Football star battles ALS in ‘Gleason’
Football star Steve Gleason was known for throwing caution to the wind. He’d launch himself down the field with seemingly no regard for his own well-being.
He cemented his place in New Orleans Saints lore with a blocked punt during the Louisiana Superdome’s reopening following Hurricane Katrina. He retired from the sport in 2008, saying: “I can walk away with my health.” Fate had other plans. Have plenty of tissues on hand when you watch the moving, remarkable “Gleason,” a documentary about the ex-Saint whose bravest days were actually ahead of him.
Five years to the day after his memorable block, Gleason went public with his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Doctors said he had only a few more years to live. Adding to the anguish of the moment was that his wife was pregnant with their first child.
Clay Tweel’s documentary could so easily have turned into a gooey pile of Hallmark aphorisms, but it refuses to be maudlin. The filmmaker captures the progression of the disease as it robs Gleason of his voice, use of his legs and later control of his bowels. It never robs his spirit, though.
The footage was mostly shot by Gleason himself in the form of an ongoing video diary to his son, Rivers. He wanted to give advice, read nursery books and tell him who his father is before he runs out of time.
Gleason comes across as irrepressibly optimistic, even as his body fails. He’s as fearless as on the football field.
Tweel (“Print the Legend,” “Finders Keepers”) includes interviews with family members and friends, but stumbles when he goes further afield — as in interviews with members of Pearl Jam, Gleason’s favorite band.
The writer-director occasionally adds piano or classical music to underline poignant moments, as when Rivers happily eats cake with his hands at his first birthday while his father, beside him in a wheelchair, is being fed.
The best footage is unanticipated, as when cameras capture a marital spat or a spontaneous dad-son nuzzle.
Gleason tries to outwit the disease at every turn. He believes technology such as eye-tracking software can give back to ALS patients what the disease steals. But it’s a brutal illness. Within a year of the diagnosis, Gleason starts to walk awkwardly, then needs a cane, then a wheelchair.
“I think the last of my talking days are here,” he tells his son on film at one point. “I have no hope. I want to punch something, but I can’t. The only thing I can do is scream.”
The former football player’s humor, though, isn’t dulled. One of the film’s most endearing images is of Gleason zooming along in his wheelchair with his gleeful infant son in his lap.
While battling the dis- ease and serving as an advocate for other ALS patients, Gleason also tries to heal the rift with his stern father This movie is as much about fathers and sons as about living with ALS.
It’s also a moving portrait of grace under pressure on the part of Gleason’s wife Michel, an artist. Her life now is unspeakably hard, caring for two people. One needs his tracheotomy wound cleaned, the other needs his boo-boos kissed. Both need diapers changed.
Mostly she shares her husband’s can-do, free spirited energy, but the film reveals strains, as when she rewatches her marriage video while her husband and newborn slumber.
The tissues will pile up as you watch. There’s so much tender and funny footage that it spills over into the end credits.
But “Gleason” is worthy of the tears. It’s exactly what the former athlete says about his life: “It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be awesome.”