The Bridge - Director Eric Steel interview pt 1

Interview with Eric Steel, director of controversial suicide documentary The Bridge.

Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A19849251

[music]

>>[Eric Steel] I think, you know, we were
very clear before we shot even a single

frame of footage that we were human
beings first and filmmakers second.

And even though people had said to us,
"Well, look, you know, the job of a

documentary filmmaker is to sit behind the
camera and record." We pretty much knew

that as soon we saw someone climb up onto
the rail or make a move to climb over,

we were going to call the
Bridge District Authority.

And we had their phone numbers on
speed dial all the time. The first...

in the beginning of the year in January
and February we really, as much as we

tried to find people on the bridge,
we weren't able to do that.

And what we saw were the splashes in the
water. And as soon as you see a splash

then shortly afterwards the Coast Guard
boats come out to recover the bodies.

And it was very difficult
in the beginning. I know...

even in the abstract when you
haven't really seen something...

just knowing that someone has died sort of
shakes you inside. And it was hard for the crew.

It was hard to watch the bodies
being pulled out of the water.

In a way though I think it prepared us for
the time in February. I was actually the

one shooting when we saw someone
in the telephoto, in the close-up.

It was such a strange experience. It was a
man who was jogging one minute and talking

on the cell phone and he was laughing. And
he hung up his phone, took off his glasses,

and climbed up onto the rail,
and then he ended his life.

And you know, every expectation you have
that it would be someone crying, or

someone pulling their hair, or pacing back
and forth, it's like it undid everything

that we were looking for. You know, it's a
very difficult thing to watch someone die.

It's not something that you really look
forward to. And this idea that we were out

there waiting for people to die isn't
exactly right. I mean, we were bearing

witness to something we knew was happening
and we did try to interrupt that whenever we could.

Sometimes we were successful and we did
save people's lives during the year.

And sometimes no matter what
we did we couldn't stop them.

The experience of watching the film is
meant in many ways to replicate what we

were witness to that year at the bridge.
And I didn't really want to make a point

of we saved people, this was our policy.
In a way it felt to me more powerful to

leave those as questions for the audience to figure
out, rather than have us give you the answers

and people could walk away and sort of seal
the experience up and say that was the end.

>>[Interviewer] Although, ironically,
potentially that has left you,

or certainly an criticisms that come along
are exactly about that. The idea that

why are these people just filming? Why
aren't they intervening? Were you aware

that that actually might open you up to
people being critical of your role in this?

>>[Steel] You know, I guess I knew that this
film would be provocative no matter what I did.

It's not easy to make a film about a
subject like suicide and mental illness.

They're just taboos that we would rather not
deal with. I guess in some ways I'm surprised...

I'm surprised that people have come after me
and this sort of creative choices I made.

And then ethical choices that I made.

Mostly because I think they were
sort of arrived at hastily.

I mean, the criticisms
were arrived at hastily.

Whereas, our thoughts and our
choices were made very deliberately.

And I think once people see the film they
really don't have that same sense of, you know,

"Oh, this is morally wrong." I think they
realize the film is more sensitive than that.

And if we wanted to make a movie that was
exploiting these jumps or was just about

the footage, I never would have
spent the year interviewing families.

We did 120 hours of interviews with
families and friends and witnesses.

And the film is much more about that
experience than it is about the few

seconds that you see of footage
of people jumping off a bridge.

>>[Interviewer] Was there ever any point when
you were making this film, and you know,

you were starting to capture people
jumping off, that you had any doubts

about your project? Where you thought,
"actually this is just not something I

should be doing," or it shouldn't be put together
as a film. Did you ever get that sort of things?

>>[Steel] Uh, no. I think I always had a
conviction that this was something that

needed to be seen. I realize that most people
believe that suicide is an intensely private act.

And one of the young women that was saved
at the bridge said, "it was an awful lot

of rational thought that goes into an act
that people think is very irrational."

And when people choose the Golden Gate
Bridge I think they do it because it's a

beautiful place, because it's almost
always fatal when you jump off the bridge,

and because the rail is so low that
a 7-year-old could climb over it.

Lastly, I think they choose it because
they know they'll be seen. And I think

this act of witnessing, of bearing
witness, is part of that desire.

So, really the only way I knew that would
make people rethink suicide and mental

illness and to have a new dialogue about
it and to try to figure out better ways to

address it, was to provoke people to really
share the experience of witnessing it.

I think when you just read about it,
or you just hear about it,

it doesn't have the same impact
and it's easy to dismiss.