English Film Club 02: I Swear (C1)
- Alexander Werth
- Mar 19
- 8 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
I often think that etymology is underappreciated and underused. When you check the etymology of a word, you see its ancestry , and how different concepts are connected. Etymology lets even native speakers of a language understand the meaning of words that they have used for decades much more deeply.
By the way, I Swear is authentic and inspiring.
But I feel that saying this doesn't quite do the film justice, especially in a world where reviews are so often void of genuine opinion, and where words like these get thrown around carelessly when a reviewer is being paid to hype a film.
In time, we start to read words like this as "++good," like in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. We lose the sense that these words have particular and specific content—that they describe some real phenomena. "Authentic and inspiring" is often merely code for "We're pushing this film hard.", and when this is the case, the words, in a certain sense, don't mean anything beyond that.
But when I say that I Swear is authentic and inspiring, I really mean it in the truest sense. And so my challenge becomes showing that I really mean this, and at the same time getting across what these words actually mean. And here, I think etymology can assist me.
Authentic
From Greek autos ("self") + hentēs ("doer").
This means that a thing presents and exerts itself, and not some other thing (mis)representing it.
In I Swear, this means that even though it's all pretend and John Davidson is played by Robert Aramayo, they present, as a character in the film, the real John Davidson, rather than inventing someone else and giving him Davidson's name. In a word, there is no misrepresentation of Davidson. I reckon that most people who have watched the documentaries that feature Davidson will agree.
It seems that Robert Aramayo was given the task of impersonating John Davidson as exactly as possible, and did so tremendously well. Before watching I Swear, I had seen the documentary I Swear, I can't Help It , which features the real John Davidson, and so I was very familiar with him--from his ticks, to his mannerism, to his way of speaking and his attitude towards life. I was utterly convinced by Aramayo's performance. There were even surreal albeit brief moments where I questioned whether it was really Davidson, or an actor playing him.
See Robert Davidson commenting on Aramayo's performance here:
When we first meet John as an adult in the film, he is truly a rugged pauper in appearance and mannerisms. He wears old, dirty, cheap tracksuits (nothing like Ed Sheeran's Christmas tracksuit), he twitches nervously, he struggles with eye-contact, and he generally carries himself like a complete hobo junkie (which he sort of is). Many of the film's middle class viewers would not approach such a figure, even before they heard his deplorable ticks.
The film-makers could easily have shied away from this and made him more palatable (excepting the ticks), as was done in Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack Dawson. Dawson is supposedly poor, but is presented, more or less, as a gentleman, which means it's hardly ground breaking when Rose has her fling with him. When, on the other hand, we fall in love with trampy Davidson (which we do instantly), it is powerful, because this dissolves biases and prejudices.
Films these days tend also to be abysmal at authentically portraying disabilities and disorders, and often it is under the guise of an attempt to "be kind" to them.
Whether it be learning difficulties, autism, Tourette's, or whatever else, somewhere along the line we were told to "just treat them the same". How utterly absurd. What does that even mean? This slogan has caused immense confusion. In schools, it results in staff and students holding sufferers to the same standards of behaviour as everyone else, which in turn leads to them being barraged with constant unjust reproaches and strictures, making their life a misery. In the cinema, it often means films don't show any of the ways in which sufferers fall short of standards of behaviour. In short, they are misrepresented, or otherwise, if that's too complicated, films pretend they don't exist at all. This, of course, reinforces the aforesaid confusion that makes their life hell.
In I Swear, they didn't have to show Davidson's extremely offensive ticks. They could have easily pretended that his ticks would never amount to slut-shaming, physical assault, or criminal damage, in order to "be kind" to people with Tourette's. But they didn't, they showed the truth. And in showing the truth, they also show the catastrophic consequences that offensive ticks can have for people with Tourette's. This shows what an accursed condition Tourette's is (something that many don't understand about what is often called "the funniest disability"), which in turn lets us know how badly these people need to be helped and supported.
There is also a tendency to misrepresent disabilities and disorders in such a way that we shun and obscure the bright side of them. For example, the classic novel Far From the Madding Crowd features a mentally disabled character, Biddy. In the novel, the heroine Bathsheba goes through a very dark time, during which she cannot bear to be around anyone except Biddy (who is her assistant), and essentially Biddy saves her by her unmatched innocence and tolerance. This is powerful salute to people like Biddy. And yet, in the most recent and therefore probably the most "politically correct" film adaptation of the novel, there is a character by the name of Biddy, but she is not mentally disabled at all. They decided that to not be offensive, they would remove this heartening testament to the value of people with Biddy's disability.
