MovieChat Forums > The Miracle Worker (1962) Discussion > There's so much more to Hellen Keller th...

There's so much more to Hellen Keller than this movie portrays!


Hellen Keller led a phenomenal life once she became an adult. And my only beef with Hollywood productions such as this one is that Hellen Keller is only known as the "blind, deaf, and mute" girl. She is not remembered for the incredible contributions she did make as an adult to many important causes, least of which are two autobiographies she wrote about her amazing life story.

Frankly, the more fascinating portion of Hellen Keller's life is not when the breakthrough occurred as depicted in this movie but more the life she led afterwards. an advocate for people with disabilities, amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragist, a pacifist, an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical socialist and a birth control supporter. In 1915 she and George Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. In 1920 she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Keller traveled to 40 some-odd countries with Sullivan, making several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite of the Japanese people. Keller met every U.S. President from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends with many famous figures, including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain. Keller and Chaplin shared anti-capitalist views; Keller and Twain were both considered radicals at the beginning of the 20th century, and as a consequence, their political views have been forgotten or glossed over in popular perception. - Wikipedia



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Yes, you're right about all her accomplishments. But this movie was about a specific time in her life -- that of the coming of 'age' of her learning and her time w/ annie sullivan. It was never intended to be a birth to death bio.

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Also figure that _The Miracle Worker_ is at least as much about Annie as it is about Helen -- it's actually the story of how commitment to Helen opens Annie up enough to admit affection after all the loss and hardship of her childhood, and about how that enables her to become Teacher; to start the long triumph that would be as much hers as Helen's - and it takes someone like Annie to get to someone like Helen. No one else would have had the guts and the sense of recognition to accomplish it. The keynotes are at the start, when Annie says that God owes her a resurrection; when she blurts out her past to the Kellers, in order to save Helen from a similar fate; and at the very end when she says "I love Helen." Annie gets her resurrection - it's hers as well as Helen's and she's had to work for it, because resurrections don't come easily.

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Even though i realize that this film is about a certain period in Helen's life I really wanted to see just a bit more. The end was a bit of a letdown but for me it did not take anything away from it.


A good film should always leave you wanting to see just a bit more and not a poorly made sequel.


I might disagree with some of Helen's politics but I still admire her and Anne anyway.


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You have to remember when this movie was made, Helen Keller was still very much alive. Before The Miracle Worker people knew much more about the grown-up Helen Keller than they did about the wild child and how she discovered language. The play and the movie must have been a real eye opener. Today, the situation is just the opposite.

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That's very true. And as was said, this movie is just meant to be about how Helen Keller got her start becoming what she was. It's not meant to be a full-fledged biography movie. Plus, the 'Miracle Worker' referenced in the title is Annie Sullivan, not Helen herself. One could argue that Annie, not Helen, was the main character in this case. Of course, there's a lot more to her life, but that's not what the movie was meant to illustrate. There is one thing, however, which I do wish had been included in the play, and it's something the original poster referenced. I wish they had found a way to put Alexander Graham Bell in it, because he was in the picture at the time it's set. In fact, Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan would probably never have met if it weren't for Bell. He was the one who recommended her parents contact Perkins School for the blind and deaf and try to find someone to help Helen. In fact, if not for Bell, we may never have even heard of Helen Keller, let alone Annie Sullivan. He may have been mentioned in the play, though, but I don't remember. I wonder who would have played him if he had been included. My first thought was Edmund Gwenn, but he was already dead by this time.

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Yes, and she also wrote six or seven books.

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