Let’s dispense with the obvious, right now, first and foremost: far from the coward’s out, suicide is, whether you’re facing terminal cancer, financial disaster, or are just plum tired after listening to a spouse prattle on one time too many, the ultimate hero’s exit. The rational choice. The decision of a lifetime after too many years of playing the game. Average Joes have known it. Young and old alike have known it. And hell, the greatest minds this lonely marble has produced have sung its praises.
Take Friedrich Nietzsche: “The thought of suicide is a great consolation; by means of it one gets through many a dark night.” Okay, so he didn’t exactly screech to the heavens about seeing it through, but to know it’s an option – a possibility – well, who hasn’t rested a bit easier in the face of such clarity? Or actor George Sanders, who checked out with his wit firmly intact: “Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.” Good luck. Godspeed, Addison Dewitt. May your courage be a beacon to all.
Yes, courage. For a good half-century now, suicide has floated on the margins of my own existence, acting as a clarion call for high and low alike; from trivial inspiration to the deeper and existential. Of late, it beckons as an exit ramp for the horrors to come; debilitation, inevitable decline, and yes, the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, to quote a legendary prince. In years past, it tapped me on the shoulder for matters of staggering banality, up to and including my favorite football team losing the big game.
But in sixth grade, it may as well have been a looming holocaust. Or maybe it was the girl who wouldn’t give me the time of day. From 1979 forward. Or the pull of a cherished rookie baseball card at last, only to see the backside soiled to the bone by that infernal Topps gum. No matter. I was a child, and I spoke as a child, understood as a child, and now I am a man. So they say. Life continues to suck, only now the end is actually in sight. My kingdom for a time when death appeared preferable to the delayed release of a new Judas Priest album. Now, it’s because my heart might explode during the night.
All that to say this: my cap is eternally tipped to the man on the ledge. Peeking at the abyss and rather than engaging in retreat, saying yes; firmly, proudly, with full gusto. And no, I don’t discriminate by method. I always thought of myself as a pill man, but then again, the old car-running-in-garage trick seemed more my speed. Clean and easy, like taking one of my cherished naps. Still, kudos to those who saw guns and knives and didn’t blanch at the bloodletting to come. Selfish, sure, but only because someone has to grab the mop and hazmat suit. I also find great merit in the dance with traffic or seeking the prone position while on a subway track. Both have a guaranteed result, but there too, you might inflict damage on others. Whatever you want to say about suicide, it’s best when it’s a solo effort. My issues, my pain, so keep others out of it. An interstate bridge sounds good in theory, but if your last act is causing a massive traffic jam, you’ve pretty much ceded the high ground. No, your exit must leave behind fewer problems than your life created. Which brings us to the ocean.
As a lifelong Coloradan, it might seem odd to revere the sea, but as an atheist, if I am to stand in awe of anything greater than myself, let it be that which covers two-thirds of the globe. It is our true master, and there’s no escaping its raw power to intimidate. Countless ships and even more countless men, women, and children rest at its bottom, and here, in 2026, we’re still discovering new creatures that have eluded scrutiny for millennia.
And until nuclear weapons, it kept the United States safe and sound from any real attack. But for the purposes of this rambling rant, the ocean’s ultimate purpose is to receive the tired souls of a damaged humanity. It is, ultimately, the best method of self-slaughter. Whether you slip into it like a warm bath or run into its bowels as if escaping a conflagration, the ocean is the best of all worlds: romantic, poetic, full of beauty and myth. One enters, does not exit, and is often never seen again. Full erasure, as intended. And it’s never been more appealing than on the silver screen.
Maybe there are a hundred examples, maybe only a precious few. But for my purposes, there are five. The suicides I turn to when I need to spur a smile or prove the cinema’s enduring legacy. But first, a moment to set the terms. While the final scene of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You technically qualifies, it must be remembered that ultimately, it was but an attempt. These must be scenes that end in sweet death. One single effort, successfully engineered. Naturally, then, we begin with Mr. Norman Maine (James Mason) from 1954’s A Star is Born. Maybe it set the standard for all time, if only because you instinctively understood why anyone would choose to escape Judy Garland.
But ultimately, it’s the rationale. Men are a jealous lot, superficial and boorish, and god forbid anyone steal the limelight while we’re above ground. And when it’s a matter of a once proud career slipping away into oblivion, we understand as few can. As Shelley “The Machine” Levene so famously spat in Glengarry Glen Ross, “A man is his job, and you are fucked at yours.” No faster way to send a man packing. And when you do become “fucked at yours,” there’s nothing left. An identity, shattered. It’s the full-body equivalent of sudden and irretrievable impotence.
