It opens Jan 12th at the London ICA

From the trailer it looks like a beautifully made movie, and appropriately elegiac.

ie .. I don't see how this is exploitative.

There's a postcard you don't see.

I was passing through SF in high school and was at the Golden Gate Bridge when someone jumped once. We too asked a police officer if it was common and he said there was a jumper about once a month.

Wow. I'm not sure I could watch that.

Looks like its done wonderfully though.

crazy..looks compelling and intiquing

I don't know; filming someone's suicide without permission and then making a movie about it and charging people money to see it doesn't seem all that caring and compassionate.

I'd be absolutely fucking livid if footage of one of my friends or loved ones ending his or her own life ended up in a movie like this.

I'm not necessarily condemning the whole thing, but I'd have a hard time characterizing that as particularly caring or compassionate toward the specific individuals filmed, or toward the specific lives that those individuals ended.

And Jesus Christ--is anything off limits for entertainment fodder anymore? The idea of paying movie fare, going up to the ticket window and forking over eight bucks or whatever, to see people kill themselves--people who didn't intend to be on the fucking big screen, I'm sure--honestly makes me sick to my stomach. People's very personal choices to end their own lives shouldn't be deliberately filmed without their knowledge and then turned into some opportunity for Joe and Jane Moviegoer to buy their tickets and sit there in the audience and feel all sad when the sad music plays and gasp at the right times and maybe get a little ponderous during the credits and then leave the theater feeling like they "understand." This doesn't look like an "exploration of suicide;" it looks like voyeurism, plain and simple.

[/rant]

Explain.

+1

What I've read about Seneca is limited but I haven't seen anything that indicates that he was a proponent of suicide or a philosopher of suicide, just that he was sentenced to commit suicide, and had trouble doing so.

They are dead. I don't think they mind.

But their family members and loved ones are likely to mind.

Personally, though, I do believe in showing the dead some measure of respect.

Which has no bearing on anyone who does not believe the same, but ok.

My cinematography mentor worked on this film, he told us all about the process behind it and how they handled things. There's no disrespect or exploitation intended, and they even called in any potential suicides they saw so the bridge guards could prevent them. Sometimes, though, the guards just didn't come right away, and the camera operators were literally miles away filming from select locations.

And for those individuals who ended up in the film, the families were contacted and spoken with whenever possible.

Put it this way, no matter what you mark on the back of that little spot on your license that asks if you do or do not wish to donate your organs, it is disregarded and someone else ultimately makes the decision. Why? You are dead.
If someone else is allowed to rip off the membranes of my eyes or steal my chest cavity organs even though it is my expressed wish for them not to do so, I don't think being filmed doing something in public is voyeuristic. You don't want to be seen killing yourself? Eat a bullet, learn to tie a knot, go buy a new belt, or a pack of razorblades and some sleeping pills, and find someplace quiet.

If they cared they wouldn't be jumping of a freaking bridge. Grim? Yes. Do I care? No.

Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.

I don't see how a documentary exploring suicide, like the Bridge, is any more or less exploitative than a documentary exporing the Holocaust, like Night and Fog. I wonder how much you objected to Schindler's List? I mean, Jesus, 6 million people murdered. Is nothing sacred? You seem to think this film is intended as a blockbuster that every guy is going to take his date to. Hardly.

Film is an artform, and not always meant for pure entertainment. Your rant does a huge disservice to serious filmmakers who have more on their mind than selling movie tickets and buckets of popcorns.