Bend Film Festival - Sunday (Part 1)

 I got to see an extra movie on Sunday.  I started my shift early and the venue manager said to go ahead and see the movie.  Barbara joined me for the second and third movies on Sunday

The first movie was a documentary called “Tell Them You Love Me”.  I entered the theater about 10 minutes late.  It started by describing how to work with severely physically disabled people.  I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to continue watching this film.  It seemed depressing and with the news about Charlie, I wasn’t sure whether I was in the right frame of mind.  Boy was I wrong about this movie!

It has always been assumed that severely disabled people have little mental capacity.  A woman in Australia found that by supporting the disabled person's elbow, they could press keys on a specially designed keyboard and thus communicate.  Without the elbow support, the disabled person could not control their arms well enough to use the keyboard.  Also they developed a device which held a book and had a large button which would turn to the next page.  This allowed disabled people to read books.

Anna Stubblefield was a  professor at Rutgers who was interested in this topic. She brought the technology to the US and had dramatic results.  Some of the disabled people were able to quickly learn to communicate at a high level.  Some went on to take college level courses.  One became a professor at UC Berkeley.

Anna began working with Derrick Johnson, a disabled black man in his late 30’s.  Derrick made some amazing progress.  His mother and brother were astounded about the changes.  He participated in some college level classes.  Anna felt that they were having some intelligent discussions and she grew to enjoy her time with him.  

Derrick was hoping to become more independent and move out of his mother’s house and move into an assisted living environment.  Someone asked if he hoped to develop more social independence and find a partner.  Derrick replied that he would really like that but it was unlikely to happen.  When Anna saw this, she realized that she had developed feelings for him.  About a week later, she told Derrick that she loved him and he replied “I know and I love you too.”  A side note: the special keyboard records all conversations.  Derrick’s side of the conversation can be verified from the keyboard’s memory.  Anna's side was all verbal and not recorded.

Over the next several weeks they kissed several times.  After a month or so, they actually had sex.  Anna decided that she was going to leave her husband.  They agreed that they needed to talk to Derrick’s mother and brother.  Derrick’s mother and brother were shocked.  Neither believed that Derrick could possibly give consent to such an action.  The brother was so angry that he needed to leave the room.

Meanwhile a frontline documentary came out that raised suspicion on the results from the special keyboard.  A professor first showed a picture of a cat to the disabled person  and to the assistant supporting the disabled person’s arm.  Consistently, “CAT” would be typed into the special keyboard.  However, when a picture of a cat was shown to the disabled person and a picture of a key to the assistant, “KEY” would be typed into the keyboard.  The conclusion was that the assistant who supported the disabled person's arm was also subtly guiding the arm to the desired keys.  The assistant didn’t even realize this was happening.

Anyway Derrick’s brother saw the documentary and hired a lawyer.  They went to the police and Anna was arrested and charged with sexual assault.  Anna’s defense was based on the data stored in the special keyboard.  The judge threw out that data as being unreliable.  Anna was sentenced to 12 years in prison.  After 2 years in prison, an appeals court threw out the verdict.  They ruled that the judge had incorrectly thrown out the evidence from the special keyboard.

Anna was released and held several jobs, but kept losing the jobs when someone found out about her past.  Finally, she got a remote job where she could work from home and no one knew her background.

Shortly after I started watching the movie, I became completely engrossed in the film.  I felt empathy for Anna, Derrick and his family.  The director did not take sides and had extensive interviews with everyone involved.  I don’t know whether Anna guided Derrick’s arm to get the responses she desired.   However, I am convinced that if she did guide, it was completely unintentional.  I really enjoyed this film.