‘Mother’

My Left Foot

Here’s one I came to late. I’d always heard that the performance of DDL in My Left Foot was superb and I’d been told the ‘mother’ scene was superb, although it didn’t feature him. I happened to download the movie as a chance to catch up on his career ahead of There Will Be Blood and found the scene incredible.

Unlike so many moments where heroism in films tends to be unreal or contrived here they was a scene of a very real person dealing with a terrible imprisonment. The sense of him being trapped is developed throughout the childhood scenes in the film, especially focusing on him saving his mother but being ignored, or previous attempts to show his intelligence being dismissed. Here though is the moment where he finally shows he isn’t the burden or the unintelligent creature he’s been seen as.

That isn’t to imply that he’s been treated particularly abusively – the life of Christie Brown is a long way from a story of neglect – but he was never seen as the real person he was. In one word, at least in the film, he is able to break through the walls that have been placed around him and destroy the misconceptions of his family, his community and everyone he has previously met.

The acting in the scene is remarkable. The sense of building tension as he scrawls on the floor is hard to express – it is so overpowering. Previous to this scene we’d already seen moments where attempts to draw and write and been scribbled out, so watching this for the first time there is a tension in how Christie’s efforts will be received. There’s also the palpable sense of guilt, of almost shocked horror. This isn’t just a child writing their first word – it’s a family changing their whole world. The building tears, the force raging for expression inside Christie, the tension amongst the family members, the scrawling chalk. This is heroism and bravery and courage on the very greatest scale.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wKD2Q3hqpiI