Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

Participant to Observer

or

"And Then She Said the Words That Saved My Life: 'You're Still You and I Love You.'"
 

I assume everybody knows the story: Christopher Reeve, Broadway actor, was picked to play "Superman" in the 1978 movie of the same name—bulked up strenuously to do it—and essayed the role through four films, while also choosing to be in other projects that were farther afield to prevent type-casting. Then, a horse-riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down—"It's what happens when the trap-door opens and the noose tightens"—unable to breathe without assistance. The doctors gave him a 50/50 chance to live through the night. His older son says that the doctors "re-attached his head to his body."

 

And then he got to work. 

 

Reeve became the best-known advocate for spinal chord injuries and despite his touch-and-go condition, he and his wife Dana, would go anywhere, meet anyone who could write a check, provide a medical path, raise awareness. He also managed to act...and direct projects...totally confined to a wheel-chair, unable to support his neck, breathing with a respirator. 10 short months after his accident, he appeared on-stage in a wheelchair at the Oscar ceremony...and cracked jokes.

 

And the prevailing wisdom became "If he wasn't Superman before, he sure is now." 

His story, with the full cooperation of the Reeve children, his former partner Gae Exton, DC Studios, Warner Brother studios, and anyone who had footage of the man has been released as a "Fathom Event"—one of those special piped-in presentations to a theater environment—and called Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. It makes use of a lot of home-movie footage, contemporary interviews with friends and family, doctors, experts, and archival footage, an amazing curating job executed by directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui.

Reeves' tragic accident—which, when you see it, looks so flukish—raised awareness of the quadriplegic community; if you didn't know someone who was completely paralyzed, suddenly you did. Forget that Reeve was long-past the Superman role and was in lower profile projects and TV movies that were usually seen (mostly) by the devoted, but suddenly, he was uppermost in peoples' awareness.

Bonhôte and Ettedqui take you through the whole life-story, starting on New Year's Eve 1985 with a family celebration and a post-accident Reeve saying "It seemed like my life came together. And then, in an instant, everything changed."* You see home movies of him and his kids charging though sportsy activities with his kids, yelling at them "Carpe Diem!", showing him active, but more than active, downright aggressive. He was a flyer, skier, skater, yachtsman, and as far as horses..."I've always been allergic to horses"...but, loaded up on anti-histamines he learned to ride for a film and fell in love with it. He liked aggressive sports, but insisted he was careful because "I didn't want to see a headline like 'Superman Hit By a Bus.'"

 

That produces a grisly laugh. But, it shows the honesty with which the the piece is presented. Details are presented about his condition are presented to hammer home the precariousness with which he lived through the ordeal, the things left out of the papers, the raw emotions of those going through it are not held in check, and if one comes away unmoved by the honorableness of the participants, then a trip to the ER is suggested to check for a pulse.

A couple of persistent thoughts:

 

— the devotion of Robin Williams. Williams and Reeve were fellow acting students and roommates while attending Julliard and remained steadfast friends. After the accident, if there was anything the Reeves needed, Williams would provide it. On every anniversary of the accident, Williams would host a grand party at the Reeves' place to keep the actor from dwelling on the accident.

—those kids: Reeve had two children with his partner Gae Exton, Matthew and Alexandra, and one child with wife Dana, Will. Their interviews are straight-forward, honest, passionate, and you can't not admire them, individually and together, and you have to wonder at what kind of parents Reeve and both women must have been to produce such amazing people.

 

—the steeliness of Christopher Reeve: that's not some pun. The whole movie is watching Reeve push and push and push himself to improve, whether it's weight-training for Superman or grinding through re-hab. The movie explains his up-bringing—parents divorced when he was 3, and neither parent was what one would call nurturing, but obsessively judgemental. They inscribed in his DNA a restless dissatisfaction with the status quo in order, if not to please them, the potential to please them, by pushing himself. Some of that probably saved his life initially after the accident, but it sure must not have been easy.

 

It's a wonderful tribute, as painful as it sometimes is to watch. The triumphs, the tragedies, the pain. No doubt it will be streaming on some service in the near-future.