We also have an extremely awkward and insecure approach to the humour of disabilities. I believe this was why the original Biddy from the novel had to be cut from the film -- they realised that there was no way of making her mentally disabled and not at all amusing. And so, not wanting a disabled character that people in cinemas laugh at (because offensive), they cut her. They probably tried and failed to invent a character that was special and heroic in spite of being mentally disabled, and seemed to miss the whole point: the original Biddy is special because she is mentally disabled.
In I Swear , they really make the case that Davidson's Tourette's makes him special, and makes him a hero.
There is a scene where he first meets Dottie, and he says to her:
"You're gonna die of cancer. Ha ha!"
before flicking her off (i.e. showing her two fingers). And her response:
"That's the most honest anyone has been to me in six months".
John and Dottie's bond is then instantaneous, and in time, the two seem to save each other. Perhaps best of all is that this "haha cancer" tick actually happened in real life. Authenticity takes a bow!
There are also a great many ticks which are comedic genius, and the film makers seem fine with us laughing at them, nor are Davidson's closest and most trusted friends always unamused by them.
All in all, the film does a great job at educating us in how to appreciate people with Tourette's, and not just "tolerate" them, or, worse still, tolerate some sanitised version of them.
In our society, and especially in the media, we don't seem to like the truth much. We very often don't believe that the truth is a good thing; that the truth is the best remedy. The people that made I Swear think differently, and for that reason this film is a rare gem. It is repeated twice in the film: the Tourette's itself is not a problem nor a disability as such; the the lack of understanding of it is the whole of the problem. In other words then, the truth is the cure.
Inspiring
from Latin inspirare ‘breathe or blow into’ from in- ‘into’ + spirare ‘breathe’. Think of: respiration and the respiratory system.
And so, things that inspire give us something intellectually that is essential to life processes. They allow us to do things that we couldn't before-- things that we would like to. They liberate.
I have never forgotten what the real John Davidson said in an interview, which I saw many years ago. It truly inspired me, and really stuck with me:
"When I'm feeling down ,and I'm feeling a bit shite, and a bit sorry for myself, I do stop myself and think :well look what I've achieved. I've got my house. I've got my garden, that I love. I've got my job. I've got my dog. And I think really, to be honest with you, I think I've actually got a good quality life."
In I Swear, they seem to really have embodied this spirit. They show John's elation at achieving these things that he mentioned in the interview. I will never forget the heart-warming scene where John gets his own flat, and how it amplified Davidson's words, and his message: to appreciate the things you have, the simple things.
When we are inspired to do this, it is perhaps the highest kind of inspiration, because this allows us to attain perhaps the deepest desire of our hearts -- to experience joy. When we are able to enjoy things that we already have, the joy is ours for free.
This message is also, as we sometimes say, 'just what the doctor ordered'. Which means, very needed and necessary right now. I think that we all get disheartened by the barrage of lavish lifestyles on Instagram, and the general dominant belief that you can't be happy until you have attained some laundry list of expensive and coveted possessions and achievements. I Swear is a much needed antidote to these frustrations.
In Conclusion
Film makers have mastered the art of making ++good films that are kind of awesome to watch but which are neither inspired nor inspiring and anything but authentic. They often do this by playing with violence and eroticism very cleverly, to pump your emotions the whole way through.
Quentin Tarantino is pretty good at this sometimes. Pulp Fiction is gripping and sexy. But it is not authentic (would a real life hit man recite an epic fake bible quote before assasinating someone?), nor is it inspiring. I wouldn't, for example, have shed a tear if Bruce Willis's character had died, and we saw his doting sweetheart wailing about it. The two are interesting and cute, and I root for them energetically, but I don't care about them deeply enough to shed a tear for them-- they don't mean enough to me.
But, I did cry at the end of I Swear, as many others surely did. And that's because the film and everything that happens in it really means something to us. And that's because it is authentic and inspiring.
Food manufacturers produce food that you want to try, and eagerly continue eating once you've tried it. You don't fundamentally enjoy this food the way you would a roast dinner, it often doesn't leave you satiated, and at any rate it has no nutritional value. It is similar with many popular films today.
In a world where producers have mastered the art of tasty and tantalising junk films, we need nutritionally rich films like I Swear more than ever. Films that we can cherish, films that are useful to us, films that make a difference.
Lesson
Use of English Exercises:
Discussion:
What rating would you give I Swear and why?
Talk about one of your favourite moments from the film.
Did the film inspire you? Why/why not?
What have you learnt about Tourette's syndrome from watching I Swear?
Further Discussion:
Do you agree that disabilities are portrayed badly in cinema?
Discuss the idea that Tourette's is not a disability, and that the lack of understanding of it is the only real problem.
Should we "treat disabled people the same"?
Do you agree that many films today have "no nutritional value"?
Listen/Watch
Here is my answer to further discussion part 4:
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