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Lampposts in the Limelight
by Richard Horgan |
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1/8/2009 at 1:02:26 PM |
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Sometimes, an unanticipated tragic event can frame an upcoming movie in a whole new context. It happened last January when Australian actor Heath Ledger died ahead of the arrival of The Dark Knight, and it has occurred again this month for the in-production documentary Loving Lampposts.
The freakish death of John Travolta’s son Jett in the Bahamas will most certainly now loom over Lampposts, being made by Todd Drezner, a father whose son was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in the spring of 2007. The movie will feature an interview with celebrity autism activist Jenny McCarthy and will also include a close-up look at “neurodiversity,” a movement which posits that curing autism is something that is neither possible nor desirable.
Drezner will be at Arizona State University on January 23rd to film an afternoon lecture by faculty member Majia Holmer Nadesan, the author of Constructing Autism: Unravelling the “Truth” and Understanding the Social. Nadesan is herself the parent of an autistic child and suggests in her 2005 tome that the way a mental illness is talked about and documented can have as much to do with how it is shaped as genetic, hereditary factors.
The title of Drezner’s documentary meanwhile refers to the tactile fondness his son (pictured above) showed at an early age for playground lampposts. Along with the aforementioned neurodiversity advocates, the filmmaker also intends to highlight a nutrition, vitamins and detoxification regime that another group of doctors claims can cure the condition. Loving Lampposts is the feature directorial debut of Drezner, a Columbia University Film MFA graduate who has worked as an editor on several other documentaries including 2007’s I Paint Pictures, about a schizophrenic New York street artist.
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