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 THREE
FILMS FOCUS ON HOW INDIVIDUALS COPE WITH DISABILITY AND DISEASE
Patch
Adams, At First Sight, and Hilary
and Jackie are among the most profound recently released
films. All three provide important insights about how stress
adversely affects health and are based on true stories.
Patch
Adams begins in a mental institution, where the protagonist
(played by Robin Williams) realizes that much sickness is
rooted in one’s lack of perspective on life, and humor can
thus provide curative healing powers. He then enrolls in medical
school to bring his newly found wisdom into practice. However,
the medical establishment favors keeping an impersonal distance
between doctor and patient, a practice that appears absurd
to Adams. In much of the film he brings humor to patients
at a hospital attached to the medical school, thus incurring
the wrath of a particular professor of medicine who is more
interested in maintaining an authoritarian posture than in
healing patients. Adams persists, founds a storefront clinic
in the hills of West Virginia, and gets his medical degree.
As the film closes, titles inform us that Adams is still seeking
funds to build a permanent facility at the site. His method
of personalizing health care comes at a time when, in pursuing
lower costs by any means necessary, health maintenance organizations
(HMOs) are moving toward even more depersonalization, so we
should not be surprised if HMOs end up treating more chronic
illnesses and not containing costs after all. MH
At
First Sight tells the story of Shirl Jennings, who
became blind when afflicted at age 3 with polio, meningitis,
and cat-scratch fever. Shirl (played by Val Kilmer), nevertheless,
appears to have adjusted happily to life as a blind person,
and he enjoys the profession of masseur. In the film, a busy
architect (played by Mira Sorvino) from New York City is charmed
by his serenity while she is at a health resort upstate, though
in real life he first gave her a massage at the YMCA in DeKalb
Country near Atlanta. In the film it is love at first touch
(though in real life, love dawned twenty years later after
she divorced her husband). Realizing that she has fallen in
love with Shirl, she makes what may be a mistake in trying
to change Shirl by suggesting that new technologies can restore
sight to the blind, and he decides out of love and hope to
undergo an operation that would make medical history by removing
cataracts from his otherwise healthy retinas. The operation,
performed in 1991, is a success, but Shirl finds himself even
more confused than before because he cannot immediately decode
the visual images before him. Through therapy, he learns to
decode the images, and he enjoys regaining his sight. However,
he soon develops pneumonia, and for the second time his eyesight
leaves him. He then reverts to his former happy self, marries
his sweetheart, while showing no regret over losing vision
again. The film shows that the serenity of a disabled person
is the knowledge that there are always loving people to help
and appears to caution us about urging a disabled person to
seek an impossible cure when love itself is the cure for so
many ills. MH
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Hilary
and Jackie is the story of two sisters who were pushed
by parents to become child prodigies—Hilary du Pré in playing
the flute, Jacqueline du Pré as a cellist. During an early
life devoted to music, however, neither child reached maturity,
and they lacked any identity apart from their musical personas,
so they bonded to provide a refuge of happiness by caring
for each other. Hilary strikes out on her own by marrying
an admirer and giving up any ambition in the field of music.
Suddenly, Jackie no longer has ready access to her sister’s
support, and a menage à trois is not the answer. Jackie then
finds love with conductor Daniel Barenboim and soon embarks
on a musical tour of Europe; however, not mature enough to
handle the isolation from her sister, she becomes disoriented.
The stress brings out a case of multiple sclerosis, and her
condition deteriorates badly until her sister returns to comfort
her, albeit too late, as the world is robbed of a musical
virtuoso. The film reminds us of the story in the film Shine
(1996), wherein another child prodigy tries so hard to please
his parents that he becomes disabled. Whereas Patch
Adams sought to heal by removing stress from medical
patients, and Shirl Jennings developed a stress-free accommodation
to his disability, we learn that the pressures on child prodigies
seem to have overwhelmed them, and thus Hilary and Jackie
has a critical lesson about childrearing that goes far beyond
the story. MH
Patch
Adams was released in 1998 and was not nominated for
a Political Film Society award. At First Sight
and Hilary and Jackie were released in Los Angeles
in 1999 but have not been nominated for awards so far this
year. Political Film Society awards are for films that raise
political consciousness in four categories—DEMOCRACY,
EXPOSÉ,
HUMAN RIGHTS,
and PEACE.
To nominate a film, click here.
POLITICAL
FILM SOCIETY MEMBERS VOTE FOR BEST PEACE FILM ON PEACE
The Political Film Society only allows five nominees per category
each year. Consequently, members can now vote to select the
best five of the seven films of 1998 pre-nominated for an
award for promoting political consciousness of the desirability
of settling conflicts peacefully. The
seven films are American History X, The
Boxer, Men with Guns, Regeneration,
Saving Private Ryan, Savior, and
The Thin Red Line. The
deadline is February 5. Results of the balloting and final
ballots for all categories will be sent to members by February
15.
NOMINATED
FILMS FOR 1998
DEMOCRACY:
Enemy of the State, Four
Days in September, Primary Colors,
The Siege, Wag
the Dog
EXPOSÉ:
Bulworth, A
Civil Action, Four Days in September,
Regeneration
HUMAN RIGHTS:
A Civil Action, Enemy
of the State, The Siege, Wilde
PEACE: The
Boxer, Regeneration, Saving
Private Ryan, Savior
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