Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Someone wrote us today about a story that actually broke last week. It’s worth discussing, though, and I’m curious to see what finally ends up happening with this film. It’s going to be enormously controversial, no matter what, so why not kick off the conversation now?
Hi Harry! vicious_bastard here with an intriguing yet morbid news story that caught my eye. Back in 2003, this Eric Steel bloke conned simpleton S.F. County officials into letting him train several cameras on the Golden Gate Bridge and film for a whole year. His phony vision, the "powerful and spectacular interaction between the monument and nature" and that the work was to be the first in a series of mind-numbingly boring documentaries about national monuments.
Steel let the cat out of the bag a few weeks ago announcing that he had managed to capture 19 "jumpers" leaping to their doom during 2004 and several suicide attempts. This was of course his grim intention all along. Now planning a "movie" set to include some of the 100+ hours of interviews conducted with jumpers' relatives, witnesses, bridge officials, etc, Steel claims:
"It is a movie about the human spirit in crisis. It is a movie about people."
To be fair it does look like he tried to stop a few jumpers when he could, but that's not going to affect the furor certain to surround him if/when it gets shown/finished. I am getting a bit ahead of myself, but if the families of the deceased give it their blessing (which they seem to have done), I can't see any reason for the censors to step in.
Death will surely remain 'taboo' forever. Euthanasia is slowly becoming acceptable and divides people easily as much as abortion. Now more than ever we seek to stay young, deny death, turn back the clock; as sexuality frightened previous generations - it was never to be spoken of, evil, but all the while completely natural - death scares us.
This movie could be end up as exploitative rubbish but will certainly be controversial enough to grab the media's frenzied attention for a week or so. Some recent documentaries have done great things – if well-handled, this could join them. The subject matter is powerful enough.
I'm not some kind of 'Faces of Death' buying weirdo who jerks off to beheading videos, by the way. Just to clear that up. I can't vouch for the film-maker though. Steel claims the movie will "allow us to see into the most impenetrable corners of the human mind and challenge us to think and talk about suicide in profoundly different ways," whereas disgruntled county officials condemned the project as "creepy" and a "snuff film, whatever the intention".
Whaddyareckon Harry? Maybe you can dig some more up on this necrophile-cinefile Eric Steel.
I eagerly await a 'no-holds-barred' philosophical talkback debate on the nature of existence.
vicious_bastard
CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL STORY!!
"Moriarty" out.
