Jim Sheridan's 1989 film My Left Foot stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the real-life Irish author Christy Brown. Christy Brown was a painter and writer who was born with cerebral palsy. As a child, Christy Brown is entirely unable to walk. Throughout the film, Christy is able to master the use of his left foot, using it to carry out many daily duties and, eventually, write and paint.
Part of what makes My Left Foot a fantastic film is the insurmountable performance of Daniel Day-Lewis. Committing every physical fiber of his being to the role, there is not a moment of screen time in which Day-Lewis's performance is not astoundingly believable.
While the film offers an empathetic glance at the difficulties that pervaded the life of Christy Brown, there is never a moment of condescension or pity. In Sheridan's film—and in Day-Lewis's performance—Brown is a man wholly worth admiring. The film never plays the role of a soapy melodrama; there is a tremendous amount of humor in the film to balance out the tragedy, and when tragedy strikes, it is played out naturally and convincingly.
Radio (2003) is a biographical sport drama based upon the story of Harold Jones, a football coach at T.L. Hanna High School (played by Ed Harris), and a young man with an intellectual disability named James Robert "Radio" Kennedy. The young man, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., not only demonstrates the challenges faces a young man with intellectual difficulty, but the compounding barriers that existed because of the stereotypes and resistance he faced from the community when the coach decided to include him as a helper on the team.
This film is set in South Carolina, where high school football is heralded as king in the southern culture. The football coach finds his team harassing Radio and punishes his team; subsequently, he seeks to find out more about Radio's background and learns that his father had passed away. The coach decides to have him help on the football team, which then turns into tutoring him as well. Radio becomes more involved in the high school, whereas previously he had been pushing a shopping cart around the town alone. Radio loves the school, and the school mates and teachers move towards acceptance. However, there is clear resistance from the fathers of the football players who claim that a charity case takes away from the coaching that their sons deserve. Radio demonstrates some extraordinary talents, and some of his misunderstandings are portrayed humorously in this film.
One scene illuminates a little known fact about people with mental disabilities when Radio is arrested. In the movie, Radio was delivering Christmas presents when he was questioned by the police officer as to how he obtained the gifts. Not knowing what to say, and not communicating his answers well, the police officer assumed that he had stolen the presents and placed him under arrest. Many people are unaware that individuals with intellectual disabilities cannot communicate well when questioned by police officers, and often leading questions causes a higher arrest rate of innocent people with intellectual disabilities.
This inspiring story demonstrates the power of inclusion and acceptance as life changing elements for individuals with exceptional abilities, as well as for the communities that open their arms to help others, even when not directly benefited themselves. The powerful quote, "But the truth is, we're not the ones been teaching Radio, he is the one been teaching us," sheds light on the sometimes not so popular belief in this town that individuals who are seen as outside the 'norm' can contribute to society in unique and beautiful ways.
For more information check out these links:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0316465/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_(2003_film)
David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980) is a biopic of Joseph Merrick, the nineteenth-century British man who suffered from extreme facial and bodily deformity. Modern researchers (several years after the release of the film) concluded that Merrick probably suffered from a condition called Proteus syndrome. John Hurt, who plays the title role, wears realistic makeup to convey the look of Merrick's face, which appears to have huge tumors growing on it. Hurt's performance is excellent. You might wish to see if there are any accounts by Hurt, or by other actors who have played similar roles, about the challenge of acting with this type of heavy makeup. Also, try to compare the actor's struggle to that of Merrick himself and see how the key scenes in the film show Merrick interacting with non-disabled people.
Unfortunately, in my view, one cannot offer the same praise to the film overall as to Hurt's performance. It is shot in the same eerie black and white as Lynch's earlier film Eraserhead, and the atmosphere and themes of the two films are similar. However, as Roger Ebert pointed out when The Elephant Man was first released, the script is at fault for portraying Merrick in an inconsistent and even somewhat exploitative way. The attitude of the doctor, played by Anthony Hopkins, is curious and is oddly inconsistent as well. You might want to ask whether this can be attributed simply to "character development" or whether the changes are too extreme and seem to be done simply to make the film as melodramatic as possible.
Perhaps the film's worst flaw, as Ebert pointed out, is the opening dream sequence involving Merrick's mother. It is in keeping with Lynch's surreal horror-film approach seen in all his work but is in extremely bad taste, to say the least. The film's close, by contrast, is poignant and tragic. Merrick, in his bed, asphyxiates himself by lying down full length, something he has never been able to do because the weight of his massive head leaning back will crush his windpipe. Why, one asks, has he decided it's time to end it all, at this particular moment in time?
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