{"id":14598,"date":"2024-10-11T17:26:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T17:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=14598"},"modified":"2024-10-11T18:26:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T18:26:16","slug":"christopher-reeve-and-6-takeaways-from-the-documentary-super-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=14598","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Reeve and 6 Takeaways From the Documentary \u2018Super\/Man\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The new film chronicles the life of the paralyzed star, covering his friendship with Robin Williams and gut-wrenching details about his care and family.<\/p>\n

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The documentary \u201cSuper\/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story\u201d<\/a> traces the life of the Juilliard-trained actor who found megastardom in the 1970s and \u201980s playing Superman, and in 1995 as a different kind of hero, after an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. It features never-before-seen footage of Reeve, who died in 2004<\/a> at 52, chronicling his early days; his pivotal friendship with his Juilliard roommate, Robin Williams; and his transformation, in a wheelchair and on a ventilator, into a leading disability and research advocate. Friends like Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg and John Kerry offer their observations; disability rights activists do, too. It\u2019s a thought-provoking tear-jerker.<\/p>\n

It also doubles as a family movie, showing Reeve in his role as a father to his three children \u2014 Matthew Reeve and Alexandra Reeve Givens from an early relationship that he fled at the height of his fame, and Will Reeve, his son with his wife, Dana Reeve. With unwavering support, she largely gave up her career as a singer and actress to care for her husband. She died<\/a> of cancer in 2006, just 18 months after him, leaving behind their son, then 13.<\/p>\n

The compounded tragedy is leavened by the hope that Reeve embodied, especially with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation<\/a>, which has invested $140 million in the search for a cure for spinal cord paralysis. The film \u2014 which arrived in theaters 20 years after Christopher Reeve\u2019s death, almost to the day \u2014 chronicles their determination, and doesn\u2019t flinch from the darkest moments, including money worries and the relentlessness of day-to-day caregiving.<\/p>\n

The unvarnished approach \u2014 and the timing, with Reeve\u2019s children having reached solid footing as adults \u2014 led the siblings to agree to the project after years of turning down other offers, said Will Reeve, 32, a correspondent for ABC News<\/a> and a look-alike to his father. They hoped their home movies and archival material \u201cwould provide a deeper meaning and greater texture to his story,\u201d he said, \u201cand remind folks of the fullness of life that one can have, despite whatever catastrophic injury they may suffer, whatever disability they may have.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In a video interview from London, where they\u2019re based, the filmmakers Ian Bonh\u00f4te and Peter Ettedgui discussed their rationale for not putting Reeve \u201con a pedestal,\u201d as Ettedgui described it. \u201cIt was really important to show how someone who you might think of as being somehow perfect \u2014 the ideal hero \u2014 how they experience the same insecurities, the same family issues that the rest of us might,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Here are some takeaways from the film.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Reeve found megastardom playing Superman.<\/span>Alamy, via Warner Bros.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The new film chronicles the life of the paralyzed star, covering his friendship with Robin Williams and gut-wrenching details about his care and family.The documentary \u201cSuper\/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story\u201d traces the life of the Juilliard-trained actor who found megastardom in the 1970s and \u201980s playing Superman, and in 1995 as a different kind of hero, after an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. It features never-before-seen footage of Reeve, who died in 2004 at 52, chronicling his early days; his pivotal friendship with his Juilliard roommate, Robin Williams; and his transformation, in a wheelchair and on a ventilator, into a leading disability and research advocate. Friends like Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg and John Kerry offer their observations; disability rights activists do, too. It\u2019s a thought-provoking tear-jerker.It also doubles as a family movie, showing Reeve in his role as a father to his three children \u2014 Matthew Reeve and Alexandra Reeve Givens from an early relationship that he fled at the height of his fame, and Will Reeve, his son with his wife, Dana Reeve. With unwavering support, she largely gave up her career as a singer and actress to care for her husband. She died of cancer in 2006, just 18 months after him, leaving behind their son, then 13.The compounded tragedy is leavened by the hope that Reeve embodied, especially with the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which has invested $140 million in the search for a cure for spinal cord paralysis. The film \u2014 which arrived in theaters 20 years after Christopher Reeve\u2019s death, almost to the day \u2014 chronicles their determination, and doesn\u2019t flinch from the darkest moments, including money worries and the relentlessness of day-to-day caregiving.The unvarnished approach \u2014 and the timing, with Reeve\u2019s children having reached solid footing as adults \u2014 led the siblings to agree to the project after years of turning down other offers, said Will Reeve, 32, a correspondent for ABC News and a look-alike to his father. They hoped their home movies and archival material \u201cwould provide a deeper meaning and greater texture to his story,\u201d he said, \u201cand remind folks of the fullness of life that one can have, despite whatever catastrophic injury they may suffer, whatever disability they may have.\u201dIn a video interview from London, where they\u2019re based, the filmmakers Ian Bonh\u00f4te and Peter Ettedgui discussed their rationale for not putting Reeve \u201con a pedestal,\u201d as Ettedgui described it. \u201cIt was really important to show how someone who you might think of as being somehow perfect \u2014 the ideal hero \u2014 how they experience the same insecurities, the same family issues that the rest of us might,\u201d he said.Here are some takeaways from the film.Reeve found megastardom playing Superman.Alamy, via Warner Bros.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14600,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14601,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14598\/revisions\/14601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}