Ever since I first saw a piece on ABC’s 20/20 about the documentary, The Bridge, I’ve wanted to see the film. From a relatively young age, I’ve been fascinated with mental illness and suicide. I can recall one of my favorite books as a teenager was The Savage God by Al Alvarez. By chance, I noticed that IFC was airing it, so I tivo’d it awhile ago, then finally was able to find a good time to watch it. I knew it had to be in one sitting, without any interruptions, without anyone else to happen by and comment on the morbidity, etc.
The Bridge, by documentary filmmaker Eric Steele, chronicles the Golden Gate Bridge and those who attempt to end their lives there. He and a 10- to 12-person crew spent an entire year in 2004 filming the bridge, their cameras trained on specific sections, using close-up and wide-angle lenses to cover the entire expanse both day and night. There have been more than 1200 suicides from the bridge since it opened in 1937, yet there is still a mere 4-foot safety barrier as a hindrance. Apparently, a jump from Golden Gate Bridge is the equivalent of a 4-second, 25-story fall. Some have survived, but a body is usually shattered when it strikes the water at roughly 75 miles per hour.
By the end of the year, Steel and his crew had captured 23 of the 24 suicides from the bridge that year. Every member of the crew would immediately contact the bridge authority on speed dial whenever they felt someone was about to jump (one tell-tale sign being taking off a backpack or purse before moving toward the edge). Their team ended up saving 6 people, 1 person more than once.
Some criticisms leveled at the filmmaker were that it was morbid, that it was cruel, that it may cause copycat jumpers. As he has pointed out, though, those that choose such a final desperate act are often at the wrong end of a struggle with mental illness. It takes much more than viewing a film about suicide or hearing about suicide to lead someone to such a solution.
I’ve always felt that suicide was the topic no one likes to discuss. It’s an ugly secret for some families when a loved one takes their own life. But it’s something that should be discussed. I remember an acquaintance being brave enough to relate in her son’s obituary that he had taken his own life — it was something that needed to be told so that others might be on guard or at least more sensitive to warning signs — and ultimately to relate the unimaginable and unending pain suffered by those who are left behind.
This is yet another one of those films you’ll be thinking about and talking about long after it’s over. The interviews with families and friends of those who committed suicide on the bridge are poignant and telling. Some resigned to the fate they knew the loved one would meet someday after years of struggling with mental illness. Some still unable to understand what would compel anyone to such an act. All sharing a common bond of suffering and pain. Some interviewees were mere witnesses to the act. The young family snapping photos on the bridge when they encounter and speak to the young man just before he jumps. One person actually survives the leap — and relates that the moment he releases his grip and begin to fall, realizes it’s a mistake. How many others had the same thoughts as they fell to their deaths?
It’s a troubling and uncomfortable 90 minutes, but thought-provoking. All family members involved in the process have seen the film and were glad they had participated in it. There are no simple answers or pat resolutions to ponder. But, as Eric Steel stated:
“The answer is not to not show the film. I think the film gives you an insight into mental illness and suicide that no one’s ever offered before.”
“The answer is to have a discussion about suicide and mental illness in a way that produces different results,” he said. “And I hope that I have, in some way, contributed to changing the dialogue.”
I encourage you to visit the film’s official website, which offers more background information, press notes, reviews and a message board.
Dr. Richard Seiden, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health and the leading researcher on suicide at the bridge, has written that studies reveal “a commonly held attitude that romanticizes suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge in such terms as aesthetically pleasing and beautiful, while regarding a Bay Bridge suicide as tacky.””
It is too bad that Dr. Seiden spent so much time in the class room and so little time in the practical realities of life.
People jump from the Golden Gate not because of romance – but because of desperation. They choose the Golden Gate Bridge not because it is less tacky but because it has easy access and pedestrian walkways.
No other Bridge in the Bay Area has pedestrian walkways. No access no deaths.
The Directorate of the Golden Gate has managed to keep the public in the dark for over 70 years ! Only now because of the internet can the story get out -
Not only that but the GG Bridge is bankrupt – the real reason that nothing is being done to end the deaths.
People open your eyes – and do just a little research before you opine as to the deaths at the Golden Gate Bridge which by the way have now climbed to one a week – yes one a week and over 2,000 to date that we know of…the research and studies are unanimous – if a person is prevented from suicide 98% yes 98% never try again.
I wish the Doctor and the rest of those that spend their time talking about death on the Bridge would do less talking and more action.
While they are talking and philosophizing one person leaps off the Bridge every week.
I am a native of San Francisco and I am horrified at the inability of citizens to understand that this one mile stretch of road is killing one person and devastating their families forever while people like the good doctor write about romance others advance their sophomoric take on death at the Golden Gate.
Open your eyes and look – this is a real tragedy and if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
Just imagine the uproar if someone were to throw a poodle off the Golden Gate once a week …
RAISE THE RAILS END THE DEATHS