A Blind Person’s Perspective on “Vivien’s Wild Ride”
“Vivien’s Wild Ride” is a documentary by and about film editor Vivien Hillgrove, who shares her journey about becoming blind in her 70s. One of the most intriguing parts about it is that since I have been registered blind since birth, with a tiny bit of vision below 2%, it was impossible to imagine how it must feel for someone with probably one of the most visually demanding jobs in the world, filmmaking, to lose their vision. And even harder to imagine being able to shoot and edit a documentary, particularly describing exactly that process. Additionally, unlike so many other films about blindness, Vivien’s documentary wasn’t from the perspective of a sighted person, but from someone who knows both worlds: the sighted and the blind. “Vivien’s Wild Ride” manages to deliver an understanding that many fictional and non-fictional movies lack.
Vivien’s Life
The story starts with Vivien being a typical teenager in the late 1950s and early 1960s. When she gets pregnant at the age of 16, her parents persuade her to give her daughter up for adoption, which causes Vivien to feel loss for the first time, she says. As a result, she seeks a new purpose, self-love and self-understanding, all of which she finds in filmmaking.
A Story About Loss and New Perspectives…
We celebrate with Vivien when she makes it in Hollywood as one of the few women in a field that is still male dominated to this day. While we just saw Vivien succeed as a filmmaker, the film jumps to a different, more recent timeline when she starts to lose her sight, using visual cues such as pictures appearing blurrier, her perspective changing, and her self-confidence, which had become her biggest support system, weakening. “Vivien’s Wild Ride” beautifully intertwines these three stories, which all lead to finding her daughter while also offering a new perspective in life: that of a blind woman.
“I first wanted to write an autobiography for my adopted daughter, but quickly realized I am not a good writer. However, I have been making movies for 57 years, so I decided to start this film. And I felt that I could help two communities by telling the stories. Birth mothers and those who are losing sight,” Hillgrove explains.
…And About Intersections in a Different Time
After Vivien had given up her child for adoption, she started rebelling. She starts discovering the then fairly uncommon gay bars where she also explores her own sexuality, and finally comes out as queer. One of the reasons for showing these scenes, according to Vivien, was to convey the idea that, only because of her life’s experience, she found the strength to accept her blindness as a new identity. “For a long time, I didn’t know who I was without my job, but then I realized, I am still the same person, just with a different perspective on life,” she explains.
No Stereotypes!
The most pleasing aspect of the film is that it avoids stereotypes about blindness, such as the idea of hopelessness. It does not show the grim face of a doctor telling us that there is no hope to regain vision, or the crying relatives researching a new healing method or surgery that could magically cure Vivien. Vivien Hillgrove tells her story in the most open and honest way. She shares her fears, her insecurities, and the ableism every newly disabled person realizes they have internalized. For instance, in one scene, Vivien shies away from using her white cane, to not appear too “blind“ or helpless to her friends at a conference, but then realizes that she needs it just as much as she needs the many other tools that help her navigate the blind world.
Accessibility Is Key
It’s only for the carefully crafted audio description that a blind viewer like me can fully experience Vivien’s life changes alongside her. As someone growing up at a time when audio description was almost non-existent, lower-quality AD feels hard for me to listen to. They make it hard to concentrate on the actual dialogue and action. However, this was completely the opposite for “Vivien’s Wild Ride.” And there are several reasons for it. Firstly, the entire access team consisted of people with disabilities, including several blind people who handled quality control and narration. The audio description is narrated by two voices. “For ‘Vivien’s Wild Ride,’ all of the reminiscing about childhood through early adulthood was narrated by Nefertiti Matos Olivares“, Cheryl Green, who wrote the audio description, explains. “The current-day footage was narrated by Ruth Kahn. Ruth is older than Nefertiti and has a voice that sounds closer in age to Vivien today than Nefertiti’s,” Cheryl goes on.
Having two AD voices helped create a sense of the era, its mood, and its perspective. The two-voice narration was Vivien’s idea, and Cheryl thinks it’s a crucial part that makes the audio description unique and excellent.
Secondly, to create an audio description that fits the film’s flow and does not distract from it, but rather elevates it artistically, one must understand the blind audience and incorporate accessibility from the very beginning of planning a film. “When I write or produce audio description, I want to bring the film director’s artistic intentions to life,” Cheryl explains. And this is exactly what happened with “Vivien’s Wild Ride:” the AD enhanced the film rather than distracting from the experience.
Editing While Becoming Blind
When she edited this film, she had already begun to lose her sight, so she had to learn to work with an assistant editor, whom she would explain exactly how and where she wanted them to cut. “I was so happy he was there,” she said. At the same time, it took her some time to adapt to the new work processes.
Finding Her Daughter
The film ends with Vivien meeting her lost daughter, who is in her late 20s. Yet again, the film does not use narratives of hugging and kissing as if they had never been apart. Instead, it shows the fear of both mother and daughter of the outcome of this meeting: the difficulties of growing closer, of a relationship that slowly builds. “When I made this film, I had to experience losing my daughter again and again,” Vivien recalls. “It took me so long. I would have to stop and then go back to the set and record again, because I would just burst into tears. But I had to go through it, to do the film justice,” she explains.
The film leaves us in a thoughtful mood, almost giving the impression of a goodbye. We see Vivien on her ranch talking about the old days. “It is not a goodbye. If at all, it is more about looking back, being grateful for the life I have had, and also grateful for whatever lies ahead. If there is one thing that blindness has taught me, then it is that I have to slow down and learn to enjoy life in a different way. I was caught on my roller-coaster, doing so many things. But now, I can sit back, relax, enjoy my family’s company, my grandchildren, and just take more time for beautiful things,” Vivien shares.
“Vivien’s Wild Ride” doesn’t give unhelpful or even harmful (disability-related) advice, nor does it assume what you can or cannot do when you lose sight. It simply tells the brutally honest story of one resilient lady who, in Frank Sinatra’s wise words, “did it her way”. And she did well.
