THE BRIDGE is a rare example of a documentary that deserves to be seen on the big screen. The photography of the Golden Gate Bridge - from Peters Baldwin and McCandless - is absolutely stunning. It has an eery quality which grows with the realisation that what this footage is capturing is actual people committing suicide by jumping off the bridge. Eric Steel then searches out their families and interviews them, giving the grim footage context. Some people will condemn the film out of hand for showing suicide attempts live. And frankly, you can't help but think that if the camera-men tracked a suicidal man walking up and down the bridge deciding whether or not to jump, they surely could have intervened. Having said this, the sensitive and discreet interviews with the families, lessened my concern. Indeed, the fact that the families chose to participate at all says something.THE BRIDGE played London 2006 and went on limited release in the US in October 2006 and the UK and Norway in Spring 2007. It is now available on DVD.
I am one who appeared in the Bridge.
ReplyDeleteSimply death at the Golden Gate has been kept quiet by the authorities in San Francisco to hide their culpability and responsibility.
The Eric Steele and his movie was the first opportunity that we had to alert the World to our plight.
The devastation of losing a loved one at the Golden Gate Bridge is overwhelming and destroys those left behind.
But still the directors of the Golden Gate Bridge stall and do what they can to sweep this horror under the rug.
The could end the deaths today but choose not to...they know that they have presided over the bankruptcy of one of America's icons while watching over 2,000 die at their hands.
One person now dies every week !~
To pkh, thanks for your comments. I find it amazing that the authorities don't do anything and I really sympathise with you. It's a shame that the film-makers didn't try to interview the Bridge authorities. However, I agree with you that this was a powerful, moving documentary. And as I said in the final line of my review, while some critics have questioned the morality of showing people actually committing suicide, the fact that people like yourself chose to take part in the project suggests that the film-makers had good intentions....
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