SICK: THE LIFE & DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST (director: Kirby Dick; cast: Kathe Burkhart (Interviewer), Kirby Dick (Interviewer), Rita Valencia (Interviewer), Sheree Rose (Herself), Bob Flanagan (Himself), 1997)
SICK begins with Bob reading the obituary he wrote, "I was promised an early death, and here I am, 40 years later, waiting to die ..." Thus begins the uplifting and bewildering story of Bob Flanagan, a truly amazing person, unfortunate to be born with cystic fibrosis, "a children's disease marked by fibrosis of the pancreas and frequent respiratory infections." It's considered a children's disease because most of the babies born with it don't live to adulthood. Bob Flanagan was the oldest living person known to have had that disease. He died while the movie was being filmed, as a video camera followed him around for the last days of his life, at 40 years of age. The camera crew mistakingly took the day off when he died, but we do get to see his decayed body, besides already seeing how sick he looked just before his death.
The story is uplifting, strangely enough, because Bob was able to live with the constant pain and discomforts of the disease, finding his own identity and exhibiting a gallows sense of humor that allowed him to joke about himself, sharing with the audience the most personal details of his life, such as his lack of ability to produce much of a discharge when he masturbates. He became a person who went beyond the perversities that marked his adult life, the S & M he credits with giving him a will to live, into someone who can't be judged by those who have not felt his pain, who performed on stage acts of self-mutilation that is mind-boggling, such as putting a nail through his penis. That was one part of the movie that was too much for my squeamish eyes, as I chose to look away.
Since I did not know what to expect upon seeing this documentary, not really giving much thought beforehand to what goes through the mind of a masochist, only thinking that a masochist must be someone with a screw loose somehere. But the astonishing thing about this brutally honest film, that was no easy chore to watch, no matter how insightful or hilarious the film was, or how sympathetic I might have felt about Bob, was that I still felt myself self-consciously measuring my responses to what he was going through, wondering how I would bear up to such travails, but all the time taking comfort that Bob did what he had to do in order not to let the bad body he was born with make his life a total mockery. And by the end of the film, I was able to look clearly at him and see him as another being on a journey, just like others have taken, knowing full-well that fear of death is a fact of life, and its mystery is something that leaves us searching for answers about why things happen to us in a certain way or trying to put off thinking about it until we can't put off thinking about it any longer... and, who can say for certain what it is about their life that they had to experience in order for them to find peace.
In many ways, what Bob was going through was a religious experience, as he questioned his beliefs and what his feelings were all about. It seemed to make sense, when he said, that Christ was the most famous masochist of all time. I was beginning to think that Bob's agonizing illness and his high tolerance for pain that he couldn't help having from cf and the satisfaction he received from being a so called "Performance Artist", and having pain voluntarily inflicted upon him, was something that gave him an inner strength, a sense of being that he felt he couldn't get any other way but this way, and that it all seemed right. I would not have felt this way, if I hadn't seen the film. Watching him in agony, might be a lot like watching Christ, that is, without the religious implications that the apostles gave to that event. His suffering was solely his trip, he wasn't about saving the world, though he was shown to be a role model for others with cf, sadists or not, and he acted as a counselor for many years for children in a cf camp. As a child he was the poster boy for cf.
Bob had a comedy and poetry routine on stage, as well as his self-mutillation thing, that he seemed to love to perform, though curiously enough, he told his girlfriend, the dominatrix, Sheree Rose, that he would give up everything, including his artistic work, just to have a girlfriend. Fortunately for him, he found someone who would keep him submissive, whipping him and keeping him under her strict rules, so he wound up with the best of the two worlds, a girlfriend and an ally in his exhibitionism... Some of his later poems are in the style of an Allen Ginsberg or a Bob Dylan rant, as his work took on a greater meaning from his earlier work. Here is one of his better poems:
Supermasochistic Bob has cystic fibrosis He should have died when he was ten but he was too precocious How much longer he will last is anyone's prognosis Supermasochistic Bob has cystic fibrosis HumdiddleiddleiddleI'mgonnadie, humdiddleiddleiddleI'mgonnadie...
The film ends with his performance of a song entitled "Fun to Be Dead". That comes after we see him for an extended period of time, as he suffers in the hospital.
Everything about his life was extra-ordinary and beyond speculation. His relationship with his parents and his homosexual brother are reviewed, showing no unloving signs. Though his parents expressed surprise about his masochism, he never revealed to them that he felt this way. What astonished them more than the fact that he is a masochist, was that they thought they knew him better than anyone else.
There is also an interesting clip from the old Steve Allen show, where he appeared as a child guest in the audience, saying he wants to be a doctor when he grows up, not an artist.
Much of the video, comes from Sheree's home movies of him and her performing, showing them in many different moods, and to her credit, showing stuff that is not always flattering to her, like when he was terribly sick during those last days and she still wanted him to be submissive to her. Submission seemed to be more important than love for her. Or maybe, it was the only way she could love someone. She was too perplexing a character to make head or tail of in this movie. It was tough enough to try to come to grips with Bob's story.
To say that this film is unusual, is to mean that it really is not quite like any other feel good movie I have ever seen before. I was glad that I saw it, though I can't honestly say that it was a totally joyous experience. I think those who would avoid this film, thinking it is too depressing to see, might be depriving themselves from seeing a film that belies any rationalization of it. This film is definetly not for a mass audience, but it is for those who are curious about things that are not that familiar to them. They will be rewarded by observing how the sheer power of a human being coping with a painful and unbearable disease for his entire life, still has the will to live a creative life. That is enough of a reason for me to recommend this film.
REVIEW ON 3/11/99 GRADE: B+
Dennis Schwartz: "Movie Reviews"
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