One of this year’s surprise cinematic success stories centers on the independent film “Still Alice,” which tells the tale of an Ivy League linguistics professor dealing with early-onset Alzheimer’s.
After going into the Toronto International Film Festival with no distributor and zero buzz, the film emotionally sucker-punched audiences and emerged with a deal from Sony Pictures Classics as well as forecasts that its star, Julianne Moore, who put in what critics described as a quietly devastating performance, could win her first Academy Award.
Yet perhaps more remarkable is its back story.
Based on a novel that nearly didn’t get published, the film was written and directed by the married team of Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer. Just months before embarking on the project in 2011, they were told by a neurologist that Mr. Glatzer’s increased slurring was not just a mysterious tic, but probably a symptom of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as A.L.S. and Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Richard Glatzer, who has A.L.S., talks about co-directing the movie “Still Alice.” Using a toe on his right foot, he typed his answers to a reporter’s questions letter by letter on an iPad. A computerized voice named Ryan read his responses.
“Though A.L.S. and Alzheimer’s are very different diseases, it was a very hard read for me,” Mr. Glatzer said of the book, Mr. Westmoreland sitting beside him on a couch in their Echo Park bungalow here, as their two fluffy rescue dogs, Arthur and Joey, napped nearby. “It hit way too close. But when I finished reading, I knew we had to do it.”
A.L.S. is progressive and attacks motor neurons, and Mr. Glatzer has lost the ability to speak as well as the use of his hands to type. So, painstakingly, using a toe on his right foot, he typed his answers to a reporter’s questions letter by letter on an iPad, a computerized voice named Ryan reading his responses.
