Product Description
Oscar winner and twice Academy Award nominated filmmaker, Gerardine Wurzburg, directed the compelling feature documentary WRETCHES & JABBERERS. This inspiring documentary chronicles the world travels of disability rights advocates, Tracy Thresher and Larry Bissonnette, in a bold quest to change attitudes about the intelligence and abilities of people with autism. 'Our goal was to shine a light on autism internationally. Larry and Tracy s journey allowed us to portray the global face of autism through the personal stories of six men and women throughout the world,' said Producer and Director Gerardine Wurzburg. The result is a provocative mixture of advocacy, personal portrait and travel adventure film - seasoned with liberal doses of humor. Until the 1980s, most children and young adults with autism in the US were excluded from normal schooling. Some were placed in mental institutions. Like many children with autism, Tracy and Larry grew up unable to speak. They faced a future of social isolation in adult disability centers. When Tracy was 23 and Larry 34, their lives changed when they learned to communicate by typing. Larry notes, "nothing I did...convinced people I had an inner life until I started typing." In the film, Tracy and Larry take to the road to promote awareness of the hidden intelligence in those who face speech and communication challenges, connecting with others like them across the globe who struggle to find a means of expression. Tracy, Larry and their support team, Harvey Lavoy and Pascal Cheng, visit Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland, giving interviews and presentations and learning about the lives of people with autism in these countries. Viewers share in their eye-opening experiences as the men negotiate the terrain of travel, culture and new friendships on what they aptly named The World Intelligence Magnified Tour. The first stop is Sri Lanka, where they visit old friend Chammi Rajapatirana, 35, who they have met at conferences in the US. Together, the group meets with parents of children with autism to demonstrate their communication skills, answer their urgent questions, and appeal to the parents to believe in their children's innate intelligence. You will be surprised how often we make wrong assumptions about ability, Chammi tells the group. In Japan, Tracy and Larry meet 16-year-old Naoki Higashida. Naoki is an accomplished artist who has published more than ten books of his stories and drawings but is denied access to public school. Meeting Tracy and Larry is a revelation to him. He says, "I never had a conversation like this with people that communicate the way I do." He eagerly joins the men in presenting at a national autism conference at Tokyo University. Their final trip is to Helsinki, Finland where they are interviewed by a Finnish filmmaker and present at the Autism Foundation Conference. Here, they meet Antti Lappalainen, 21, and Henna Laulainen, 23. Both are accomplished in their ability to communicate through typing and yet, spend their days doing meaningless chores in adult disabilities centers. Antti says, "Language is everything I am. Completely different than my misunderstood appearance." It is Antti who humorously declares the world divided into WRETCHES - those with limited speech - and JABBERERS - those who can speak freely. He tells the group, "We poor wretches are better than jabberers. They don't know it yet, but we will tell it to them [at the conference]." At the end of that conference, Antti strikes a more serious note, asking the audience to "dispel the darkness around us poor wretches Take us for real people. Don't sideline us." Throughout the film, Tracy, Larry and their compatriots inspire parents, educators and others with autism through their narratives that always ring with with intelligence, humor, hope and courage.
