the bridge

haven't globbed in a while. (blogged, globbed, w/e.) i've been much busier, and when i have the time to write for myself, i either don't think of it or am too burnt out to do it. i did, however, want to write about the bridge.

eric steel and his crew set up two digital cameras at two spots - one on the north side, one on the south - and filmed the bridge from dawn till darkness, every single day, throughout 2004. one of the cameras was always stationary; the other always had a person behind it. in this manner, the crew captured suicides of people jumping from the bridge. they then interviewed bystanders, friends and families to see what had happened and to gain more perspective on why these people had sunk to this level. a lot of them had mental problems.. one woman was a paranoid schizophrenic, one guy was bipolar (the only survivor who had jumped), several others were severely depressed. i think they showed several people who jumped who.. basically had no stories. i know the families either hadn't wanted to be interviewed or retracted their interviews once they found out the crew had actual footage of their loved one taking his or her own life, but on the surface, that's kind of creepy.

the whole thing was very powerful. i frankly don't know how he's going to market it to a mainstream audience, because you're sitting there watching people die. in this day and age, where there are euphemisms for everything the least bit painful and death on the news seems fake at best, that's going to be a very hard sell. it's also a necessary one. if he can help illuminate more of a depressed or hopeless person's state of mind, maybe some inroads can be made. a lot of argument was made about bridge safety, but that seems secondary in my eyes.. barriers have been attempted at the bridge before, to no avail. people are still going to manage to kill themselves. it's the crux of the problem that has to be dealt with.

the afternoon wasn't all heaviness and gloom. i did see (and eventually help) a bee eat meat. that kinda made my day.