The suicide of Robin Williams has got me to thinking.
I’ve been thinking of a movie called Reuben, Reuben.
The movie starred Tom Conti, a Scots actor, and Kelly McGillis, in her first film. It also starred Roberts Blossom as a crumudgeonly but kindly old man, who played McGillis’ grandfather. It also featured a Shetland Sheepdog named “Reuben.”
Conti plays Gowand McGland, who is a Scottish writer in the vein of Dylan Thomas. McGland is an alcoholic who suffers from depression, which is causing a massive case of writer’s block. McGland blames his writer’s block on his depression and alcoholism, but it is the other way around.
He makes his living lecturing to middle-aged women in New England, and squires more than a few to his bed. Their husbands find out about his dalliances, and often respond in kind. One is a dentist, who pulls most of Gowand’s teeth; Gowand equates toothlessness with death.
He encounters Blossom, who laments that people meet ” at sort of ninish” instead of nine o’clock, and that they live in housing developments named for the trees which were cut down to build the development.
He also meets and falls in love with McGillis. He does so after her dog, an English Sheepdog named “Reuben” befreinds McGland.
Gowand also suffers from arthritis, and his doctor has prescribed a traction device. McGland notes that this device would be very handy if he wanted to commit suicide.
To make a long story short, Gowand desides to hang himself. However, and at the terminal moment, he has an epiphany, and decides to live. However, Reuben bounds into the room as he stands in his makeshift gallows, knocks him down, and Gowand dies.
So. At the end, Gowand didn’t want to die after all, but maybe he did?
I think that suicide victims have epiphanies right before they kill themselves. I heard a piece on NPR where some guy jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge, knowing clearly what he was doing. Until he jumped, and thought, “What the fuck am I doing?” Fortunately, this person survived.
Robin Williams did not.
Phil Ochs did not. Ernest Hemingway did not. My dear friend, Mike Keiser, did not.
There is no such thing as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you know a friend who is in crisis, please get them help!
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