Review
An eye-opening and most entertaining doc about a group of autistic people who challenge old misconceptions about the disability. Gerardine Wurzburg s Wretches & Jabberers may be the best film you ll see on a subject you probably want to avoid although you d be wrong about that. Yes, it s a documentary about autism but it s also nearly perfect in doing what an advocacy doc should do: show rather than tell, entertain rather than preach. If this is your first exposure to the world of autism, it will be an eye opener. The doc had a theatrical release with AMC, but doc needs to find its way into people homes as well where it will continue to spread awareness about the misconceptions regarding this disability. For seemingly forever, an autistic person was regarded as mentally retarded. Unable to speak and often acting out strange physical impulses, the autistic were denied basic education and often swept away into mental health facilities or adult disability centers. Then a few of the afflicted, such as the protagonists in this film, discovered they could communicate via typing. With vocal mechanisms attached to special laptops, they began articulating smart, grammatically correct, sometimes even poetic sentences that expressed complex thoughts and feelings. The beast trapped within his autistic persona was suddenly free is how Larry Bissonette, 52, describes his introduction to typing. Bissonette and Tracy Thresher, 42, are activists, men with autism determined to change global attitudes about the disability. And when you consider what determination it took to learn to type and communicate with an indifferent world, you cannot find more determined activists than these. Wurzburg s film follows these two on trips to Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland to attend conferences and meet fellow autistics who also can communicate via typing. One youth in Japan has even written books. Meanwhile Larry s paintings hang in galleries around the world. Some mental retardation! Taking the men out of their Vermont homes serves to make this a highly entertaining travelogue to foreign climes as well for the viewer. It s funny too how many meetings wind up over various exotic meals, almost enough to qualify the film for a slot on the Food Network. It s also fascinating to watch the translations from typing into other languages and then back again as Larry and Tracy communicate and learn with people like themselves but from different cultures. A conversation with a Buddhist monk in Tokyo gives Larry a stronger sense of patience and purpose. A young Finnish woman explains her goal is to live a normal life. Together these autistic people appear before large audiences to challenge old views of autism, views that often are more regressive outside the U.S. The editing is very good throughout in shortening the exchanges conducted through long hunt-and-peck typing and sometimes translations as well. The conversations flow well and a viewer is frequently startled at the soundness of the reasoning and the intensity of the feelings expressed. No one holds back throwing difficult questions to these men and their new foreign friends. With the help of extremely patient assistants who accompany them, they answer with long, thoughtful relies that often contain a touch of poetry. As Larry says, their new friends are very like us in their penchant for language as a loud spear for bursting bubbles of backwards thinking about people who don t get to speak normally. And that is precisely what Wretches & Jabberers does as well. The film is one very loud spear. --Hollywood Reporter
Autism finds its voice. --Newsweek
Ingenious documentary about real autistics --The Wall Street Journal
A documentary about autism that's nearly perfect in doing what an advocacy doc should do: show rather than tell, entertain rather than preach. Gerardine Wurzburg s WRETCHES & JABBERERS may be the best film you ll see on a subject you probably want to avoid although you d be wrong about that. Yes, it s a documentary about autism but it s also nearly perfect in doing what an advocacy doc should do: show rather than tell, entertain rather than preach. If this is your first exposure to the world of autism, it will be an eye opener. The doc needs to find its way into people homes as well where it will continue to spread awareness about the misconceptions regarding this disability. For seemingly forever, an autistic person was regarded as mentally retarded. Unable to speak and often acting out strange physical impulses, the autistic were denied basic education and often swept away into mental health facilities or adult disability centers. Then a few of the afflicted, such as the protagonists in this film, discovered they could communicate via typing. With vocal mechanisms attached to laptops, they began articulating smart, grammatically correct, sometimes even poetic sentences that expressed complex thoughts and feelings. The beast trapped within his autistic persona was suddenly free is how Larry Bissonette, 52, describes his introduction to typing. Bissonette and Tracy Thresher, 42, are activists, men with autism determined to change global attitudes about the disability. And when you consider what determination it took to learn to type and communicate with an indifferent world, you cannot find more determined activists than these. Wurzburg s film follows these two on trips to Sri Lanka, Japan and Finland to attend conferences and meet fellow autistics who also can communicate via