The Dr. Kevorkian Film Festival

They don’t call it “fall” for nothing. There’s a definite unfriendly chill in the air. Leaves are turning riotous colors somewhere, but not near you. (To be honest I always thought old dead leaves colorfully camouflaging their demise to be cheap drag.) But fall also conjures another winter of discontent. You’re down so low it looks like low. Even if your ship did come in now, you’d be too depressed to climb on board. And those rotten holidays are approaching- no matter how many chestnuts are roasted on an open fire or sizzling turkeys are extracted from ovens the only thing that can bring a smile to your lips is getting in bed and pulling the covers up.

Let’s face it- it’s not worth it anymore. The news just makes you want to jump out the window anyway. So why not drag out that old Christmas gift from that hateful aunt- the hardback 1^st edition of Final Exit. But how are you going to do it? Con Edison has been threatening to turn off your power, so gas is out. And who uses straight razors these days? It’s not going to be easy sawing through a vein with a Gillette disposable blade. You’re afraid of heights, and, to be honest, it wouldn’t be any fun unless you could land on Kanye West. The only plastic bag you have (if you wanted to lethally tie it around your neck) is so riddled with holes it would take a month to lose consciousness. So, what’s a depressed person to do?

May I make a suggestion? Being that there’s a film festival every ten minutes anyway, why not organize your own festival dedicated to those films offering more successful ways to end a horrible life. Make it a suicide Woodstock so to speak. And dedicate it to that savior of the terminally ill, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Wisconsin pathologist and death doula who tirelessly worked to assist those into the next life as painlessly as possible.

Suicide has been such a melodramatic staple in so many films it’s going to be hard to sift through the entries to come up with perfect picks. Should you show the films in categories? Pills, razors, guns, gas? Or just throw them together in a suicidal celluloid stew? Should there be sidebar screenings dedicated to directors who have devoted themselves to films about unhappy, self-destructive people? A dusk-to-dawn Ingmar Bergman festival might be just the ticket. And what about suicide attempts in films? Do they count? So many film plot points hinge on aborted acts of self-annihilation. Movies like The Apartment, The End, The Slender Thread and Inside Daisy Clover would all be strong contenders. What about films featuring actors who actually killed themselves in real life? Should they be included? Or what about films that are so awful you want to kill yourself after sitting through them?

To help decide I’ve included several of my favorite suicidal slices of cinema for your perusal.

Anna Karenina (Cause of death: choo-choo). Greta Garbo finds a unique way of riding the rails by flinging herself under the wheels of a train in this classy adaptation of Tolstoy’s Russian classic. “Garbo dies!” is how they should have publicized the movie.

Valley Of The Dolls (Cause of death: pills). Sharon Tate tries her own homeopathic method of curing breast cancer.

Peyton Place (Cause of death: hanging). Betty Field plays a housekeeper overwhelmed by the knowledge that her drunken husband raped their daughter. So she hangs herself at Lana Turner’s house. That’ll teach him.

Seven Beauties (Cause of death: shit). Fernando Rey flings himself into a vat of excrement to escape the horrors of concentration life and Lina Wertmuller’s grim film.

Waterloo Bridge (Cause of death: traffic). Vivien Leigh plays a woman so mortified that her boyfriend will find she has been forced into prostitution she goes to the London bridge where they met and walks in front of a truck.

The Children’s Hour (cause of death: lesbianism) Shirley MacLaine hangs herself when a wicked girl spreads a rumor that she and Audrey Hepburn are Sapphic sisters.

Dinner At Eight (Cause of death: gas). John Barrymore finds a unique way to turn down a dinner invitation.

A Star Is Born (1954) (Cause of death: drowning). James Mason can’t listen to Judy Garland sing “The Man That Got Away” one more time and jumps into the ocean.

A Star Is Born (2018) (Cause of death: hanging) Bradley Cooper finds alcoholism is not enough to drown out Lady Gaga so he heads into the garage with a rope.

The Dead Zone (Cause of death: scissors). A serial killer makes his point known that he won’t be captured alive when he locks himself in a bathroom with some handy shears.

The Sergeant (Cause of death: shotgun) Rod Steiger gets so discombobulated when he kisses John Phillip Law he blows his noggin off.

Going Places (Cause of death: vagina-cide) Jeanne Moreau sleeps with Gerard Depardieu and then shoots herself in the crotch.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Cause of death: razor). Brad Dourif shows his supreme dissatisfaction with his mental health facility.

The Elephant Man (Cause of death: lying down) John Hurt plays the severely deformed man who tries a new sleeping position with disastrous results.

The Tenant (Cause of death: drag) Roman Polanski plays a man possessed by the suicidal female spirit of a former tenant. So he gets in drag and jumps out his window (twice). (To be technically honest, he isn’t completely dead at the end, but might as well be.)

Women In Love (Cause of death: snow). Oliver Reed ignores winter weather common sense when he trudges coatless over snowcapped mountains in Ken Russell’s masterful adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence novel.

The Red Shoes (Cause of death: dance) Moira Shearer plays a dancer who becomes possessed by her ballet shoes and dances in front of a train. Now that’s a “pas de don’t.”

The Loved One (Cause of death: self-embalming). Don’t ask.

La Grande Bouffee (Cause of death: food). Four male friends eat themselves to death in Marco Ferreri’s black comedy.

Mahogany (Cause of death: overacting). Anthony Perkins hammily forces Diana Ross to model wildly in the car while he photographs her and steers his speeding sports car over a wall.

Polyester (Cause of death: dog-icide). Divine’s dog can’t take the unending turmoil of suburban life and hangs himself in the kitchen.

There are just thousands of films to choose from. I’ve often found watching movies about people more miserable than myself a healing experience.

And if that doesn’t work- then go kill yourself, stupid.