgive me if what I posted was hurtful in the least; it was not at all meant to be so.

  • patrick hines says:

    Dear Sarah,

    Thank you very much. Kevin is no longer just the “bridge guy.” He has expanded his message to one of hope for those suffering from mental illness. He is finishing college – working and is now married.

    He speaks nationally, once a month, by invitation. He has been concentrating his efforts on young adults and returning wounded from the Iraq war.

    He is very clear when he takes the podium and tells everyone that he suffers from a mental illness. In fact he says ” I am mentally ill !” which usually stuns the audience. After a brief reference to his terrible experience he then references what happened at the bridge. I have been quietly in the background and people gasp.

    He then goes on to cite well know honored individuals who were diagnosed with mental illness including Lincoln and Churchill. He points out that the brain is an organ in the body albeit the most complex. His message is that his brain is malfunctioning but with the proper medical protocal and dicipline on his part he is a functioning member of society.

    Not someone that should be thrown away…

    His is a message of hope – and I hope that all that read this think about how many like Kevin have died needlessly at the Golden Gate Bridge.

    Again Eric Steel is a hero because he came to San Francisco and stood up against an entrenched bureaucracy that for 70 years has ignored the horror for which they are responsible.

    They deny responsibility -they deny culpability they deny the worth of the souls who unfortunately arrive at the Golden Gate Bridge at the lowest point in their life only to be offered what appears to be a solution to it all.

    But suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

    Patrick Hines

  • patrick hines says:

    To JayBird

    I took no offense – and thank you for your kind words. Suicide is a terrible emotional shock for those left behind. We spend a lot of time deconstructing the why behind a person’s suicide.

    I have talked to many of the families. Factually, suicide attacks when a person is most vulnerable and if there is easy access to means the emotional pain drives a split second decision that destroys those left behind.

    Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem for the person who dies. Suicide is a permanence deep and ever present scar to the loved ones who survive.

  • patrick hines says:

    …by the way the sources cited above purporting to bring truth are newspaper articles.

    May I suggest that the old saying that you can believe nothing you read and only half of what you see applies aptly in this circumstance.

    Having been involved in this situation for eight years now one thing I can say with out hesitation is that the media is fraught with charlatans who will write lies, bold calculated unadulterated, complete and total falsehoods, laughing all the way to their bank accounts and editors.

    I am shocked, truly, almost daily by the lack of honestly that is the common denominator of the media. More to the point I am stunned that educated and competent people would be so gullible, susceptable and trusting of the media.

    Very sad but very true –

  • Jaybird says:

    I’ve never understood (in any context) the “They’re going to do it anyway, why try to stop them” attitude shown in the case of the GG Bridge Authority. It doesn’t make sense when you’re trying to prevent breaking and entering; if burglars can possibly break in through a window, does that mean you don’t lock your door? The fact that a suicidal person, IF persistently determined to end his or her life, can always find some means, doesn’t justify handing them said means on a platter. And doing so has obviously convinced quite a few people that they’re right to end their own lives, because if others cared for them, better safeguards would be in place.

  • Kristen says:

    ‘I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’

    That is the saddest thing I have ever read. Thanks for your “review” of the reviews, Sars – I now need to see this film. And thank you, Mr. Hines, for posting here and helping to dispell the myths.

  • Margaret in CO says:

    “If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’
    This is in the back of my mind when I smile at strangers. If thirty people think I’m nuts for smiling at them, but one person has a better day because of my smile, then it’s worth it.
    It costs me nothing. It makes a difference.

    It IS sad, Kristen. I need to see this movie too.

  • Blaiset it says:

    I was shocked when I watched this too; thanks Sars, I hadn’t heard of this movie before. I couldn’t believe that the director wasn’t sued. I understand what he said about people taking shoes off, etc. but that last kid…he seemed pretty obviously upset and pacing for quite some time. (90 minutes I read!) It just seems like should have had more of a responsibility somehow.

    Kevin’s story was definitely the most inspiring. And to hear that he’s speaking out and trying to help others. I can’t believe he can walk!! So strong and such a cutie.

    I remember that they installed anti-suicide barriers in Japan because suicides on the subway tracks were too high.

  • […] smile to a person walking by can make all the difference. Dr. Jerome Motto records his visit to a man’s apartment after he jumped to his death from the Golden gate […]

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