* While paralyzed, among all the other things he did, Reeve managed to dictate and get published a couple of books. And he did the audio-books for them (which is where a lot of the narration comes from). Now, think of that: He was breathing through a tube and still managed to record the narration for his two books. I've seen perfectly healthy authors for whom that was a trial. But, Reeve....? Probably gave it his all.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Richard Donner, Richard Lester, Michael Thau, 2006) Perhaps one should call it "The Richard Donner Cut" in name only. This is because Superman's original director, Richard Donner, had very little to do with this restoration, re-assemblage and re-edit,* other than give it his tacit approval—and express amazement that anyone cared so much to find all of the lost footage that he had shot (while simultaneously directing both Superman: the Movie and Superman II as was the plan) and assemble it to make some semblance of the film that he and the film's final script-writer Tom Mankiewicz (after the initial draft by Mario Puzo, the revised script by Robert Benton, and David and Leslie Newman) had in mind from the beginning. Donner has always been appreciative of how his efforts on the film have been appreciated, but moved on after he was fired.

But a lot of fan-boys did care, noting a slight change of tone in the three years between I and II. A lot had happened: the firing of Richard Donner over "creative differences" (those being he spent too much money, he cared too much about the movie to worry about the budget, and he wasn't a toadie to the producers), and the replacement with Richard Lester, no slouch as a director, but who didn't give a rat's ass about superhero movies. Web-sites had for years been acruing sightings of bits and pieces of "Donner" grail from International versions and "Expanded" television showings, and Michael Thau who assembled this thing, created new effects (a bit crude), re-edited John Williams' original score and Ken Thorne's work on II,, and grabbed whatever footage he could (including for one crucial scene only available from Margot Kidder's and Christopher Reeve's auditions) to create this dog's breakfast of a "movie."** It is incomplete with big holes in the narrative, and with only crucial Lester-directed scenes grudgingly included—Donner and Mankiewicz grouse and complain about the changes made to "their" movie in the commentary track but do give Lester (never named) and the re-writers some credit once. It makes a one-on-one comparison dodgy and a bit unfair, in both movies' favors.

The first thing one misses (after goggling over alternate takes and a wealth of new Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman footage--all shot by Donner, he only had them for a limited amount of time) is the cracker-jack/spin-on-a-dime editing of Stuart Baird, who cut the first Chris Reeve "Superman" film. The relative pace of this film, by comparison, is slack, alarmingly so. Donner and Baird in the first were far more brutal in their cutting and it made for a dynamic experience.
But I have to give the nod to the Donner cut, first, because they remained faithful to the source, and, second, because they made a far-more interesting two-movie arc than combining the first with Lester's Version. Let me explain.

Whatever money the Salkinds made, they blew it artistically, because "Superman"/"Superman II" as Donner/Mankiewicz intended, was one of those rare things--a "religious film without Jesus." Yes, there are those direct parallels that Bryan Singer picked up on (and made too much out of in his "Superman Returns") of the Father who bequeaths his Only Son for Mankind. But it goes further. It also makes a direct, dramatic use of that ambiguous phrase Jor-El line "The Son becomes the Father, and The Father, the Son." It brings closure to Superman's ties to his home-planet and abandons him completely to Earth. It also shows why Kal-el deserves the name of "Superman." And it showed a much better performance by Christopher Reeve, than was ever displayed again in the series. The actor in Reeve played Part One, so he could sink his acting chops into Part Two. Not using the Donner segments robbed people of seeing a pretty incredible Reeve performance.

Jor-El, Superman's father--played by Marlon Brando, plays a critical role in Part II. When Lois Lane's movie-length attempt to unmask Clark Kent as Superman comes to fruition, they whisk away to his Fortress of Solitude for some alone-time, and Dad does not approve, chastising Kal-el for hubris and selfishness, telling him his reward is the happiness his good works provides. But Kal wants Lois ("this human," Jor-El dismisses her), and to do that, he must live as one of them, and have his powers removed permanently by a "red-sun generator,"*** which will make him an ordinary man. Kal-El steps into the chamber and as the process strips him of his powers, Jor-El casts a disapproving look at Lois Lane.
The human couple, Clark and Lois, leave the Fortress, the diner scene happens where Clark gets beat up, and learns about the Kryptonian villains taking over the U.S. government. Realizing what he's done, and there's no one but him who could stop them. he treks back to the empty Fortress, the crystal controls he used to communicate with Jor-El obliterated. Kal-El breaks down, acknowledges his weakness and mistake and hears nothing in reply. Finally, he cries out "Father!"Donner (and Thau) cuts to a far-shot as the cry echoes in the crossed beams of the Fortress. And one recalls the words of Christ on the Cross: "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?"