typing. One youth in Japan has even written books. Meanwhile Larry s paintings hang in galleries around the world. Some mental retardation! Taking the men out of their Vermont homes serves to make this a highly entertaining travelogue to foreign climes as well for the viewer. It s funny too how many meetings wind up over various exotic meals, almost enough to qualify the film for a slot on the Food Network. It s also fascinating to watch the translations from typing into other languages and then back again as Larry and Tracy communicate and learn with people like themselves but from different cultures. A conversation with a Buddhist monk in Tokyo gives Larry a stronger sense of patience and purpose. A young Finnish woman explains her goal is to live a normal life. Together these autistic people appear before large audiences to challenge old views of autism, views that often are more regressive outside the U.S. The editing is very good throughout in shortening the exchanges conducted through long hunt-and-peck typing and sometimes translations as well. The conversations flow well and a viewer is frequently startled at the soundness of the reasoning and the intensity of the feelings expressed. No one holds back throwing difficult questions to these men and their new foreign friends. With the help of extremely patient assistants who accompany them, they answer with long, thoughtful relies that often contain a touch of poetry. As Larry says, their new friends are very like us in their penchant for language as a loud spear for bursting bubbles of backwards thinking about people who don t get to speak normally. And that is precisely what Wretches & Jabberers does as well. The film is one very loud spear. --Hollywood Reporter
WRETCHES & JABBERERS is a buddy movie, a road trip movie and a moving adventure. But this new film is different than your typical mainstream fare. The documentary stars two autistic friends and advocates who do most of their communicating through typing. The story follows Larry Bissonnette and Tracy Thresher, as well as their assistants Pascal Cheng and Harvey Lavoy, as they travel around the world, meet other autistic people, and advocate for autism rights. Bissonnette and Thresher share this message in their travels: You can do anything, just look at us. Gerry Wurzburg, the film's director, says the film reveals the personalities of the two friends and how they engage people wherever they go. The general audience, not people who are in the disability community, are amazed by this film,; said Wurzburg. Because it's this journey into a world that they don't know anything about. It challenges the way they have normally approached people who don't communicate or look different ... it completely rearranges their brain about how they need to approach the world. With limited speech, Bissonnette and Thresher communicate by typing into mini keyboards that verbalize their words. Thresher describes himself and Bissonnette as, 'Comedic astronauts, with a hero s aura, about presenting a new face for autism.' John Hockenberry --National Public Radio
About the Actor
Larry Bissonnette is an advocate and artist who lives in Milton, Vermont and has had his work exhibited regularly both locally and nationally. His work is in the permanent collection of the Musée de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland and in many private collections. He is both the subject and writer of an award winning film about his life, called, My Classic Life as an Artist: A Portrait of Larry Bissonnette (2005). In 1991, Larry learned to communicate through typing and began combining words with his art to express his thoughts and ideas. Over the past 15 years, he has been a featured presenter at many educational conferences and has written and spoken on the topics of autism, communication and art. Tracy Thresher is an advocate for people with disabilities. He lives and works in Vermont. Tracy began typing to communicate in 1990 and was one of the first individuals with autism at Washington County Mental Health Services (a community-based service provider) to be introduced to it. He has presented at local, statewide, and national workshops and conferences. He has consulted with local schools, is a member of the Vermont Statewide Standing Committee and has worked for the Green Mountain Self-Advocates in Montpelier, Vermont. In Vermont, he mentors teenagers and adults. Most recently, Tracy has consulted at Syracuse University as a lead trainer.
About the Director
Gerardine Wurzburg Produced and Directed Wretches & Jabberers. She received the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1993 for her HBO film, Educating Peter. For HBO, she also produced the feature documentary, Graduating Peter. In 2004, her film Autism is a World was also nominated for the Academy Award®. It was broadcast worldwide on CNN. She is the Founder and President of State of the Art, Inc., a communications company in Washington, DC whose work focuses on the use of media to promote change in education and health. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Syracuse University.
- Package Dimensions : 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches; 3.36 ounces
- Director : Gerardine Wurzburg
- Media Format : NTSC, HiFi Sound, Multiple Formats
- Run time : 1 hour and 30 minutes
- Release date : March 18, 2014
- Actors : Larry Bissonnette, Tracy Thresher, Naoki Higashida, Antti Lappalainen, Henna Laulainen
- Studio : State of the Art Inc.
- Number of discs : 1
