Twentieth Anniversary Of Heartfelt Student Film ‘Saving Jackie’

 

Saving Jackie film poster.

“One morning, I was standing in the kitchen freebasing, three or four days had gone by, I said to my husband, ‘wait a minute, what are we doing?’ I don’t want to be a professional drug addict.” 

This past summer the second annual Dayton Black Women’s Film Festival featured a special presentation of Selena Burks-Rentschler’s evocative documentary, Saving Jackie, a film she made while a student at Wright State University. This incredibly unique work debuted at the late Robert Redford’s founded Sundance Film Festival, a prestigious institution that continues to embrace and encourage the spirit of independent filmmaking in a box office favored cinema. 

Burks-Rentschler’s tragic picture explores the domino effects drugs places on the vulnerable communities, especially families succumbing to those activated desires rather than participating as full-time parents and partners. The 1980’s epidemic put a tougher penalty on Black and brown communities, both the drug dealers and the drug addicts always depicted as monsters— villains. The leading film’s subject— Jackie, the filmmaker’s own mother— has such a vivacious personality intensely punching through the screen. Burks-Rentschler prepares us, the soft-toned voiceover promises a “selfish and stubborn woman.” Sharp, oftentimes unapologetic and brazen, Jackie admits her imperfections, owning up to the harm she’s caused her loved ones. As she smokes a cigarette, she’s well aware of the sacrifices and struggles that have occurred due to her twenty-year crack addiction, regret and sadness reflected in her deep brown eyes. Whenever Jackie smiles or releases a laugh, there lies a contagious need to do so alongside her, to reassure this woman the humanness in having joyous feelings, however rare it seems in her case. 

Burks-Rentschler and her younger sister Lorita both appear, two growing figures voicing desperation and fear for their mother. Instead of traditional girlhood rites of passage, their shared experience has deepened their sibling bond, strengthened by their need to lean on each other, escape the severe plight they’re in together. If only Jackie could commit to remaining clean, if only she showed up for her daughters the way they keep showing up for their mother. Although the world crashes down all around her, losing a home, a car, and eventually custody of her two children, Jackie’s sad, all too familiar story paints a dreary picture of dangerous ingrained habits— that becoming high in any way possible meant more to her than anything. 

Poignant, powerful Saving Jackie’s tight editing arouses questions regarding how much heartbreaking footage remains as there must be hours worth of sensitive material, hours worth of pain and grief for the filmmaker’s family. It takes phenomenal bravery to turn the lens on a beloved family member, to reveal the deep dark depths of the fall from grace. For all her mistakes, Jackie still deserved to live until old age, to watch her daughters become full-fledged adults. 

Saving Jackie crafted a road to a mother’s redemption, unearthing the real culprit in the face and the consequential aftermath of choosing an unhealthy path over real, unconditional love. And that’s what feelings come as the credits roll— an intense, burning sentiment that a daughter has for her mother even in light of her mother having wronged her.