[Blindtlk] FW: [audioourplace] Film shines new light on people with disabilities; Breathe director hopes movie helps alter usual depiction of disabled as victims to be pitied

[Eric Calhoun]

Original Message: 
From: "Linda Gehres" <ljgehres at att.net>
To: <AudioOurPlace at googlegroups.com>
Subject: [audioourplace] Film shines new light on people with
disabilities; Breathe director hopes movie helps alter usual depiction of
disabled as victims to be pitied
Date: 
Sat, 11 Nov 2017 06:47:38 -0800

Film shines new light on people with disabilities; Breathe director hopes
movie
helps alter usual depiction of disabled as victims to be pitied

            

Victoria Ahearn The Canadian Press


The Toronto Star
<http://newspapers.web.ca/news/nr/en/The%20Toronto%20Star>  ,
Nov. 11, 2017


 

Before directing the new film Breathe, about a paralyzed polio survivor
who
chooses to live outside of the hospital system in the 1950s, Andy Serkis
was
familiar with the lives of those with disabilities. 

 

His sister has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, and his mother
taught
disabled children, so Serkis grew up seeing many patients with polio,
spina
bifida and other conditions. 

 

Serkis also co-founded the Imaginarium Studios with Jonathan Cavendish,
whose
father was the very polio survivor portrayed by Andrew Garfield in
Breathe, now
in theatres. 

 

"So there were many reasons for wanting to make this film," said Serkis,
who's
known for his performance-capture roles including Gollum in The Lord of
the
Rings films and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot series. 

 

"This film was about looking at the difference in attitude toward being
disabled
in 2017 and in the 1950s, when they were considered 'other,' basically.
They
were considered to be kept out of sight and out of mind and kept
comfortable but
with no possibility of becoming a normal part of the human race, no sense
of
equality." 

 

Breathe is one of several new or upcoming films featuring characters with
disabilities. Other examples include Stronger, Downsizing, Wonderstruck,
Never
Steady, Never Still and Don't Talk to Irene.

 

"I think there is more interest in stories about and by people with
disabilities," said Liviya Mendelsohn, artistic director of the
ReelAbilities
Toronto Film Festival, which features projects by and about those who are
deaf
and disabled. 

 

"But I also think historically, nondisabled actors who take on roles of
characters with disabilities often get a lot of recognition, and you can
just
look back from Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot onwards. 

 

"That's where it gets complicated, because these are important stories to
tell.
In the case of Breathe, it's a story of a disability rights activist that
his
son (co-produced), but the actors playing the roles don't have
disabilities and
that's been a little bit contentious." 

 

Serkis said he feels filmmakers should always consider using disabled
actors for
such roles if possible. But with Breathe, they needed an actor who could
also
portray the character before he became paralyzed from the neck down. 

 

Those involved in the production did extensive research in order to be as
truthful to the story as possible, Serkis said, noting they worked closely
with
the Cavendish family and he consulted with his sister.

 

"Having talked to many people who are disabled, they are sick and tired
of
seeing disabled people treated onscreen as victims, as people who are to
be
pitied in any way," said Serkis. 

 

"Our film goes in the opposite direction." 

 

Downsizing director/co-writer Alexander Payne took the same approach with
Hong
Chau's character, who is missing part of a leg. 

 

Payne said his mother had a laryngectomy as a result of throat cancer in
1981
and now breathes through a stoma and uses a voice prosthesis. 

 

"People have said to her over the years, 'Oh, you're so strong, you're so
brave,' and she goes, 'No, I'm not. I just don't think about it. I'm busy
doing
other stuff,'" Payne said. 

 

In the recently released Stronger, Jake Gyllenhaal also had to portray a
character before and after he became disabled. He stars as the real-life
Jeff
Bauman, who lost his legs below the knee in the Boston Marathon bombing. 

 

"Jake did a fantastic job," Bauman said. "Looking at him gave me chills,
(seeing) how I move and how I operate." 

 

In Wonderstruck, which premiered in theatres last month, the actor
portraying a
deaf child who reunites with her matinee-idol mother (played by Julianne
Moore)
is actually hearing impaired herself. 

 

Millicent Simmonds, who has a cochlear implant, is one of seven deaf
actors in
the film. She had never acted before but is now shooting a leading role
in a
feature film directed by John Krasinski and co-starring Emily Blunt. "It
was
absolutely and totally a concerted decision on our part to try to find a
deaf
kid for the role," said Wonderstruck director Todd Haynes. 

 

"It's not as if deaf kids appear among the professional hearing world of
kid
actors when you're casting in the normal way on a movie, and it took a
tremendous amount of learning on the part of our casting team about where
deaf
communities reside in the United States and the best ways to solicit
them." 

 

Haynes said Wonderstruck co-producer Christine Vachon is now working on a
comic
series with an all-deaf cast. 

 

As Mendelsohn puts it, "there's a tremendous pool of talent out there,"
but
"there isn't enough of a platform, there aren't enough roles, there isn't
enough
work behind the screen and all of that. If you give people a chance,
there's as
much talent in disability and deaf communities as there is in our general
society," said Mendelsohn, whose festival recently partnered with the CBC
Breaking Barriers Film Fund to sponsor a $10,000 award for Canadian
screenplay
writers who identify as part of a disability community. 

 

"There's going to be amazing actors in every group, so it's about finding
those
people and creating the infrastructure for them to succeed."

 

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