But there is a shred of hope. Or a shard. Amidst the rubble, the original green, glowing crystal that Kal found in his Exodus-ship is still glowing, and with it, he is able to contact Jor-El one last time.

Jor-El admonishes Kal for his transgression, and tells him that there is only one way to get his powers back, and that is to transfer the final energies that allows them contact; for Superman to regain his powers will destroy the last vestiges of energy that is the Jor-El "program." Kal-El is reluctant, but Jor-El begins the process, appearing to him corporeally to touch as they say goodbye and to transfer his power to his son, destroying himself: The Son becomes the Father, and the Father becomes the Son.
Kal is knocked unconscious, the other crystal conduits are destroyed. There's the battle with the Kryptonian villains (but without the expanding sticky "S"-shields and simulacrum tricks, per Newman and Lester--what? Superman's powers aren't enough?), Luthor is carted away, and then the coda: Superman flies Lois out of the Fortress, turns, gives it one last look, opens his eyes...wide, and destroys the Empty Fortress with his heat-vision. Here are frames from that sequence, without any further explanation--but one more Bible quote:
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things."
1 Corinthians 13:11

Yeah, I wouldn't call it "The Richard Donner Cut." I'd call it "The Last Temptation of Superman."

For all its patchwork quality, for its holes and inconsistent effects, I'd still have to say I prefer "The Donner Cut," as it maintains the consistent vision of the first movie and brings the story proper to a conclusion. The Lester Version let go of the internal logic for thirty pieces of silver, and undermined the biblical implications to replace it with slapstick and inconsistencies from out of left-field. One is left unsatisfied with both, and pining for what would have been the greatest super-hero film ever made.

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* Donner was much more involved with "The Extended Cut" that Warner Brothers commissioned after Christopher Reeve's death, where Donner was able to go in and add some sequences that the producers and Warner Brothers wanted removed to cut down the length of the film—and in that way squeeze in a couple more showings per night at your local theater.

** Okay, some history: Between the first and second films, Donner was "let go" (probably because he was carefully doing his directing chores and running over budget —to the point where filming of the second film was cut short) and Lester (a "fast" director who usually "printed" his first take) was hired. For financial reasons (the producers didn't want to pay him his full salary), all of Marlon Brando's scenes for the second film were scrapped and Susannah York brought back in to play Lara, Kal-el's mother (who never appeared post-Krypton explosion in the first film) from beyond the grave. Gene Hackman's footage was used, but cut way down. Why? In order for Lester to receive the director credit, he must have directed at least 50% of the movie, and so a lot of Donner footage was edited out to bring about that mathematical percentage, thus, Hackman's role of Lex Luthor was greatly reduced. A pity as Hackman is terrific in the movie (in Lester's scenes, Lex Luthor is usually facing AWAY from the camera so as not to see that a stand-in was used).

*** Okay, non-comic-book nerds bear with me: See, Krypton, Superman's home planet, had a red sun, so bathing him in "red solar energy" takes away all the powers that Earth's "yellow sun" gives him, and at this point everything breaks down because once Kal-el goes outside, he should get his powers back, but let's just GO with it, because by the movie's internal logic, he should still have a "dense molecular structure" that makes him invulnerable, and he could still put up a fight with that. But why bring all this up, really? It's all dogma, which, I guess, is appropriate. Comic books, like a religion, require the faith of a child, willing to believe.

Get Off the Lawn, You "Damned" Kids!

Village of the Damned (Wolfe Rilla, 1960)  Based on the John Wyndham sci-fi novel "The Midwich Cukoos," adapted by Stirling Silliphant and director Rilla, Village of the Damned* is a curious mixture of sci-fi and horror—a combination of pulp sensibilities, but with a strange sub-text that could be taken as religious, mystical, or invasive, and then has the audacity to not answer any of the questions and leave you hanging as the suppositions swirl through your head. Both it and its sequel are fascinating things to watch, but each in their different way.

