The Thousand-yard Touchdown.

At 6:30 a.m. on September 12th, 2001, in the rubble of Ground Zero, I saw a fireman sitting alone, looking into the distance with an unfocused gaze. This was a look I had seen before in war zones around the world, when someone’s life compass has been shaken so profoundly that all sense of direction has become confused. They call it the thousand-yard stare. As I made several photographs of this man he looked right through me, oblivious to my presence.[1]

The Story of the Magic Lantern

In 1841, the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, later the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, opened its doors headed by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride. Mental illness was not viewed in the same way as physical illness; difficult to treat at home, even the affluent sought institutionalization for mentally ill family members. Until the mid-1800s, confinement, not a cure, was the purpose. Physicians during the mid-nineteenth century no longer viewed mental illness as a spiritual possession, or demonic in nature; instead, insanity was understood as a clinical disease and could be cured.

A Quaker, Kirkbride practiced what was popularly known at the time as "moral treatment." At around the same time, the field of photography was on the rise, and provided Kirkbride with an innovative technique to assist patients in returning to society. Kirkbride believed images would provide stability for patients by providing a rational perception. As the audience, patients were part of "normal" social life and this allowed for rational patterns of brain activity to be exercised, supposedly bringing the patient back to mental health.

Using the new technology of the time, Kirkbride began his "magic lantern" shows to serve as both therapy and entertainment for patients. The magic lantern was an early form of slide projector, lit by candles initially, with slides manually inserted.

Slide shows took place in a specially designed room, with benches for visitors and a podium for the lantern. Guest lecturers would speak on various topics while images were projected. Two restrictions were made: patients were not allowed to be photographed, and "ghost" images were prohibited.[2]

On 20 July 1881, Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull surrendered to federal troops.[4]

I was bruised and battered
And I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
I didn't know my own face

Oh brother are you gonna leave me wasting away
On the streets of Philadelphia

I walked the avenue till my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Just as black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of Philadelphia

Ain't no angel gonna greet me
It's just you and I my friend
And my clothes don't fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin
The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of Philadelphia [3]

Notilia

[1] To see a memorial portfolio of Peter's photographs, "Remembering 9/11," taken on September 11th and 12th, 2001, and the days following (including several never before published) please click here.

[2] Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751 by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin "to care for the sick-poor and insane who were wandering the streets of Philadelphia."

[3] Bruce Springsteen Streets of Philadelphia lyrics, written for the film Philadelphia (1993), the first mainstream film dealing with HIV/AIDS.

[4] The film now moves into its final and the most glorious set piece. What, in a lesser film, could have been simply an exercise in liberal white guilt is elevated into the realm of the unreal and the mythical: Bill’s King Lear-like descent into madness. Please click here.

"Cinema does not cry. Cinema does not comfort us. It is with us. It is us".

The Seventh Art.