Having fame and losing it? Immediate grounds for snuffing out your candle. No exceptions. And if someone with the charm and dignity of James Mason can’t muster an alternative, what hope is there for us mere mortals? Next up is Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden) from The Long Goodbye. Arguably torn and tattered by mental illness, Wade is nevertheless a tragic figure on par with Lear. But here again, like Mr. Maine, is a man having run out of creative steam. Words and passion defined him, now he’s but an empty vessel for rage. Without his bitter attacks on an unfair world, he’d disappear into the ether. Which is his cue. You gave the world a story or two, now it’s time to go. So yes, a sad, flailing man, but also one who has gifted humanity with an insight or two. The books remain on the shelf, available at any time in the future. It’s very little, perhaps, but quite tangible, and certainly more inspiring than leaving behind a gaggle of useless children.
My thoughts go next to a female of the species, proving that on occasion, even a woman can traffic in the heroic. First up, Helen Wright in 1946’s Humoresque, played with fire and brimstone by the unmatched force of Joan Crawford. Sure, perhaps we expected her to take a few bastards with her, but here, for maybe the first time, Joan is taking the high road. As a member of the idle rich, with little to do but throw money at men who might stir the barren tomb that is her vagina, Helen needs adventure. It helps to love the arts, so her latest project becomes a brilliant musician, Paul Boray, played by John Garfield. She will take him to the top, where everyone knows – herself included – that he will outgrow her and render her as useless as an extraneous appendage.
She is but another example of the era’s “female unable to love”, though she substitutes the standard power and control issues that continue to plague her sex. She needs her men bought and paid for, and any breath of independence will bring out the claws. Thankfully, her date with the sea is arguably the best of the lot, mainly because she enters the waves in the accoutrements of her class: full gown and heels, with the hair and makeup to match. No point in ending your life at anything less than gorgeous. The scene also has the good sense to be seemingly endless; a melodramatic flourish complete with Garfield’s savage violin, desperate close-ups, and a dream-like descent to the ocean’s bottom.
Another classy dame to see no other way out was Geraldine Page’s Eve from 1978’s Interiors. Being a Woody Allen film, we know full well that the central figure of femininity is both a loose cannon and a humorless scold, and her suicide the most dramatic way to exit a family that was all but pushing her along. Don’t do us any favors, mother, even though you’re apt to think we’ll be left bereft. No, Eve’s suicide is the most merciful of them all, and at last the one act that might allow her children to grow and develop and find their own path. She’s a monstrous woman, which makes her departure perhaps the one time she made life a little easier for her family.
So, while an accidental hero, a hero, nonetheless. And I’ll be damned if she didn’t face the raging tide with the countenance of a champion. I’m doubting even the soldiers of Omaha Beach were that stoic. Something about inevitability that brings down the temperature a little. She’d been replaced – and by a mother figure with actual warmth and humanity – so no sense in enduring a battery of awkward Thanksgivings for decades to come.
We end with Captain Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern) from 1978’s Coming Home, not because his was the grandest gesture, but rather because unlike the previous four, his involved not a melodramatic walk, but rather a brisk run and a vigorous swim. No question he wanted to die (he left his wedding ring on a lifeguard’s station for a reason), but the good Cap’n felt that as a soldier, it was best to get in a quasi-workout before meeting his maker. His dash is full of purpose and intent, and his strokes in a wild sea, quite remarkable. We can almost believe he’d make the other side, only slightly winded for his trouble. But if these ocean suicides prove anything, it’s best to go out how you came in. And Hyde wouldn’t want it said that he didn’t at least put up a bit of a struggle. When those uniformed men appear at his wife’s door, let it be said that he went out like a man. Firm, head held high.
Five human beings, five suicides. All ocean. Nothing to bury, nothing to mourn. It’s the way most of us should go out, if only. Maybe when my time comes, I’ll take a Greyhound to the coast, salute, and join the ranks of the noble. But given my unquenchable cowardice, I’ll likely ride out the storm with my tail between my legs. Still, given Hollywood’s winking defense of the ocean suicide, I can’t help but think that they’re egging me on, reminding me that with the cinema as my primary passion, nothing could better define a life than taking a cue from its product. Some of us dress like the stars, talk like them, or even make love like them. They are, after all, up there, while I remain down here, anonymous and alone. And so maybe, just maybe, given my limited options, I should die like the stars. A tribute of sorts, to the water that gave us life. A graveyard for so many, with room for one more.
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