Customer Reviews

Jupiter's Wife [VHS]

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I saw this documentary at a film festival back home which included a "question and answer" open forum with the film crew. I am still moved by this woman, her story and "this land of many hats, yes we wear them"... This documentary grasps the grace, fragility, and beauty of human existence. Just buy it. You'll buy more for friends. The documentary will "center" you more than any yoga session at the Y will ever do.

C. G. Jung once had a patient who believed she lived on the moon. So Jung met her there. As she realized he took her experiences as valid, she told a sad tale of vampires and isolation. Eventually, this woman who'd been abused as a girl made her way back to earth. Patients like her had taught Jung that the fact of a person's madness did not in any way invalidate the richness and authenticity of their personal mythology.

It would be easy to dismiss--to "shrink"--Maggie Cogan's inner world. Having been homeless in Central Park, she clearly displays the classic symptoms of schizophrenia. She is one of thousands and thousands of women in the U.S. left without adequate health care or even the means to support themselves. As her story gradually emerges, the trained watcher wonders whether her schizophrenic predisposition would have manifested so floridly had she not been subjected to the events described in this film. As a result, she believes she is Hera, wife of Zeus, or in Roman terms, Juno, the wife of Jupiter. She wears a radio strapped to her head so she can be "on the airwaves" tuned in to what's happening. (She finds New York gridlock amusing and avoids it.) The filmmaker decided to listen in and, at one point, not only investigate her past, but contact social services personnel to get her some help. Unfortunately, they showed up with sledgehammers and knocked down her shed. No squatters allowed, even in a New York winter.

When I show this film to graduate students I suggest that they hold it on at least two levels simultaneously--the needless tragedy of this homeless woman's life, and the mythological dimension that surrounds it like an aura--without reducing one to the other and thereby falling into either the shrinkage of reductionism or the romanticization of mental illness. Maggie Cogan is a person with a story to tell, a survivor, an inspiration, and a face of reality behind all the political jingoism to justify spending billions on weapons while Americans starve. She is also a parable. In ancient times storytellers and listeners knew the world remained in balance so long as Jupiter and Juno remained in relations of mutual empowerment. But today, as the plutocracy consumes the planet surface ("plutocracy" from Pluto, god of death and wealth), Jupiter has lost his throne to President Mars, the family in all its versions is on the brink of bankruptcy, and Hera is no longer the Queen of Heaven, maternal image of feminine authority. She lives on relief in New Jersey, where she looks after her puppies, goes without medication, and listens in on the pulse of the times without losing her dignity or her sense of the ironic.

I rarely watch anything twice, but after seeing this film, the story stayed in my mind for a long time and I've watched it again from time to time to fit all the pieces and, more importantly, not to forget. To see how circumstances can change one's life forever and how one copes with things that are too painful to acknowlege is what struck me about this film. It is a tragic film as to what might have been and one can't help but love Maggie with her lyrical speech and laughing manner which mask what lies underneath which even she herself can't bear to remember.

This documentary introduces us to Maggie a lady of middle years living in Manhattan's Central Park with a pack of stray dogs she has made in to a family of sorts. The filmmaker, Michel Negroponte, met Maggie by chance in the park and was entranced by her beguiling personality and cryptic statements that seem to show both madness and wisdom. Maggie is a mysterious character and Negroponte is able to solve some of the mystery of her earlier life through a bit of research that surprisingly uncovers tapes of different appearances she made on national television as a young woman in her career as one of the first female horse carriage driver/tour guides in New York City. Maggie has affluent friends (including the film's producer Negroponte) who help her with her life but there is no fairy tale ending to the story. This is a poignant well made documentary of particular interest to those with a love of New York City and/or an interest in those with mental health differences.

Is it schizophrenia, or just a well-developed personal mythology? Or perhaps even a fate predestined in ancient times, the "romantic conversation" of a woman who has determined to devote her time and energy to maintaining the strength of her million-year-long marriage to the god Jupiter.

In "Jupiter's Wife," Michel Negroponte introduces us to Maggie, a homeless woman who spends her days wandering through Central Park, surrounded by her dogs, amused by her radio and drawing comfort from her belief that extra-sensory perception allows her to anticipate and understand what is happening in her world.

Negroponte's portrayal of Maggie and her life is free of the kinds of judgments or pathos that one might expect in a film about a schizophrenic.

When Maggie is compelled to submit to a psychiatric exam in order to qualify for a rent subsidy, Negroponte shows us Maggie's version of the interview and allows us to share her relief and amusement that an event so intrusive and potentially threatening to her self-image turns out to be so perfunctory and impersonal.

The filmmaker's affection for his subject creates for the viewer an atmosphere of respect and a suspension of disbelief. We begin to see this mentally ill individually from an entirely new perspective. What if she's not crazy? Maybe this is a person who has simply constructed a sensible world for herself that doesn't make sense to anyone else. When Negroponte asks Maggie to explain what ESP is and how it works, she says it is a "finely tuned understanding of other people and what they want and how they can achieve their goals relative to your goals so we can all just move this everlasting peace grid just down that much closer to earth so that there's peace."

Poets and songwriters have said stranger things.

"Jupiter's Wife" succeeds in challenging our preconceptions about homelessness and mental illness, and encourages us to remember that there is a complex and valuable human being beneath the apparent craziness. Let us hope that this fresh insight comes to mind when we encounter those people who are perhaps less beguiling than Maggie, but who are sleeping out on the grates or in doorways or in the great urban parks under "the everlasting peace grid."

"Jupiter's Wife" is indeed a beautiful documentary. It's beautiful artistically--well designed and well filmed. It depicts some of humankind's truely beautiful representatives...who are loving, kind to each other, and filled with hope and laughter. And it brings us a wonderful, centering message about compassion, friendship, and tolerance.

This movie demonstrates the beauty of the human mind, and the fact that my (and your)reality isn't always right. Maggie, though she could probably be labeled as schizophrenic, is probably happier than the majority of individuals that are "healthy". This movie demonstrates what the mind needs to be happy. ? This movie may or may not change your life. If it does, you will forever see the world differently, and every individual as filled with the possibility of being whole.

This is a good movie if you've never been close to a person with mental illness. You'll find out that people may be quirky but they're nice people all the same. They have interesting lives and are fun to be with.

I enjoyed the movie. At the same time, I wondered to myself if this was enough of a subject to surround with a film. There are lots of "lost souls" that live in parks and the street. Does each of them possess enough compelling substance to capture our attention for 90+minutes? Or are they more disoriented folks who live in survival mode a bit more openly because the lack the shelter the rest of us have. I'm not sure. I mean she was interesting; but her thoughts are jumbled and the theories she proscribes are obviously psychotic. It looses the foundation of truth, therefore. Anyways, I'd recommend it still.

I LOVED THIS VIDEO!This story was well documented,on Maggie and her life,from a horse &carriage driver,to living, in Central Park,with all her dogs! It was tastefully done,showing,how happy Maggie,is,independent and adjusted,even though its obvious,that drugs helped put her,in a rough life. a great video,for park goers,& young people,to see the aftermath, of drugs.