Brotherly
Love
The documentary "Imagining Robert" takes a close look at the
impact of mental illness on one family
By Amy
Kroin of the Valley Advocate
Published 04/25/02
Back in
1973, Anne Neugeboren decided to do what so many Jewish women of a certain
age choose to do: pack her bags and move to Florida. But Anne's desire
to relocate from her longtime home in Brooklyn was not motivated by
visions of canasta games played out under a West Palm Beach sun. Anne
wanted to leave because she wanted to flee her youngest son, Robert,
who had had his first mental breakdown a decade earlier at the age of
19.
After
years of watching Robert move in and out of hospitals, after years of
watching his diagnosis change from schizophrenia to manic depression
to hypomania, after years of watching him move from one failed medication
regime to the next, Anne Neugeboren had had enough. And so there came
an evening when she told her husband that she wanted them to get the
hell out of Dodge. David Neugeboren's reaction, recounted in the new
Florentine Films documentary Imagining Robert, was one of horror.
"I
beg of you," he said, down on his knees before his wife. "One
does not abandon a child."
But for
Anne, there was no other alternative. Having a child with mental illness,
she once said, is worse than death. And so she persuaded her husband
to move to Florida, and she saw her youngest son just two more times
in her life before she died of Alzheimer's disease more than 20 years
later. On one of those occasions -- at a bar mitzvah for a family member
-- Anne did not even recognize Robert. Extending her hand, she introduced
herself. "Hello," she said, "I'm Anne Neugeboren."
The story
of this mother's reaction to her son's disease is explored to memorable
effect in Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival. The film,
which will premiere this Sunday at Smith College, is based on the acclaimed
memoir written by Robert's older brother Jay Neugeboren, an award-winning
novelist, essayist and short story writer who taught in UMass' MFA program
until he retired last May.
Shot on video, with occasionally fuzzy audio, this one-hour film adaptation
of Neugeboren's memoir was directed by Haydenville resident Lawrence
Hott and edited by his wife Diane Garey, the team behind such noted
documentaries as Divided Highways. Aware that there are already a great
many films dealing with the medical roots and cultural consequences
of mental illness, Hott and Garey set out to make a piece that explores
the impact of this disease on one particular family.
At the
center of Imagining Robert are the Neugeboren brothers, one a gifted
writer and father of three, the other a man who has lived most of his
adult life shuttered away from the broader culture.
"For
37 years," writes Hott in his director's notes, "[Robert]
has lived within the mental health system, his treatment and prognosis
changing with each new doctor and each new 'cure.' He has been in state
hospitals, city hospitals, halfway houses, group homes, jail cells,
elite treatment centers, forensic hospitals, and, for brief periods,
in his own apartments. He has been treated with gas inhalation, insulin
coma therapy, four-point restraints, and virtually the entire armamentaria
of neuroleptic and psychotropic drugs. Through the years he's also participated
in group therapy, family therapy, multifamily group therapy, psychoanalytically
oriented psychotherapy, art therapy, behavioral therapy, vocational
rehabilitation therapy, and milieu therapy. Most often, though, he has
had an abundance of drugs and a sad lack of care."
And through
it all he's had a brother who has served as his best friend and primary
caretaker. Anne Neugeboren passed the torch to Jay when she decided
to escape to Florida. "You be in charge from now on, Jay,"
she said. "I just can't handle it anymore." It would have
been all too easy to wring a three-hanky film out of the story behind
Imagining Robert. Just consider the possibilities: You've got a man
treated like a number within the mental health system, you've got parents
who have gone AWOL, you've got a devoted older brother looking out for
his younger sibling. Robin Williams would jump at the material.
Fortunately,
Hott and Garey -- who have won an Emmy, a Peabody and two Academy Award
nominations for their various films -- take a cue from Jay Neugeboren's
approach in his memoir and steer away from manipulative or familiar
storytelling techniques. And they get out of the way of their subject:
There's no narration, no commentary from experts in the field, no attempt
to draw neat conclusions from the material at hand. Instead, the brothers
themselves occupy center stage, and through their words we become aware
of how it is possible, as Jay himself notes, to live a rich life while
coping with mental illness.
Early on
in the film Jay recalls a time when Robert was doing well enough to
justify being moved out of the locked ward he had been confined to at
Staten Island's South Beach Psychiatric Center. Robert's psychiatrist
dismissed Jay's suggestion with the flip retort: "Talk to the governor."
Jay proceeded to do just that, penning a letter to then-Gov. Cuomo,
asking whether there might be some way out for his brother.
The action
of writing the letter in and of itself is significant, for it shows
what Robert has that so many in his position do not: an advocate willing
and able to do everything within his power to help. And, years later,
the act of writing Imagining Robert did a great deal for Robert Neugeboren
-- the reaction to the book was so strong that Jay heard from many people
in the mental health field who were determined to find a better way
for Robert.
And so,
two years after the book's publication, Robert is no longer institutionalized.
When the film opens in 1999 he's living at Project Renewal, a residence
for mentally ill and formerly homeless people. There's a huge contrast
between the hospitals Robert has spent much of his life in -- places
where he was beaten up and locked in solitary -- and this sunny facility
with its Diego Rivera prints and plush furnishings and dedicated staff.
What's most profound is the degree of freedom afforded Robert, who is
allowed to come and go as he pleases.
The film
follows the brothers as they go on outings to a Chinese restaurant,
to Lieberman's Photo Studio, to their old high school in Brooklyn. Sometimes
Robert is a charmer; other times he's ornery. There's a sense of world-weariness
in Jay's response to the more combative behavior; it's clear that he's
been down this path many times before. But what emerges most vividly
is the depth of the connection between the two brothers. Jay looks out
for Robert, but he doesn't patronize him. At one point, as the two are
about to embark on a walk, he reaches out to his brother. "You
OK?" he asks. "You need to lean on me a little?" Jay
Neugeboren has spent much of his life taking care of other people: his
brother, his mother during her struggle with Alzheimer's, his three
children, whom he raised as a single parent. He's measured throughout
the film, but there are points where a sense of exhaustion comes through.
Robert,
for his part, emerges as the life of the party. In his youth an accomplished
actor, writer and athlete, he's got a wry sense of humor and an enduring
spirit of independence. It's clear that he doesn't want to be coddled;
he wants to exercise his right to make his own decisions, to have some
degree of ownership over his life. "I'm a little wacky, that's
all," he says at one point.
The weight
of the past bears down on both brothers in this documentary. We learn
that Anne Neugeboren worked full-time to support the family, that David
Neugeboren was a failed businessman, that Robert's first breakdown --
during which he tried to strangle his father and seduce his mother --
flew in the face of all the promise he had shown during his childhood.
One of
the most moving moments comes when Jay recalls his mother's decision
to leave Robert; we see Jay talking to the camera, and then both brothers
reviewing the footage on video. "I'm crying," says Robert.
"So
am I," says Jay.
The film
charts a journey for the brothers, posing implicitly the question of
whether Robert will be able to make it at Project Renewal. But within
that question is a more complicated one about the way our culture responds
to mental illness. This spare and deliberate film provokes debate without
preaching -- a testament to the filmmakers' restraint, and to the two
brothers who have opened their lives here.
In the
end, what the film illustrates, more than anything else, is that it's
not enough to endure. It's far better, as Robert's example reveals,
to live.
Imagining
Robert will be shown at 7:30 p.m. at Wright Hall at Smith College in
Northampton on Sun., April 28. Both brothers will be present at the
screening.
Amy Kroin
can be reached at akroin@valleyadvocate.com