When the curtain went up at the 1996 Oscars to reveal actor Christopher Reeve, you could almost feel the global television audience take a collective breath. Less than a year earlier, the 42-year-old Superman star had been paralysed from the neck down after a near-fatal equestrian accident; now, there he was on stage, in a wheelchair and breathing with the help of a ventilator.
Reeve delivered the kind of self-deprecating joke that had made him the definitive Clark Kent, and Hollywood’s luminaries gave him a lengthy standing ovation. But the mood was sombre: if this could happen to the Man of Steel, it could happen to any of us.
“The fact that Superman was in a wheelchair and was willing to go public with it was huge,” says the actor’s friend Glenn Close, speaking in the new documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.
It was the beginning of an unlikely second act for Reeve, one that saw the former big-screen superhero devote himself to a life of disability activism.
Super/Man offers an intimate glimpse behind the actor’s journey, from the dizzy heights of stardom to the struggle that would eventually lead to his death, at age 52, in 2004.
It’s a remarkable story, even if you’re familiar with the general outline.
In an era defined by the dominance of superhero cinema, it’s easy to forget there was a time when the comic-book movie was anything but a sure thing. When Warner Bros was developing the first Superman film back in the 1970s, many were sceptical that an audience would take it seriously — let alone accept that a then-unknown actor could make them believe a man could fly.
But as the documentary’s opening montage — set to John Williams’s rousing, romantic theme music — reminds us, 1978’s Superman proved everyone wrong. It was a work of earnest myth-making that still stands as one of the great comic-book movies, in no small part thanks to Reeve’s charismatic performance, equal parts bumbling Cary Grant and square-jawed, all-American heroism.
Reeve was flying high, with a successful sequel in 1980 and the adoration of kids around the world, but he was also typecast decades before A-list stars could comfortably move between prestige roles and spandex pay cheques. (It didn’t help that he was wracked with anxiety over pleasing his father, a highbrow poet who was only excited for his son when he at first assumed he was starring in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman.)
Filmmakers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui (who made 2018’s McQueen) glance at Reeve’s stardom via the usual archival footage — news stories, talk show appearances, red carpet interviews — but their documentary’s primary focus is on the actor’s post-accident career.
“It dawned on me that I had ruined my life and everybody else’s,” says Reeve of his accident, in voice-over taken from one of the late actor’s audiobooks. His first thoughts were denial. “This isn’t me,” he says.
It’s a tribute to Reeve’s resilience, and to the caregiving of his wife Dana (who passed away in 2006), that he was able to transform his life and refocus his career on activism. He’d gone from invincible to vulnerable.
“It was a combination that moved mountains,” says Reeve’s friend, former US secretary of state John Kerry.
While there’s a risk here of leaning too far into ‘not all heroes wear capes’, Super/Man offers a complex portrait of a star with very human flaws and failings.
There was the criticism, in some disability circles, that Reeve’s activism was motivated by a purely selfish desire to regain his mobility — which may have initially been true, though the results spoke for themselves — and controversy over a 2000 Super Bowl commercial that used CGI to depict the actor walking again.
It’s also apparent that it took the accident to bring Reeve closer to his family. His former partner Gae Exton, and his three children — all now involved in the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, dedicated to curing spinal cord injury — offer touching, heartfelt testimony.
Also on hand to pay tribute are a number of Reeve’s high-profile friends and colleagues, including Close, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Daniels and Susan Sarandon.
But perhaps the movie’s biggest presence — and absence — is Reeve’s former Juilliard roommate and best friend, Robin Williams, who is seen across the years in archival clips and home video footage.
It’s doubly sad watching Williams with the knowledge of the comedian’s own premature death in 2014. As Close remarks at one point: “If Chris were still around, Robin would still be alive.”
While Super/Man is largely a conventional documentary portrait — there’s little of the livewire filmmaking of last year’s Michael J. Fox movie, Still — there’s no doubt that it’s a moving one.
It’s hard not to watch that wonderful moment in 1978’s Superman, excerpted here, of Reeve’s Superman catching Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane as she falls from a skyscraper, without thinking of everything that will follow.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” he assures her, to an incredulous reply: “You’ve got me? Who’s got you?!”
Super/Man is a testament to Reeve’s determination — and the support of those around him — even when the odds are stacked against survival.
