Academic Journal 3 - 'My Left Foot'

I thought that the director’s decision to jump in time from the “present” of Christy’s recognition dinner and the past events of his life, all framed within the story of an attendant (who would later become his wife) reading the book he was being recognized for, to be intriguing and very successful. The vignettes between Christy and the nurse broke up some of the harsher sequences of his life story, and the change in their relationship over the course of the film seemed to mirror the viewer’s own in many ways, moving from a pitying detachment to, frankly, near-outright dislike, and finally a warming respect as his accomplishments rack up. The scenes presented are often not very complimentary towards Christy, and I think the director very much risked alienating viewers and turning them against him, but the inclusion of these interspersed moments of human interaction in the present helped keep us grounded in his humanity.
An especially interesting moment came after the suicide attempt sequence when the camera snapped back to the present focused on Christy himself, as if he had been reliving the events in his mind and was coming back to reality. What made this powerful for me was that until that point, every time that such a snap to the present had occurred it had focused around the nurse character as she read his autobiography, letting the audience see and identify with her growing admiration and fascination. I felt that it humanized Christy, who had increasingly been a notably drunk and depressed jackass, reminding the viewer that he would to some extent overcome what we were being shown. I think that it also helped to develop the relationship between the two characters as they begin to share in the story – it is no longer an artifact handed from writer to reader, but a reality that each is experiencing simultaneously (relatively speaking). Without this moment, I would have had a much harder time accepting the later relationship and future marriage, but this tiny moment of sharing and connecting made it far more plausible to me as a viewer.