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Author Topic: Film captures suicides on Golden Gate Bridge Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 01-28-2005 02:14 PM                     Angry officials say moviemaker misled them Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross, Chronicle Staff Writers Wednesday, January 19, 2005 Golden Gate Bridge officials are seething that a moviemaker who told them he was working on a "day in the life" project about the landmark was, in fact, capturing people on film as they jumped to their deaths. Eric Steel initially told officials he planned to spend a year filming the "powerful and spectacular interaction between the monument and nature" and that his work was to be the first in a series of documentaries about national monuments such as the St. Louis Arch and the Statue of Liberty. That's how he got the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's permission to set up cameras on parkland overlooking Fort Point. Now, however, Steel has revealed in an e-mail to bridge officials that the cameras -- which were operating almost continuously during daylight hours for all of 2004 -- filmed most of the 19 jumpers who went off the bridge last year plus a number of attempted suicides. Apparently, that was the point all along. Steel says his goal is to "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." "Are we angry? Absolutely,'' said bridge district spokeswoman Mary Currie. "A guy this duplicitous -- there must be a way to yank that stuff away from him,'' said Marin County Supervisor Hal Brown, a member of the bridge district's board. "It's just a horrible thing to be taking pictures of." "It's creepy," agreed San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, also a member of the district board. "Whatever the intention of the film, you can't help but think of a snuff film." Golden Gate National Recreation Area spokesman Rich Weideman, whose agency issued the permit for Steel to set up his cameras, said officials "would likely have taken a second and stronger look'' if they'd known the filmmaker's true intent. Still, Weideman said, free-speech guidelines don't leave a lot of room for federal officials to question content. Bridge district officials, who had nothing to do with issuing the permit, already were suspicious before Steel broke the news. "He had all this sophisticated equipment, and it was all focused mid span, so it was pretty clear what he was really up to,'' said one bridge worker who visited the camera site and asked not to be named. Then last week came the e-mail from Steel telling bridge officials what the movie was really about and asking permission to interview bridge workers and brass about the suicides. "My crew and I spent an entire year looking very carefully at the Golden Gate Bridge, running cameras for almost every daylight minute,'' Steel wrote. "We observed and filmed most of the two dozen or so suicides and a great many of the unrealized attempts. "I'm not sure if you are aware of this,'' he added, "but on several occasions during the year, my crew and I were the first callers to the bridge patrol offices when we saw these events begin to unfold." Steel also flew around the country logging nearly a hundred hours of interviews with jumpers' families, friends, witnesses, medical and psychiatric professionals and several attempted jumpers. "It is a movie about the human spirit in crisis. It is a movie about people," Steel wrote. "My intent is to make an independent, feature-length film that I can show at a major film festival," he added. "Beyond that, I have no distribution plans -- only hopes.'' Marin County Supervisor and bridge board member Cynthia Murray said it is both fascinating and tragic that the bridge continues to be a magnet for suicides, and she worries about the effects Steel's movie might have. "This could unfortunately add to people's interest to use the bridge as a final step," she said. "It seems the more you talk about this, the more there's a chance of copycat (suicides), and that would be extremely unfortunate if that was the case with this movie." Both Murray and Ammiano said they favor taking another look at installing a suicide barrier. Steel declined Tuesday to talk about the film or his tactics, saying he was in the middle of negotiations with bridge authorities for their cooperation. Suffice it to say that at this point, officials don't appear to be ready for their close-ups -- especially now that they feel that Steel misrepresented what he was doing. Still, "we are a public facility," bridge spokeswoman Currie said. "So his request will be handled accordingly. But now there's the question of what else might he be misrepresenting.'' "What else did he film?'' added board member Brown. "The underside of the bridge? The security patrols?" ------- I don't know how I feel about the "issue" other than I'd be interested in seeing the film. If he got permission from the families (the ones he interviewed, at least) then I guess he didn't really mislead officials in that it was a "powerful and spectacular interaction between the monument and nature" (how the bridge affected these families' lives). It's a pretty twisted little project tho. =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 01-28-2005 02:28 PM                     Too bad the guy who opted out of a suicide causing that train wreck with his car this week did not jump off that bridge. I would pay to watch him on Faces of Death Part whatever. What was he thinking anyway even if he went through it? Why not suck Carbon Monoxide in his garage?  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-28-2005 03:33 PM                        He is probably very angry and wanted to take as many as possible with him, making them pay for all his problems which he sees as being caused by an evil world in which every one is out to get him. Whatever he actually tought, I think he should be tried as if he had murdered 11 people. Which he actually did, but I mean as if it had been premeditated murder, not some kind of accident. I don't see any excusing factors at all here. After all, he "changed his mind" and got out of the car and then stood there watching the train approach. So he knew exactly what he was doing.  |  IP: Logged Christopher Seo Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 530 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-28-2005 09:05 PM                     I agree the young man should be charged with 11 murders, but I got conflicting reports from the news whether he left his car when the train was still far away, or moments before the train hit. If the former, he definitely deserves a premeditated murder charge. If the latter, he probably was only thinking about saving himself and not about killing anyone else. After all, he apparently had tried to slash his wrists before and failed. As far as the suicide documentary... I would see it. The comparison to snuff films is quite an overreaction; the filmmaker did not cause any deaths but merely sought to objectively record reality. I wonder, do people feel better jumping to their deaths from the Golden Gate as opposed to a less glamorous bridge?  |  IP: Logged Thomas King Expert Film Handler Posts: 119 From: Sheffield, Yorkshire, England Registered: Oct 2004 posted 01-28-2005 09:14 PM                        Cristopher: because they want to be in a film, obviously!  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-29-2005 02:22 AM                        In any case, driving the vehicle on the railroad track in order to kill himself, and getting out, even if "at the last moment to save himself" clearly demonstrates that he was aware of the catastrophic consequences of the collision. It's not like he was so out of his mind that he didn't know or understand what he was doing. He was still able to understand action and consequence. It's like if you put a gun to your head in a crowded public place but then decide to fire into the crowd instead. You can't say afterwards, "but I didn't know what I was doing with the gun and I wasn't aiming at anyone in particular".  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 01-29-2005 04:32 AM                        And furthermore if he'd wanted to kill himself in front of the train, he could have done so without taking anybody else with him. There's a small market town about 30 miles north of here: its railway station is popular with 'jumpers' because express trains pass directly along the platform at 120mph. The people killing themselves figure that this must be about as quick and painless as the job can be done, I suppose. Of course it's not at all pleasant for the engine driver, the people who have to clear up the mess or the passengers who get delayed as a result (over three hours in my case, once); but at least nobody else is killed or injured by that method.  |  IP: Logged

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