[Houdini]

The Bridge is a 2006 documentary film by Eric Steel that tells the stories of a handful of individuals who committed suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. The film was inspired by an article entitled "Jumpers," written by Tad Friend appearing in The New Yorker magazine in 2003.

The Bridge focuses on the large number of suicides that occur each year at the Golden Gate Bridge, capturing footage of the suicides and interviewing family members. Also interviewed are people who have attempted suicide at the bridge, witnesses of the suicides, and a jump survivor.

The movie was shot with multiple cameras pointed at a notorious suicide spot on the bridge during 2004. It captured 19 people as they took their final plunge, and then offers interviews with grieving families.

Steel interviewed relatives of the suicide victims, not informing them that he had footage of their loved ones' deaths. He claimed that "All the family members now, at this point, have seen the film, [and are] glad that they had participated in it."

For some irritating quirk I can't post the link to the channel containing the 9 video's in this documentary w/out the simplemachines forum giving me an error message saying that embedding is disabled.  So if you're interested, work your way through these yourself.

The project was kept a secret in order to avoid a situation where someone would "get it into his or her head to go to the bridge and immortalize him or herself on film." During the filming, one person jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge every 15 days on average.  Assuming that the rate remains steady, this means a total of approximately 24 suicides each year.

The documentary caused significant controversy when Eric Steel revealed that he had tricked the Golden Gate Bridge committee into allowing him to film the bridge for months and had captured 23 of 24 known suicides which took place during the filming phase of the project. In his permit application to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area Steel said he intended "to capture the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge".

http   ://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=16E1697070470883&search_query=the+bridge+%2F9  There's some posting weirdness happening here.  C & P the above link into your browser window, closing the gap.

[Drew]

Sounds interesting, but a bit morbid.

[slackline]

Read about this before, and decided I'm not overly interested in watching people purposefully killing themselves (accidents are fine though  ).

The posting problem is because you're trying to post a playlist rather than an individual video....




etc. etc.

[Falling Down]

I watched this last year (I think Ben Pritch or Al did a lengthier review on our film thread) and it's a good documentary.  Not as sensationalist or morbid as I expected and I would normally steer well clear of 'death' flicks...

[Bubba]

I remember listening to a R4 program on the same subject.

The story of one guy made me so sad. I forget the exact detail but basically I recall he left a note saying that on the long walk he was making to the bridge in order to jump, if a single person smiled at him he wouldn't do it. Nobody did

[Houdini]

(Ah sorry about the fucked up OP.  I did realise I was posting a list of video's, I wanted to post the list, but just got an irritating message saying embedding disabled.  Why can't I post a list?  WTF.)

The film's not at all morbid and any footage that you do see is a tiny fraction of the film, I found it very gentle viewing.

[a dense loner]

I remember listening to a R4 program on the same subject.

The story of one guy made me so sad. I forget the exact detail but basically I recall he left a note saying that on the long walk he was making to the bridge in order to jump, if a single person smiled at him he wouldn't do it. Nobody did

a guy deciding whether he lives or dies on the basis of a person smiling at him? cry me a fucking river

[Bubba]

Oooh Dense you're just plain nasty!

[uptown]

The Cockney Sparra and I were once on a train in London Town, discussing why so few folk smiled at each other whilst going about their daily business. Iain thought it might need reciprocation to jump start such niceties and so tried a cheshire cat impersonation (as only he can) at a cyclist on the platform through the train window.
 
As the guy saw the grin he stared, threw the bike to the floor, jumped onto our train, and demanded to know in a rather threatening eyeball style "what the f*** are you grinning at?"
  us a river Dense.

[Sloper]

Dense you're so full of humanity in fact no you're not that comment alone makes you look like a cunt, a total cunt, a cunt without limits.  I fucking hope you're never in crisis or never have anyone close to you experience what those poor fuckers are going through. Puntering you doesn't come close, now fuck off.


Anyway back on topic after we've washed away that shit, I've no interest in seeing the film, but funny enough Uptown when working in London I used to try and engage people in conversation or get them to respond to the 'good morning etc' I never had the response you did but once in a while you could see that it made a difference to that person.

[robertostallioni]

I never had the response you did but once in a while you could see that it made a difference to that person.

[a dense loner]

i'm quite sorry you think that way sloper. remember kids it's always somebody else's fault

[Jim]

yes but you've got beads on your head and a spoon on your nose. who's fault was that?

[Bubba]

[Fiend]

Think they put a typo in dense's phone number on that, shouldn't it be 0044 7 at the front??

[lagerstarfish]

Think they put a typo in dense's phone number on that, shouldn't it be 0044 7 at the front??

No need to call Dense

[Falling Down]