My Left Foot (1989) is the biographical film of the poet, painter, and novelist Christy Brown of Dublin, Ireland. He was born with cerebral palsy, a condition which was not only a challenge to him as an artist, but for him as a person in a large, poverty-stricken family. It covers the period from his birth to his marriage, after achieving fame with his novel of the same name. The title refers to the only limb over which he had the necessary control to express himself visually, his left foot.
Like most biographies, it seeks a central theme around which to build what may seem to be a series of random incidents, and, unsurprisingly, for Brown it’s perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds. Along with that theme is that of the importance of a loving, supportive family, although in this he had to win his father over, as the man, at least in the movie, would hardly accept his mute, uncommunicative son could be his progeny. He thought of Christy as something near a vegetable, until the day Christy proves he can think and communicate.
But if the storyteller is to demonstrate the virtues of perseverance, then hurdles must present themselves, and for Christy they are numerous: personal relationships, sudden black depressions, and the continual physical challenges someone with cerebral palsy must face. But, as the movie would have it, Christy did not accept the constrictions his condition would have put on him in the eyes of others, and so we see his eventual triumph as an artist.
And that’s part of the mythos of the Western version of the story of perseverance, isn’t it? The success stories are told, but what of those of those who struggled and persevered – and did not succeed? I sometimes wonder if those stories should be told to honor those who struggled and lost, much like those numberless, nameless men who fought and perished int those few, tragic days of the Battle of the Somme in World War I. Crushed into the mud, lost to their families, what of them? Is it enough that the poets who wrote for them and then lost their own lives were published?
Or is it just that, someday, their constituent atoms will once again be star stuff, as will those atoms of my reader and myself?
My Left Foot chronicles someone who was a winner, and it’s well-done, if predictable. If you’re in the mood for the inspirational struggle, you won’t go wrong with this technically excellent movie.
