Movies where people have to go through rehabilitation- usually physical rehab from an injury- don’t often deal as directly with the mental rehabilitation that goes into that, as well. We typically get glimpses of the traumatic event in flashback as a hint of what the character is going through mentally, but we don’t really live in that mindset with them. There’s nothing terribly cinematic about someone staring at a computer screen, lost in their anxieties and stresses, or trying to hold back tears when they are faced with catastrophic thoughts they can’t get rid of. This is what Hollywood would like to believe, but plenty of filmmakers have been able to capture such moments in a way that is profound.
The week before I went into the hospital, I had started to lose control of my ability to breath. I’d been diagnosed with asthma in 2005, and prescribed an inhaler, but didn’t take it on a regular basis because, well, I was still able to live my life normally without it. The difference is, I was coughing constantly. If I had done my inhaler like I should have, I still might have had to go to the hospital that night of September 21, 2007, but maybe I wouldn’t have been in as bad a shape if I had seen my doctor on a regular basis, and the pneumonia I had- along with the collapsed lung- would have been identified earlier. If I had gone to the ER straight from work, as opposed to going home, maybe I wouldn’t have had to be put in a medically-induced coma. Fifteen years later, I’ve made peace with the choices that put me in that situation, and am determined not to make the same mistakes again, not just for my sake, but the sake of my friends and family who had to live through that time, and the ones whom know me after that time who mean as much to me.
The language of cinema when it comes to a character going through a difficult time is best illustrated by the training montage. Whether you’re talking about getting ready for the big fight like Rocky Balboa or taking on bad guys like Bruce Wayne or Matt Murdoch, images of your training for the moment- and music to match- puts us immediately in a mindset that we’re watching a character build themselves up from nothing. I’m not going to lie- I fucking love this type of thing in movies. I’ve talked at length over the years about my love of the underdog sports genre- the idea that someone who is not expected to succeed will succeed in the end is something I’ve always been inspired by, and that genre is the ultimate codification of that mentality. When I went to pulmonary rehab after my hospitalization, that is what I had in my head- training for the big comeback to health. What about mentally? Most movies choose music to spell out that struggle; few actually show it in a meaningful way.
Now you see me standing in the lights
But you never saw my sacrifice
Or all the nights I had to struggle to survive
Had to lose it all to win the fight
I had to fall so many times
Now I’m the last one standing
-Chorus from “Last One Standing”, written by Taurus Tremani Bartlett, Justin Franks, Skylar Grey, James Lavigne, Daniel Majic, Marshall Mathers and Timothy Cornell Patterson, for “Venom: Let There Be Carnage”
Venom has had a complicated life on the big screen. But one of the things that has resonated with me about the flawed Tom Hardy films about the characters is that they illustrate a struggle in Hardy’s Eddie Brock to put his life together that, oddly enough, an alien symbiote is able to help him with. It’s a perfect illustration of dysfunctional codependency, to be sure, but in order for both Eddie and Venom to be at their best, they come to understand that they have to release some of their own ego so that, together, they can achieve what needs to be done. This is the fundamental nature of not just superhero narratives, but sports movies- finding a balance between the person we are, and the hero we want to be, to achieve great things. The only way we can accomplish that is through understanding our struggles, and powering through them with humility, and the understanding that the best victories in life are earned, not stolen. If only Topher Grace’s Eddie Brock in “Spider-Man 3”, the character’s first live-action incarnation, had been able to learn that lesson.
“Spider-Man 3” is a flawed film to finish Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy on, but- outside of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” it’s the only one to really thrill me beyond the surface of the filmmaking it utilizes. The film came out four months before my hospitalization, but I was already in crisis at the time it came out on an emotional front. Depression, anxiety, catastophic thinking and a sense of being a failure in life all plagued my mind. In a very real way, I was going through what Peter Parker went through in “Spider-Man 2,” but in the third film, things are going well for him. When the symbiote latches on to him, though, it comes at a moment when Peter is about to be rattled by a truth about his Uncle Ben’s death that he didn’t see coming. What that brings out of him is fed on by the symbiote, and his downward spiral begins. None of my friends could understand why I responded so strongly to the film, but part of that is because, I wasn’t prepared to talk about it. Every time I saw that film, Peter’s journey to rock bottom connected with me even more, because- whether I wanted to admit it or not- I was on my own journey. The film came out on DVD shortly after I got released from the hospital, and it was almost comforting for me, because Peter’s arc in that film moved me so much.
Earlier this year, I guested on the Franchise Detours podcast during its series on the Raimi “Spider-Man” films. At around the 1 hour, 45 minute mark of the episode, I start to talk as personally as I ever have about this film, my emotional state at the time, and how- as much as it reflected my own emotional trajectory- it also helped me pull out of it. When I survived, and saw the love my friends and co-workers had for me, I was in that feeling of joy and sense that everything’s going the way it should that Peter had at the beginning of “3.” That’s part of why the eventual spiral my emotions went through was so difficult to deal with- everything that had been impacting me prior to my hospitalization was put on hold, and the isolation in my rehabilitation turbo-charged my leaning into them. I thought my physical issues contributed to my mental ones- surely, fixing the physical would repair the mental, right?
When I was hospitalized, I had a movie review for a film the previous week that I had not finished writing. It was for Neil Jordan’s “The Brave One”, where Jodie Foster plays a woman who becomes a vigilante after her and her husband are attacked, and she is sexually assaulted, and he is killed. It is a brutal film, but it’s also a harrowing look at someone whose mental state is fractured, and how far they go down that path. Feeling as though we are owed something from someone can cause us to lose sight of our own moral compass, and our sense of self. If a rift between friends happens, communication is central, and if we feel like we aren’t having that need met, it can cause resentment. For me, that resentment led to entitlement that would take a long time to get rid of. By that point, though, the journey was my own to take, and the more I read, the more I realized I needed help. I started with Zoloft, and later, therapy, but I also needed to find my equilibrium again. I made a list of things that, I felt, represented me at my best, and I listened a lot to music that helped calm me at work, especially a playlist I called, “Creative Spirit.” It’s primarily a collection of cues that gave me all the feels. My first track listing was in 2007, shortly before my hospitalization; I still maintain and adapt it now, whenever I feel like I need a reboot. It can be heard in its current form here.
As much as “Spider-Man 3” means to me as an “in-the-moment” reflection of my journey, however, another superhero film in 2016- Scott Derrickson’s “Doctor Strange”– is more appropriate to describing what I was going through. After his accident, Stephen Strange not only requires a physical rehab, but a mental reset. I love the way this film delves into Strange’s psychological transformation, and how it uses visual manifestations to show us that, whether it’s through set pieces or significant moments of exposition. I spoke about both films, and what they mean to me in the context of my journey, back in 2018.
Film is a way for us to not only take in worlds and stories that are not our own, but also reflecting on our own lives, and seeing ways in which we can grow from within. Movies are not always great at exploring a character’s mental transformation beyond showing us the physical one, but the ones that succeed, captivate us in a way that we’ll never forget, even if it’s in the form of a silly superhero narrative or sports story.
Thanks for listening,
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
