"This is the saddest story I have ever heard." This is how the novel 'The Good Soldier' begins. In it, Ford Madox Ford recounts without fanfare two suicides, two ruined lives, and the descent into madness of a young woman. Christopher Reeve's story does not accumulate so many misfortunes. One was enough, and one could say, quite small. One of the most famous actors of his time, owner of the biggest (perhaps indestructible) role ever conceived for the screen and a symbol of all the virtues of capitalism after the war, fell off a horse. A single blow ended everything. "If it had been an inch higher, I would have died instantly; if, on the contrary, it had been an inch lower, it would have been just a ridiculous fall," recalls his youngest son in the documentary 'Super/Man: The Story of Christopher Reeve', directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui. But it happened as it did, and the body and career of one of the most universal actors, in a planetary sense, were paralyzed forever.
The film now being released after its screening at the Sundance Festival leaves no room for options. It is sad to the point of despair. And moving in its ritual as orthodox as, if you will, predictable. In reality, there are no new revelations, and nothing is told that has not been told before. Simply, with taste, with a sense of modesty, and, more importantly regarding the collection of unpublished family documents and images, with the collaboration of Reeve's three children, the story of Superman is told from the most human and also terrible perspectives. Suddenly, the myth that so obsessed Umberto Eco acquires its true dimension, its deepest meaning. As the Italian thinker said, Superman lives in the ambiguity of appealing to the best in us while reminding us of our most intimate weaknesses. Reeve, now, is the true and only Superman.
The story is well known. On May 27, 1995, eight years after his last Superman film, an accident during an equestrian competition left Reeve paralyzed from the shoulders down. The Man of Steel, with all due respect, was shattered. The film now being released reviews the life of the actor who died in 2004 at the age of 52, but, there is no other way to put it, ends up stranded in the greatest and cruelest irony that popular culture has been capable of. "I realized instantly as soon as I woke up," Reeve himself says, "that I had ruined my life and the lives of those around me."
The documentary goes back, as is customary in every superhero tale, to the origins. And there, with exquisite detail, it recalls the childhood of a boy who grew up amidst the drifts of a broken family and a father who was more than just a severe poet, literary figure, and, like Theodor Adorno, convinced that the decline of the modern world was due to popular culture. Another irony. The film recounts that when the son shared the good news of his role in the story with his father, not one for celebrations, he decided to toast with champagne convinced that he had been chosen for George Bernard Shaw's play 'Man and Superman'. Reeve was trained as an actor at the prestigious Juilliard School alongside his great friend Robin Williams. There, he met the cream of Off-Broadway populated by people like William Hurt and Jeff Daniels with whom he was preparing a play when he decided to audition (alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Neil Diamond) for what would become the most popular of products (not just a movie) for mass consumption. "Don't sell out," advised William Hurt.
Christopher Reeve portrayed as Superman.RPELa Otra Cronica
'Super/Man: The Story of Christopher Reeve' grows in the detailed reconstruction of how the first and second installments of the hero directed by the two Richards (Donner and Lester) were filmed, one after the other. Particularly amusing is the account of the encounter between a Gene Hackman in the role of a veteran actor eager to finish quickly and a Reeve determined to "live" each scene. Not a word about Marlon Brando. "He just wanted the money," Reeve confesses. As soon as the first film was released, the one with John Williams' fanfare, Superman consumed Reeve's entire life. Trapped in his sculptural and perfect body, the good actor who was the diligent student of Juilliard would never fully overcome the effects of one of the most potent modern superpowers: infinite fame.
He lived for ten years with Gae Exton, with whom he had two children (Matthew and Alexandra). In 1992, he married actress Dana Morosini, and their son Will was born that same year. The film presents —as it must— a father who lived up to the on-screen myth. The accident, a third irony, cut short much of the meaning of the life of a voracious athlete always seeking action. He sailed, skied, rode horses, and piloted planes (crossing the Atlantic solo a couple of times). The accident not only ended all this but also forced Reeve, after relearning how to speak and breathe, to invent a new life confined to a wheelchair. "You are still you, and I love you," his partner tells him in one of those moments that break the screen. She tells him this right after the accident, right after the doctors gave up on him, right after confessing that she will accept whatever he decides, that life is his... "You are still you, and I love you."
But in truth, he was already someone else. The Reeve who emerged from the greatest of catastrophes is, and this is the most obvious moral of the film, the real Superman. From then on, his life would become a fierce battle not only against the difficulties of a literally broken life but also against condescension. His activism and the funding obtained through the foundation bearing his name made possible, among other things, a revolutionary treatment for paraplegics.
'Super/Man: The Story of Christopher Reeve' is enriched with archival footage, some of it unseen, and testimonies from all those who accompanied him on the halted journey. First, Dana Morosini, who would die of lung cancer shortly after her husband, then Robin Williams and, subsequently, Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon, and Glenn Close bear witness to a life that was inevitably exemplary. The latter is convinced that Williams would still be alive if Reeve had not passed away.
In 1996, a year after the fall, Reeve attended the Oscars ceremony. He did so not as the elegant Superman flying on screen but as the slow Superman anchored to himself that he had become. Uplifting, exemplary, courageous, and even monumental story, yes. But very sad.