Team Experience is celebrating pets at the movies (and in our homes) this week. Here's Tony Ruggio...
With my third family dog growing up "Sydney"
I’ve always been a dog person. Some of my first memories are of rolling in the carpet at three years-old next to our first pekingese bruiser Gin Gin. His death at the hands of a roaming pack of stray dogs in our neighborhood was my first real brush with tragedy and emotional trauma. Two more family dogs would come and go over the next twenty-five years, each one’s passing more devastating than the last.
It’s no surprise then that I would take to the tale of a man and his dog in 2007’s I Am Legend, or its inevitable conclusion. The movie itself is a flawed slice-of-apocalyptic-life blockbuster, a one-man show for Will Smith wherein he and German Shepherd Samantha roam a desolate New York City...
They search for food while trying to evade becoming food for vicious former humans, now ravaged by a mysterious virus and out for blood.
Given the viral pandemic and themes of isolation, I Am Legend is a strangely fitting movie for our times. Besides a newfound relevance, what sets it apart from other movies of its ilk, for the first hour and change anyway, is Robert’s family dog, best friend, and hunting partner Sam.
From accompanying Robert on a deer hunt and probing the depths of a derelict building, to remaining at his side when he’s knocked unconscious in a street near sundown, Sam is what every pet-loving person would want in a dog in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Their bond was forged through suffering together in the aftermath of the virus. Sam was just a puppy when Robert adopted her, before everything went south. Now she’s all he has left of his family, and that familial bond is never more evident than when the both of them are curled up in a bathtub listening to the cries of doom outside. When I think of them I can’t help but think of my own dog Sophie, a good girl that was once my wife’s puppy and is now our best friend in quarantine.
But when the time comes, when Sam is bitten and begins to turn before Robert’s eyes, I think of Sydney. Our third family dog, Sydney was a lively, ornery white-haired pekingese and a true man’s best friend for fifteen years. He fell ill in 2015 and forced us to put him down to relieve his pain. I normally find pet death in film to be unnecessary and in poor taste, the result of filmmakers straining for shock value. In I Am Legend, there is no shock value. There is only heartache when Robert is forced to kill Sam to save her from a life of death. Sydney was bitten by an animal we never found, and though he recovered, it was clear from his bedridden ways and need for antibiotics that whatever it was might have been venomous. He eventually succumbed to liver failure a few short months later, a possible byproduct of the run-in with that toxic creature, and my Dad and I were forced to put him to sleep.
The moment when Robert puts Sam to sleep is a turning point in many ways. It’s a turning point for the narrative, as such a tragic moment and the consequences of it elevate the movie above its undeserved reputation as a mixed bag of bad CGI. It’s also a turning point for Robert, as he loses his one friend and source of companionship, his last remaining connection to the family that was. He’s so distraught that he abandons logic and goes on a hunting spree for the so-called Darkseekers, aiming to shoot as many as he can as revenge for his loss. He eventually decides to leave his long-time home that he shared with Sam, realizing he can no longer survive there alone.
Sydney’s death was a personal turning point for myself, prompting me to finally leave the nest once and for all and to strive for a better life. I’ll never forget the white pekingese that would follow wherever I go, and I’ll never forget Samantha, one-half of one of the best man-dog friendships ever committed to the silver screen.
previously: Lynn Lee on the siamese cats in Lady & The Tramp