Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui (“McQueen”), debuts Saturday, December 7 (8:00-9:45 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. The critically acclaimed film had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and recently won six Critics Choice Documentary Awards.
Synopsis
Chronicling his personal and professional life before and after the near-fatal horseback riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story uses Reeve’s own words, as well as intimate input from his closest family members and friends, to paint a rich, nuanced portrait of a man who refused to be defined by his physicality and who proved that you don’t need tights and a cape to be a hero.
Reeve persevered, using his fame to speak of hope and to change our perception of paralysis. All while remaining a dedicated activist, actor, filmmaker, devoted dad, and loving husband to Dana Reeve, the beating heart of the family.
After becoming a quadriplegic, Reeve harnessed his reputation as Superman to help fund medical research through his foundation, creating initiatives to improve the lives of disabled people all over the world, while continuing his career in cinema in front of and behind the camera, and dedicating himself to his wife Dana and children.
Dana cared for Reeve heroically and after his death at the age of 52, she remained committed to his advocacy work only to tragically succumb to lung cancer just 17 months later. The foundation was renamed the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation on the first anniversary of her death.
Illustrated with film clips of Reeve as Superman, as well as his other roles and the films he directed, and including never-before-seen, intimate home movies and an extraordinary trove of personal archive material, the film also features the first-ever extended interviews filmed with Reeve’s children, as well as insight from Reeve’s brother, his first wife Gae Exton, and Hollywood colleagues and friends such as Susan Sarandon and Glenn Close.
Interview
Cinema Scholars’ own Glen Dower sat down with Peter Ettedgui, co-writer/director of the stunning new documentary, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. They discuss how the project and treasure trove of archival footage came to Peter and co-writer/director Ian Bonhôte, the non-linear approach taken to the documentary, and how impactful it was to make such a deeply personal film, among other topics.
(Edited for content and clarity)
Glen Dower:
Mr. Ettedgui, how are you, Sir?
Peter Ettedgui:
I’m good, thank you. Please call me Peter!
Glen Dower:
Peter, it is. Now, heads up, I’m a big, big superhero fan, as you can tell by my items of clothing. But I will be honest, not a Superman fan. But a big Christopher Reeve fan.
Peter Ettedgui:
So you should be talking to my directing partner, Ian Bonhôte, with whom I made this film because he was never the biggest Superman fan. I was the Superman fan in the filmmaking family. You know, I grew up with Superman. Loved the comics. And then obviously when the film came out, I was there on the opening weekend. I must have been like 12, or 13 years old. And seeing it on the biggest screen in London with my parents. So yeah, I think I was a Superman fan at the time. And that stayed with me.
Glen Dower:
Great! And how did this opportunity to make Super/Man come to you?
Peter Ettedgui:
The story was brought to both of us by a very enterprising archive producer who reached out to the family and established that there was a family film archive. And if the right director was found, etc. So, you know, it came to us. And I think even if I was more of a Superman fan than Ian, I think that we both immediately engaged with the story of Christopher Reeve because it’s such a powerful story. And also because we had made our previous film about the Paralympic movement. It’s called Rising Phoenix on Netflix.
It very much introduced us as filmmakers to the world of disability. That became a lens on the world of the Paralympics that fascinated us. We got very caught up in the human rights issues that many disabled people face in their daily lives, as well as how the Paralympics became a mainstream sporting event. So these things drew us to Christopher’s story. We saw the archive of Christopher speaking at the Atlanta Paralympic Games in 1996, just after he’d had his accident, which stuck in our minds.
Peter Ettedgui (cont):
When we came to tell the story, that disability lens was probably as important as the fact that he had played Superman. We thought that’s an interesting proposition that Superman, the idea of Superman will draw audiences into the cinema or onto HBO Max. So you would come in via the IP of Superman and how wonderful to be able to use some of those iconic moments from the Superman films in our film. But I think that from the beginning, we always saw the story of him waking up after his accident for the first time and realizing the extent of his injury and discovering a reason to live, for his family, for the love of his wife, etc.
And then discovering a purpose for life, a new purpose for his life, galvanizing the scientific and medical community, working on behalf of people with disabilities across the globe, not just in the States. We thought that was such an extraordinary story to tell. And also the fact that he had wanted to show himself in public. He wanted people not to be afraid to look at someone with a bad disability. And he felt that no one was better placed to do that than himself, as former Superman. And, you know, that story for us was the thing that engaged us and that we wanted to make the center of our film.
Glen Dower:
Amazing. Those two points you’ve raised that I want to talk about a little bit further. First of all, the archive footage. Whoa, what a treasure trove the Reeve Family has kept of, every single memory. Of course, we see the great man himself. He’s never sitting down, only when he’s playing piano with his child. How long did it take you to go through that? Did you have a team on the case? And what was the Reeve Family’s involvement in your selection process?
Peter Ettedgui:
First of all, it’s very important to say that the Reeve Family, with whom we had a wonderful relationship while we were making the film, never sought to say, ‘You should do this or you should do that’. Once we’d discussed the broad parameters of what we wanted to do as filmmakers, they got out of our way but they opened the doors to the family treasure, their archive treasure. And they all agreed to sit for a day-long interview with each of them. And that was it.
