To fill the gaps between the genuinely haunting footage of the nation's most popular suicide spot, The Bridge (2006) features interviews with the family and friends of some of those jumpers caught on tape. These passages reconstruct the victims' final hours and seek insight into their self-destructive urges.
These interviews do help to humanize the enigmatic figures we see through extreme telephoto lenses, casting nervous glances about before climbing over the protective railing. But in the end, those characters remain distant and unknowable. The interviews are more effective in illustrating the ways in which society deals with suicide.
It is impossible to judge whether the investigative material is a genuine effort to explore the issue of suicide or merely a calculated way to justify the morbid spectacle of the death footage. Either way, the end result is less than satisfying. Neither the filmmakers nor the acquaintances of the deceased manage to shed much light on, as one victim's brother puts it, "a highly risky, rather glorious way to draw attention to one's self."
What the viewer takes away from The Bridge is just how ill-equipped the average person is for dealing with a friend or family member inclined to suicide. They admittedly did not know quite how to respond to the proverbial cries for help and (from what one can observe) were generally able to emotionally detach themselves from the person, once they realized the end was near. In one compelling interview, an anonymous woman recalls sharing her psychiatric medications with her depressed friend. Sensing that he might commit suicide (but not wanting to be involved in an investigation), she places the pills in a blank envelope rather than giving him the prescription bottle that bears her name.
"There is obviously a fuzzy line between doing nothing and doing what would've prevented it and who knows where that line is," says one interviewee, adding, "but I don't blame myself like that."
Director Steel essentially takes the same tack, dwelling in the blameless realm of the "fuzzy line." A 19-minute featurette on the making of the film explains that the camerapersons frequently dialed the bridge authority once they realized a pedestrian intended to leap. The implication is that this sometimes resulted in someone being pulled back from the ledge. "We were making a difference," cameraperson Sarah Harbin says.
Lip service is paid to suicide prevention, but the viewer knows why the filmmakers were there in the first place... and what their true objective was. A close observation of The Bridge's cinematic technique further betrays the film's true raison d'etre.
Frequently when a person squirms over the Golden Gate's railing, the camera is adjusted in anticipation of the fatal leap, making sure it is getting an optimum view of the event. In several instances, editing is used to heighten the suspense, creating a "will-they-or-won't-they" moment out of the distressed pedestrian pacing, glancing over the edge (further dramatized by Alex Heffes's mournful score).
The film's climax is a glorious suicide leap caught from not one camera but two, depicting a man's contemplation, leap, descent and impact. It was no doubt chosen as the finale because it was such a remarkable photographic achievement
This "money shot" is indeed spectacular. To some degree, Steel is to be praised. No filmmaker, to my knowledge, has so tirelessly pursued and effectively captured death on film. It is just unfortunate that this is the limit of his achievement. Ultimately The Bridge displays as much thought and compassion as an episode of HBO's Taxicab Confessions. What promises to be a captivating exploration of a fertile topic dissolves into garden variety voyeurism, punctuated with meditative (but meaningless) shots of Bay area marine life or ominous clouds drifting through the bridge's framework.
The Bridge was inspired by a 2003 article in The New Yorker ("Jumpers," by Tad Friend). The multi-faceted essay focused on efforts to have a protective guard around the bridge that would render it suicide-proof. Steel admits he was little interested in this element. "What struck me most about the article wasn't the issue of the barrier per se, it was really this idea that someone had to walk from one edge of the bridge onto the bridge in order to end their life. This period of time, this stretch, this window, was probably the most difficult and darkest moment of human life. This idea of human life in crisis, such extreme crisis, fascinated me." Steel advertised for a crew on craigslist.com, and within weeks was set up and filming, waiting.
Steel's shrug of indifference was not unlike the shrug with which the Bridge District administrators dismissed proposals for a suicide guard, the same helpless shrug with which so many interviewees detached themselves from their loved ones.
But not everyone shrugs. The Bridge's high point occurs midway through the film, when bystander Richard Waters is taking snapshots on the bridge and notices a woman climbing over the rail. At first, he simply photographs her. In his interview, Waters struggles to describe the emotional detachment that one experiences when viewing the world through a lens, how easy it is to step back and simply watch from behind the protective wall of "objectivity." Then, Waters does something truly spectacular. He puts down the camera and leans over the rail, grabs the woman by the collar, and hoists her to safety.
In the "making of" supplement, Steel says, "It took a rare human being to reach over and grab someone back. It shouldn't be the rare human being. It should be everybody."
Unfortunately, The Bridge never conveys a sense of reaching out. Throughout its 94-minute length, the viewer is kept in place behind the "fuzzy line," relieved of responsibility, morally detached, watching and waiting for the next person to jump.
For more information about The Bridge, visit Koch Lorber Films. To order The Bridge, go to TCM Shopping.
by Asa Kendall, Jr.
