Tropic Sprockets / Flashes of Chrome: Recollections

Tropic Sprockets / Flashes of Chrome: Recollections

By Ian Brockway

Flashes of Chrome: Recollections

When I was a kid in the mid 1970s, I was surrounded by television and film. “King Kong,” Evel Knievel, “Star Wars,” Tarzan, and “Jaws” were just a few of these characters and films. I felt covered by them. In many ways they were an escape from my own body, as I have cerebral palsy and use a wheelchair. TV and film represented an overwhelmingly ambulatory and able-bodied world. The first character I remember seeing in a chair was Detective Michael Ironside (Raymond Burr). I was intrigued and curious as kids can often become, and after this I wanted to be a cop. I thought simplistically; I was righteous and idealistic.

But by the 80s, my mind matured. Reagan was president and I felt something wrong in my gut with his Star Wars defense policy. I joined a local Greenpeace group. During a meeting, I saw Kubrick’s “Doctor Strangelove.” Peter Sellers in the title role thrilled me. After all, we both had one uncontrollable hand. I decided to be him on the Greenpeace float during Fantasy Fest that year. I shellacked my hair silver, wore sunglasses and one black leather glove, now a known villainous or pop trademark. I writhed in my chair, mimicking Dr. Strangelove and threw mushrooms into the crowd. My algebra teacher was in front of me looking bewildered. Several people gave me dirty looks but at 17, it exhilarated me to protest against an America weaponized by nukes.

As important as “My Left Foot” was to me, two films have struck me with equal impact. The first is “Gaby” (1987) released two years before the Brown biopic. Directed by Luis Mandoki, the film tells the story of Gaby Brimmer, a young woman with cerebral palsy who like Christy Brown uses her foot to type. Gaby is a bohemian and becomes understandably upset by the limitations for people who use wheelchairs in Mexico during the 1960s and literally fights to join public high school. As Brimmer, Rachel Chagall is wondrous with the truth and quirk of CP showing through her body. Chagall is fearless in this role, equal to Day-Lewis in potency. I am further taken by this film for its freedom in depicting sex. Gaby is in love with her classmate Fernando (Lawrence Monoson) and they actually fall out of their chairs to make love and engage in sex. I had never seen such freedom between two characters with CP before and the honesty struck me. Rachel Chagall in particular with her spirited smile entranced me. This was the first I had heard of Gaby, who wrote articles and poems, adopted a daughter and started her own school. She was the actual movie star as mirrored by Chagall. Better yet Brimmer, like myself, was portrayed as being existential.

The second film, “Don’t Worry He Won’t Get Far On Foot” (2018) is the story of the idiosyncratic cartoonist Callahan, directed by Gus Van Sant. Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix) is a self-absorbed alcoholic who becomes paralyzed by a car accident. He curses himself but through the entrance of an alluring physical therapist Annu (Rooney Mara) he joins AA and discovers black ink and black humor. Callahan does iconoclastic cartoons with an individualistic style and through his cartoons people revere and revile him. Though not a groundbreaking role, Phoenix once again excels. His Callahan is full of soft verve and snarky understatement. Some of the film’s best moments show the actor’s daring as he races into a rush of traffic.

Callahan is present, unapologetic, full of sadness and zest. The film actually shows him drawing and you can see the life in his jittery black lines as if the marker itself has respiration. Art alone saved John Callahan, who delighted enraged and upset people, and got them to think.

These three films, (not only about physical struggle but about art and life) flicker upon me as I move through space. Gaby, Christy and John Callahan wrote, painted and rolled long before me.

This awareness keeps my wheels on the pavement and my feet bouncing in mid-air.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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