So they were never really involved in the actual filmmaking process. But as you say, we had this wonderful archive and that archive came from many sources. It came from Christopher’s home video camera. It also came from the fact that Matthew, who is a filmmaker himself, had spent four years documenting his dad’s rehabilitation and making two films. The second was unfinished because Christopher died.
The first, called ‘Hope In Motion’ was broadcast and we can find it on YouTube. It’s wonderful stuff. But we had those two films and we had all of the rushes. Our office was filled floor to ceiling with these tapes that we went through. We had a small core team making this film. Ian and myself. We had our assistant, our junior producer, our researcher, and our archive team. We all went through it at our desks and logged it all. And then obviously Otto, our amazing, amazing editor, and his assistant, you know, were also going through it.
Peter Ettedgui (cont):
And so there was a sort of like a sense of, you know, marinating this material and figuring out all of the magical moments that there were. But what helped us in selecting them was the fact that we had a very strong idea of how we wanted the narrative structure to work. You know, that we wanted to have that story that I described, that Christopher’s waking out of his coma after the accident to his death on one hand.
And then, on the other hand, we wanted to be able to interweave that story with moments from his pre-accident life. That was the idea from the get-go. And once you have a strong sense of structure, you have a kind of, gives you a roadmap and you kind of know what you’re looking for. And that helps us when we’re sifting through all the archives.
Glen Dower:
Like you said, it’s non-linear, so to speak. I was surprised initially, to be honest, I thought 10 minutes in ‘ok he’s had his accident, we’re not talking about his early theater career. But then we go back, with those time jumps.
Peter Ettedgui:
Yeah, it’s really interesting. Once you decide that you’re going to take that approach, then it becomes very obvious that you’re going to sort of like, you’re going to get the two things everyone knows about Christopher Reeve and that he played Superman and that he had a terrible accident. Get those things out of the way as soon as you can. And then that leaves you the space to kind of peel the layers of the story and explore really who he was.
Glen Dower:
Also, intercut, we have some amazing contributors as well, outside of his amazing family. We have Susan Sarandon, Jeff Daniels, and Whoopi Goldberg, just fantastic. And Glenn Close gave me a moment that has stayed with me. The chapter on Reeve’s relationship with Robin Williams, of course, and she says, that maybe if Chris was still around, Robin would still be around. And I thought, wow, that is heartbreaking. Were there moments like that for yourself, speaking to contributors or his family?
Peter Ettedgui:
Yeah, so many, so many of them. And all the interviews, these were not celebrities, they were friends. They were close friends and they were close friends in different areas of his life. Jeff Daniels was a theatre friend. Susan Sarandon was an advocacy friend, you know? I don’t think he worked on screen with any of the people we had in the film, but they were all very, very, very close friends. He directed Whoopi and Glenn. So many lovely moments.
I think that moment you allude to with Glenn talking about Robin, I’m not crazy about the hypothesis. How can you tell that Robin would still be around and working, if not for Chris? Robin had many other very special people in his life. And what happened to Robin was different than what happened to Chris. I think you have to be very careful about that hypothesis. We included it in the film because I think Glenn was speaking to the depth of their relationship and their feelings for each other, and the fact that Robin was bereft when Chris passed.
So I think that was what was important about that particular line. But there were so many other just wonderful moments. I’ll never forget those interviews. And, you know, there’s stuff that’s on the cutting room floor. But magical stories that Jeff told about taking a plane ride with Christopher piloting the plane! And stuff that we just couldn’t include, we didn’t have the space to include in the film. But yeah, many magical moments.
Glen Dower:
And you must be so excited by the general release, and the reviews have been fantastic. Certified Fresh, over eight IMDb, awards. How excited are you about the release?
Peter Ettedgui:
When you make a film, you’re making it for yourself. There were three of us in the edit. There’s Otto Burnham, and I’ve already said this film wouldn’t be what it is without his extraordinary artistry as an editor. There’s also Ian, and there’s myself. We’re the first three people. When we play back and review sections of the film in the edit, we’re the first audience. So, you know, we have to feel stuff. If we’re not feeling stuff, the film’s not working. We have to gauge when we’re getting bored. We have to listen to the film.
You get a sense of what the film actually needs and what it doesn’t need, importantly. And so when you put it in front of an audience, you know, you know that it works for you. You’re pretty sure because you kind of like, you’ve watched the final cut and you’ve had all of those emotions passing through you. I mean, there were a lot of tears in our edit and a lot of laughter as well.
We were deeply touched by the story. So, you hope that because you’ve had that reaction to it and designed the film to get that reaction, you very much hope that that’s what’s going to happen when you have an audience. From the moment that we first premiered at Sundance, it was clear that it was working as well for the audience as it did for us when we were in the edit. That was the most amazing, satisfying feeling. And it’s been replicated in screenings all over the world. And as you say, the wonderful reception to the film. So, yeah, you cannot ask for more than that. You really can’t. It’s just the best feeling!
Glen Dower:
Excellent and well-deserved, Sir. Essential viewing for superhero fans, and non-superhero fans. I really enjoyed it and I’m going to tell everyone I know, please watch it and get back to us. Peter, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.
Peter Ettedgui:
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Lovely to meet you, Glen.
