Creating an emotional journey for audiences was exactly what the filmmakers behind “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” hoped to achieve. Two decades after Christopher Reeve’s death, the documentary film, directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, takes an intimate snapshot of the late Superman actor’s life, from his Julliard days to the 1995 horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed to his disability rights activism to the final years of his life.
The film opened to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January and was named one of the National Board of Review’s best documentaries of 2024.
“How do you tell a story, which a lot of people know quite a bit about? The fact that people know about Chris’ accident and know about his death and knew he was Superman,” Bonhôte said as part of TheWrap’s Screening Series, where he was joined by Ettedgui and TheWrap’s Joe McGovern, who moderated the virtual conversation. “How do you surprise an audience with elements that are already known? We want[ed] emotion to be over information. Emotion is what we [were] looking for.”
By bringing in those who knew Reeve best and when he was at his most vulnerable.
“Super/Man” features footage of Reeve and his wife, Dana, who died in 2006 from lung cancer, as well as new interviews with his three grown children Alexandra, Matthew and Will, and Reeve’s former partner Gae Exton (who is very private and had to be wooed over a long period of time, they recall). Actors Jeff Daniels, Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close and Whoopi Goldberg, among other key figures throughout Reeve’s life, also make appearances throughout the documentary, along with archival interviews of Superman director Richard Donner and Reeve’s close friend Robin Williams.
“What we discovered as we were making [the film] was the importance of people like Dana. We didn’t know about Dana’s story. We barely knew the kids,” Ettedgui admitted. “Getting to know them more and more, it became clear that it wasn’t just a Superman story, it was the story of this really beautiful family.”
Bonhôte acknowledged that the film wouldn’t have the same emotional impact without the involvement of Reeve’s family members.
“The film couldn’t be done with[out] them,” he said. “We realized that the film was going to be much more than about Chris. They became even more and more relevant to the story and discovering that Dana and the family aspect of the Reeve family was much more important than just Christopher Reeve being a successful actor and the accident. There was much more to it.”
“I think that’s why the children became so prominent,” Bonhôte continued. “We start the film with them and we finish the film with them, and probably 30 to 40% of the film is about them.”
The interview sessions with Reeve’s children were emotional, the filmmakers remembered, as they each reflected on their early memories of their father. (Each interview session took about 12 hours to complete.)
“It was the first time they’d ever really done that, either individually or as the three of them,” Ettedgui said. He relayed a moment with Matthew where he went into a “lyrical, beautiful memory of being a young boy on his dad’s shoulders.” It was then Ettedgui knew they were opening the door to something special. “They really let their emotions out. I don’t think we were expecting that would happen to the extent that it did for everybody who was there. We all felt the power of these interviews.”
As for Dana’s part in the documentary, Bonhôte conveyed the loss she endured after Reeve suffered his life-changing accident, in which he was paralyzed from the waist down and used a device to help him breathe. “She made us understand that someone having his level of disability will impact everyone in the family, will impact your partner, and that’s what she wanted to bring to the table,” Bonhôte said.
With a runtime of 104 minutes, naturally there were aspects of Reeve’s life Bonhôte and Ettedgui were unable to fully delve into, such as his involvement as a founding member of the Creative Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group made up of entertainers, and supporting the preservation of historic New York architecture and heritage.
Ultimately, “Super/Man” isn’t about Christopher Reeve, the actor, but rather the man behind the cape — and his loved ones who kept him going. “It’s about love, family and legacy,” Bonhôte said.
