Arts: Widening The Cracks – Disability Cinema

Disabled people have featured in – and made – films since the earliest days of cinema, but does this mean we can point to a specific ‘disability cinema’? Paul F Cockburn asks those in the know.

Who is the odd one out? Tom Hanks, Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman, Marlee Matlin or Patty Duke? The answer is Matlin; while they’ve all won an Oscar for playing a disabled character, only Matlin (who played a deaf character in the 1986 film, Children of A Lesser God) is actually disabled.

More than two decades later, mainstream Hollywood films such as Tropic Thunder and Blindness continue to cause controversy – be it for their representation of disabled people or their employment record when it comes to disabled actors. While disabled people and disability have long been elements in film, is there a strand of ‘disability cinema’ equivalent to black, feminist or gay cinema?

Film director and producer Justin Edgar certainly thinks there is, but that it’s still emerging. “I think feminist filmmakers had a real influence in the 60s and 70s and black filmmakers in the 80s,” he says. “Now it’s the time for disabled filmmakers, a cinema of disability. The characteristics of that cinema, and how it evolves, remains to be seen; it’s a work in progress.”

THE MAGIC HOUR

Dr Paul Darke is a respected academic, writer and cultural critic who has a particular interest in film – he runs the DASh Disability Film Festival and sits on the selection panel for the Film Council-funded Magic Hour initiative. “There are different kinds of disability cinema,” Darke insists. “There are those who are just trying to make entertainment and then there are those who are making films within the disability arts ethos, using an understanding of the social model of disability, making it political. I think we need both.”

However, Darke argues that most of what you might call ‘disability cinema’ isn’t about disability at all – that at best it focuses on impairments and is ultimately about reinforcing ‘normality’. Necessarily, this does include the work of disabled film makers themselves. “The business-side is predominantly run by non-disabled people so, to succeed in it as a disabled person, you have to provide them with what they like,” he admits. “The better film makers do that consciously; lesser filmmakers aren’t even aware of what they’re doing and are actually buying into the ethos of normality.”

So what is the Magic Hour? “It’s basically a short film scheme aimed at disabled writers and directors,” explains Edgar, whose production company 104films produced the acclaimed film Special People. “The films don’t necessarily have to be about disability, but the idea is that it’s an entrant-level scheme for the film industry. We commission four films a year; each receives a grant of £10,000, but there is also support in terms of training and mentoring. We very much shepherd  people through the filmmaking process, so they’ll start with an idea that will be shaped by a script editor, and mentored into making a finished film. We take the role of a kind of executive in the production.”

THE NEXT LEVEL

It was this level of support that attracted artist Katherine Arianello, who had already made many films on her own. “It was a whole new experience for me and something I felt would be really good in terms of the end product,” she says. “To get a cast of proper actors, to work with top end equipment, and with people who are at the top of their profession – it’s just another level.”

For Darke the main plus about the Magic Hour is its selection process. “Part of the joy of the Magic Hour is that the idea is primary; it’s not about who you are, about who you know – it’s about the idea. And I think it’s rare that you will come across something that actually has that ethos behind it.”

But it’s not just about ideas; proportionally, there are fewer disabled people working in the film industry than in the workplace as a whole – which itself is hardly high. “There’s a degree of misunderstanding about the practicalities of having disabled people on set,” Justin Edgar admits. “Because it’s such a high intensity industry, people assume it’s going to be a problem to have disabled people. All we can do is try to prove them wrong, really. I think it really helps that people who started off working with us have now gone off and are doing different things. David Proud, for example, is now one of the regulars in EastEnders.”

DISABILITY CINEMA

Paul Darke is firmly of the opinion that the development of disability cinema has been held back, and not just by a lack of disabled people behind the camera. “It’s funny how disability is different to funders and other people; they say, Spike Lee’s black, so he should make films about being black, but disabled people shouldn’t make films about being disabled. The very fact that there isn’t a disabled filmmaker of that standing is a terrible indictment of the last 20 years when things could have changed, under Channel 4 and Lottery funding.”

Not that Darke is hopeful about that changing in the near future. “I think the people running the Film Council and Channel 4 have a limited ability to understand why their philosophy of mainstreaming – putting disabled people as ordinary people in other things – is morally and creatively bankrupt. They wouldn’t do it with race, gender or sexuality. It will not change until those people following that philosophy are no longer in positions of power.”

That said, initiatives like the Magic Hour could be the start of something. “There are cracks, there are always cracks,” he admits, “and it’s about making them bigger.”

MORE: THE MAGIC HOUR 2010

Applications for the 2010 Magic Hour scheme open on Monday 2 November 2009 and close on Friday 8 January 2010. For more information, check the website: www.themagichour.org.uk.

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THE MAGIC HOUR – AT A CINEMA NEAR YOU?

The results of the 2009 Magic Hour initiative have been brought together in a single film that is receiving a limited distribution after its premier at the London Film Festival in October. The films making up The Magic Hour are:

PARAPHERNALIA

Cutting edge live action / animation viewing the world from inside the mind of Atari Withers (Elijah Muhammad), a boy who dislikes his low-tech robot – until he realises it might be there to save his life.

Writer/director John Williams is a multi-award-winning animator.

HANDS SOLO

A ‘mockumentary’ following the sexploits of Hands Solo (Matt Kirby) – a deaf porn star whose unique gift becomes a curse. Director William Mager is profoundly deaf, while writer Charlie Swinbourne has a serious hearing impairment.

BUTTERMOUTH

Clara has been deceiving her blind and frail mother, using the things she touches to create a deluded reality in her mother’s mind – and endures great suffering to protect her mother and her fantasy world. Director Andrew Gibbs has a heart condition which affects his day to day life and means he has had major heart surgery several times.

THE HUNGER HOUSE

Peter (Jason Maza) and Cornelius (Scott Swadkins) are two friends caught up in the Nazi Aktion T4 euthanasia programme, devised to exterminate disabled people. The film was written and directed collaboratively by disabled  young people who attend Bourneville College, Forward 4 Work and Hereford Kielder Centre.

FOLLOW ME ON MY JOURNEY TO DIE

Gem (Katherine Arianello) is a Young British Artist whose work focuses on her supposed struggle to end her own life – but can she fake her own death in order to win the Turner Prize? Writer/director/star Katherine, who has spinal muscular dystrophy, completed a Masters Degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College.