Movie Review: The Bridge

After Eric Steel read an article on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the Oct. 13, 2003, edition of the New Yorker magazine, his life was never the same. The article was about the bridge as the suicide epicenter of America. Steel saw a movie in the foggy mists swirling around the troubled waters of San Francisco Bay and set out to film it. As his work proceeded through 2004 he may have gotten more than he bargained for---one of the most disturbing and unvarnished studies of the taboo act of suicide to date.An average of 19 persons a year jump from the bridge to their deaths. Steel hired a crew to aim two cameras at the bridge from a vantage point on shore and film the bridge continuously during daylight hours for a year. One camera was fixed and recorded the mile-long bridge and the water below at a small scale. The other camera had a telephoto lens powerful enough to show facial features of people on the bridge; the operator trained the camera on persons showing signs of intent to kill themselves.The initial set up alone raises hackles at the apparent mercenary nature of the filming. In fact, the film crew saved as many lives as it filmed deaths, and these people probably would not return to try again (a larger study of 515 people who were prevented from jumping off the bridge shows that only 6 percent went on to kill themselves). The bridge is patrolled, if the jumpers gave the observers even a one or two minute chance, help was there and they would often be talked back to safety. Most of the filmed suicides were executed with icy precision. The jumpers approached the middle span of the bridge like any of the hundreds of tourists and locals that walk the bridge every day and jumped with little warning. The 240 foot fall has the victim traveling about 75 mph when they hit the water.Death is 98% certain, men out-number women three to one and eighty-seven percent are Bay Area residents. Their ages range from 14 to 85 with most under 50. The first one was in 1937. Nobody has been able to define a way to reliably separate the jumpers from the rest of the crowd. In fact, few people care to try.The movie records seven jumps from the bridge: six deaths and one incredible survival. But more important are the interviews of the family and friends of the seven. It is these interviews that make the film much more about life than death. The jumpers were severely troubled. Most suffered from brain disease that would drive any human being to self-inflicted death. The only successful intervention recorded was a methamphetamine addict who had only a fraction of the motivation of the rest. This is some indication of the distress that the jumpers suffered, most for years, before they decided they could take no more.But even given this compelling motivation, it is hard not to believe that if potential suicide victims saw this film they would think twice before ending their lives. Few of us completely understand the impact of self-inflicted death on those close to the deceased. There is something about the cultural taboo of suicide that leaves no one connected to the victim unchanged. Suicide can be prevented or at least reduced by restricting the availability of the means. History shows that when the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Empire State Building in New York, the Arroyo Seco Bridge in Pasadena and the Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto were fitted with barriers to prevent jumping, suicides dropped. When suicide becomes more difficult, people tend to get help.It is for this reason that people like Eve Meyer, executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention, have been pushing the city to erect viable jump barricades on the bridge for years. The reasons this has not been done range from cost, to appearance, to the simple acceptance of the inevitability of suicide and the right of a person to take their own life. When it became known to the Golden Gate Bridge Authority that this film was going to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, they moved ahead with a long-awaited $2 million study to design an effective jump barrier. In spite of the estimated cost of $25 million, the creation of the barrier is closer than ever before. If nobody else ever sees this film, that fact alone will make the effort worth while.Opens: limited USA October 27. MPAA: Unrated

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Mike MullinJan 15th, 2007 - 21:39:31

As an EMT, I have talked, or assisted in talking people out of ending there own lives. It still baffles me. I suffer from Mild Depression, and take medication for it. When it first came over me, I'll admit, I had suicidal ideations. Life is tough. Given certain situations, I don't condone, but I understand why some want to or have killed themselves. It sucks that it has to come to that.
Your article was clear, consise and to the point. I have read other articles about the movie. With such a profound, mentally straining and final topic, I would find it hard to write a bad article, it's simply there, yet it still lurks in the shadows of our society. I want to see the movie. I feel it will change my thinking forever, or at least for a long, long time.

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GaryJun 28th, 2007 - 15:33:53

This is an incredible movie. The lives of jumpers prior to their sad demise ranged from being tormented with mental anguish to plain old depressed. The interviews with parents, siblings, friends and loved ones really interested me. A number of them showed genuine feelings of remorse for the outcome but some exhitbited signs of elation that the man or woman managed to commit suicide and was now at peace.

During some interviews a self centeredness also reared its ugly head which shocked me at first. I can see why the director decided to leave some of this in... showing feelings of uncomfortable guilt and in one case a kind of 'well he done it to himself and he has only got himself to blame' attitude which really was not that nice to watch. I screwed my face up at one ladies comments and hoped to God that if she ever felt as lonely and pointless as some of these poor souls in the future... that she would be met with an understanding friend and not a self absorbed one - like her good self.

I was worried at first when I went to watch this film, not sure about how I would feel... infact it felt a bit like voyeurism! Those feelings quickly passed and I left the cinema feeling extremely charged and evigourated at being to lucky in life.

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