We take a look at one depiction of post traumatic stress in the movies.
Everybody knows what happened on 15 January 2009 when Captain Chelsey ‘Sully’ Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles landed Flight US Airways 1549 on the Hudson River near Manhattan, New York: all 155 passengers and crew were rescued safely.
The event is unprecedented in aviation history. Dual engine failure arising from a collision with a flock of geese was followed by successful landing of an Airbus A320 on urban water, with no loss of life.
Sully film
Captain Sullenberger was instantly hailed a ‘hero’, a status he earned firstly by the scale of his achievement and subsequently by the intelligence and humility of his performance on the media. An interview on the CBS television show 60 Minutes reinforced the public perception that he is an exceptional man. Although Sully did not seek his hero status, he recognised the public’s real need for hope. “They want good news”, he said.
Sully was right, and so this extraordinary event became the focus of multiple newspaper articles and commentaries, television interviews, and books including Sullenberger’s own best-selling autobiography, Highest Duty.
Now, that book has been adapted for a major Hollywood motion picture starring Tom Hanks as Sullenberger and Aaron Eckhart as Jeff Skiles. Both men give tremendous performances and the whole cast is brilliantly directed with deft understatement by Clint Eastwood. In almost any other hands, this movie would have become just another disaster movie or, worse still, some sickly attempt at ‘feel-good’ entertainment. Instead, it has become a critical and financial success and Hanks' performance has been described as one of the greatest of his career.
The acclaim has not been universal. The aviation authorities were quick to protest their innocence, but they may have misunderstood the movie and its real agenda. They have described their portrayal as ‘the bad guys’ in this Hollywood tale of one man's vindication before the authorities as ‘over-stated’. They have pointed out that their statutory investigation ultimately rejected the assumption that Sully had made a disastrous error of judgement by ditching his plane in the water.
Stress disorder
Actually, the movie is not about Sully’s trial before the aviation authorities. It is neither a disaster movie nor a courtroom drama; Sully: Miracle on the Hudson does not fit easily into either of these genres. The movie is an examination of one man's self-doubt. It is a psychological visualisation of the effects of extreme stress on an ordinary man doing an ordinary job on an extraordinary day. It is about his subsequent experience of insomnia, anxiety and terrifying recollection arising from this shocking traumatic event. It is a movie about the phenomenon of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.
Familiarity with the story was not the only difficulty for the movie makers. Part of the challenge for the screenwriter Tod Komarnicki must have been the acute nature of the events and their brevity. The Airbus A320 engine failure occurred three minutes after take-off and the landing on the Hudson was complete in just a few seconds. It would be a challenge for any writer to extend such a sudden and short-lived trauma into a 90 minute drama.
The sheer rapidity of the events posed another problem for Sullenberger himself. He explains to his co-pilot Skiles that "40 years of my flying experience will be judged on just 200 seconds of flight time!" At this stage, Sully’s character still thinks that the actual events are over and done with. What Sully discovers, along with the moviegoer, is that the stressful experience of traumatic events is recurrent.
Flashbacks
The problem with trauma is that it isn't over. Painful recollections enter into the mind despite every attempt to dismiss them. Such distressing flashbacks are characteristic of an an acute stress reaction, and they are vivid and terrifying in themselves. They are akin to relived experience. In the movie, we see versions of the Airbus crash more than 20 times. Over and over again, the potentially horrific events re-occur, in his dreams, prompted by random reminders, or during his agonising periods of self-examination.
The movie makes good use of these flashbacks as a dramatic device, but it is never exploitative. It remains sympathetic and harmonious with Sully's’ journey to recovery, but flashbacks nonetheless provide more gripping opportunity for cinematic re-visualisation of the trauma than anyone would have expected. No wonder Sully has turned out to be the most successful film ever launched on the dramatic high definition IMAX format.
Symptoms of trauma
Vivid flashbacks are not the only post traumatic stress phenomena depicted in the movie. For a time, Sully is shown as isolated and avoidant, insomniac and hyper-vigilant, and often full of self-doubt. His experiences persist despite the support of his passengers and crew, his wife and his family. In the movie, the cockpit of the Airbus A320 becomes a visual metaphor for his private mental experience of near-catastrophic reality. His vindication before the airline authorities becomes less significant than his own personal recovery through radical acceptance of this experience.
Recovery from trauma
The dramatic focus on relived events mimics much of modern trauma-focussed cognitive behavioural therapy. The movie, without ever making explicit reference to it, shows that re-exposure to feared events can lead to recovery.
Just before the verdict is announced, and having witnessed many repeated simulations of the events, Tom Hanks' character asks for a brief recess. He seeks a moment to speak with his co-pilot. There, he carefully tells Skiles that he has come to his own view that they had both acted properly. This is what counts.
Before they return to the courtroom, Sully thanks his co-pilot and commends him for being there with him throughout it all. The movie hints at what we have come to know about successful modern therapy: radical acceptance, commitment and compassion are all keys to recovery.
Ultimately, it is the pilot's concern for others, his honest intelligence and his skill that make him seem heroic. This is Hollywood after all, but the real Captain Sullenberger does seem to be a remarkable human being. Tom Hanks' performance is pure cinematic gold that never pushes the limits of his heroism beyond credibility. The film's depiction of a psychological experience in a sympathetic and constructive fashion makes it a rare event for a moviegoer. It is hugely welcome.
Sadly, PTSD is not a rare or exceptional phenomenon. Traumatic stress disorders are common. Many people who develop these stress disorders struggle for long periods to find a personal understanding of the events that have happened to them. Too few have access to meaningful therapy following such a trauma, and many spend far too long neglected in a characteristic personal suffering that is recurring.
While the film never explicitly refers to PTSD or to its amelioration through therapy, we must not hesitate to be more outspoken about the reality of this problem or more vocal about the prospect of its successful treatment. A cinematic depiction of successful therapy is surely overdue!