In the town of Midwich, professor Gordon Zellaby (George Sanders) is making a call to his brother-in-law Alan Bernard (Michael Gwynn) when all of a sudden, he falls unconscious. So does the family dog. Bernard is alarmed at this and can't raise anyone in town, so he investigates and being in the military he doesn't do it subtly. What he finds is that everyone within a few mile radius of city center is unconscious...or will become unconscious (even taking preventative measures like gas-masks) if they enter within that "zone"—aeroplanes flying overhead will have their pilots drop off, the planes crashing.  

It's a mystery. Why this town? Why this effect? But, two hours later, everyone awakens, mystified. They felt a cold sensation before they dropped, but that was it. The disturbance is forgotten.

Until two months later, when it's determined that every woman "of child-bearing years" in Midwich is pregnant. For Zellaby and his wife (Barbara Shelley), it's a miracle though it's a little late in life for him. But, for the unmarried women in town, and for the women with husbands away, it's not only embarrassing, it has to be some bizarre mistake...and when it's confirmed it makes things uncomfortable, socially. For awhile they're stigmatized, but before long (and with the doctor's confirmation) it's determined that all the women are pregnant...and they don't how.

Out of this mass-immaculate conception, the village is seriously creeped out, but the children appear to be normal, if gestating at an accelerated rate. And all are born on the same night, all premature by normal standards, but all around ten pounds, all with white shocks of hair and something "weird" about their eyes, totally black. The kids grow quickly and they learn quickly, being able to figure out chinese puzzle boxes while still toddlers. Give it to one, and then another, sight unseen, will be able to figure it out, as if by telepathy or shared mental faculties.

And...if things don't go their way, they can influence the thoughts and actions of others, an act apparent when their eyes begin to glow white. The children, as they grow older and become more sophisticated, become even odder—walking as a group by themselves, dressing themselves, speaking in a tone, sophisticated and cold.**

What to do about them...and who "is" them, anyway? No one has any answers, but reports around the world suggest Midwich isn't the only village on Earth to experience this. Some of the places have murdered the children. One isolated village in Russia is trying to instruct the children to the best they can. What is the answer: to eradicate, or to exploit? 

The military doesn't want to do anything subtle, but Zellaby, with doubts as to their origin, staves off their eradication by seeing if he can teach them in their own segregated school (naturally). The trouble is, the children don't want to do anything subtle, either, and these kids are of a mind to stop the problem of bullying by any means necessary.

This is a great film, which doesn't shirk societal issues at the same time it doesn't pin down exactly what the hell is going on here. The fact is the kids are here and dealing must begin. But how, never mind why. Plus, it's a genuine horror-fest, making one web-site's list of "10 movies pregnant women should never watch."*** Apt. And one curious anomaly about the film is that the strange glowing eyes that signal some heavy brain-work on the part of the children (and figures in the denouement) is only seen in American prints of the film. Interesting, as they seem to appear in the British posters for the film.

But, those curiosities aside, it's well-worth seeing, and pondering.  

 

One further note, young Martin Stephens who gives such a calmly mature performance as little David Zellaby in this (and The Innocents) left acting while still a child and became an architect. Yes, he has a web-site.

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Children of the Damned (Anton M. Leader, 1964) If Village of the Damned leaves things unexplained, Children of the Damned just complicates the issue, rather than coming up with any concrete answers. The six titular children have the same powers and intellect, but not the same attributes. None of them has the tell-tale white hair or the slightly high browline as the first crop of kids. And there's only one child from Britain; the others, flown in by the UN, come from Russia, China, India, America, and Nigeria and their abilities are only discovered by a UNESCO survey on child development. The lead investigators in England, psychiatrist Tom Llewelynn (Ian Hendry) and geneticist Dr. David Neville (Alan Badel, laconically ironic) are looking into the why's and wherefore's of young Paul Looren (Clive Powell), a child of extraordinary learning skills that are frankly off their charts. A visit to his single mother only ends with her tossing them out and their disbelief in her claiming she was never "touched by a man."

Llewelynn and Neville make an odd duck duo,**** the shrink earnest and straightforward and the geneticist cracking wise with every line. Their investigations come up with no reason why these kids have these abilities, they just do, and when Britain's Secret Service tries to take control of young Paul, he sets up a distraction and scampers, seeking out the other five children and taking up residence in an abandoned church, with Paul's aunt (Barbara Ferris) as hostage/mouthpiece. The various embassies want each of their children back to exploit them, weaponizing them, in effect. Llewlynn is thunderstruck by the idiocy of that: "As soon as one of them knows your plan, then the others will know it." So much for Cold War secrets.

Neville and Llewelynn, U.N. observers...observing

Still the various countries want their kids back, and the kids want nothing of it, attacking from their stronghold in the church, devising a broadcasting "thingie" using the church's pipe-organ to incapacitate anyone attempting to remove them, leaving their attackers dead or "wishing they were."

Children of the Damned is slightly diminished from its original, but on its own is one of those great science fiction films of limited scope and budget that still manages to evoke the sense of a much larger concept, despite narrowing down what the children "are," while giving the film a sense of cautionary tragedy that the first film doesn't have.  Less a horror film than a story of sociological and political paranoia, Children of the Damned features good performances and an efficiently crackling script (by John Briley—he would go on to write Cry Freedom and Gandhi) and manages to stand on its own terms, apart from the first film, as an entertaining, if very unsettling film.

...and what they're observing. 

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Village of the Damned (John Carpenter, 1995) This updated version of the original follows the same plot structure of the first, with less emphasis on the mysterious circumstances that cause the "immaculate" pregnancies in the town of "Midwich, California," less stigma—it is the '90's, after all, there's even the subject, given the circumstances, of aborting the children—and more emphasis on the children and the violence they mete out on the town. In color, and sporting a good cast of stars (with Christopher Reeve—his last role before his crippling riding accident—Linda Kozlowski—she of the "Crocodile Dundee" series—Michael Paré, Mark Hamill and Kristie Alley), these kids are more pointedly accusatory, speak in archly threatening whispers,***** and action-oriented, and unusually vicious in the way they have their victims destroy themselves—impaled on a broom, blinding an eye-doctor, having one of the parents driving into a propane tank (rather than a brick wall), another performs an autopsy on herself, and the botched military intervention in another country alluded to in the first film is dutifully played out with all the blood-bags the budget can allow—and Carpenter doesn't cut away as the original did. There's no implication here, which (as it usually is) isn't as powerful as leaving your audience's squirming imagination to do the dirty work. 

Christopher Reeve's doctor hates talking to kids.

On the plus side, it's less of a man's world this time out on both sides: the chief investigator of the phenomenon is a woman (Alley, whose a bit cavalier in her dealing with the kids) and the leader of the children is one of the little girls, Mara (Lindsey Haun) daughter of Reeve's local physician and his wife (Karen Kahn).

This time out, the children pair off, boy-girl, with one of the children (Tom Dekker) left partnerless because one of the children is stillborn, and, as a result, being the only one to develop any empathy at all. The other kids are little monsters who, when forced to go up against an adult with any will at all, will have the pinwheels in their glowing eyes go from green to red to white, then, just to stack the deck against them further, their faces glow red into a demon's visage.

In other words, what was subtle and thought-provoking in the first film doesn't have the same effect in this one. And the reason is you're being beaten over the head with it, and rather pointlessly. There's no ambiguity here. There's no mystery. It's just a simple formula: strange is bad=kill it. Carpenter can be a good film-maker and stylist—he wrote the playbook on the post-Hitchcock slasher film (which may not be much of a recommendation—until you compare it with his imitators). Maybe this was just a case of studio expectations for meeting a carnage quotient. But whatever it is, the 1995 remake of the Village of the Damned takes all the fun...and the seriousness out of the story.

And that's a "Damned" shame.

* There is another film done by the Hammer group, and directed by American director Joseph Losey, starring McDonald Carey and Oliver Reed called (depending on which version you see) These are the Damned or The Damned, and are unrelated to this film series, although it does involve children, with special qualities.

** It was odd watching it this time around, as the children, particularly Martin Stephens, reminded me of no one so much as Sheldon Cooper, Jim Parson's character on "The Big Bang Theory."  Sorry, DR. Sheldon Cooper.

 

*** That article has met its internet death, and with the recent glut of horror films since, Village of the Damned has been knocked off the Top 10 List...but it's still on IMDB's list on the topic...where it's 29.

**** And no, I don't think they're gay, even if they do share a flat in London (separate rooms, mind you).  Both are on assignment from Unesco in London.

***** Unfortunately, the kids' performances are melodramatically threatening, a bit like Patty McCormick in The Bad Seed.