This is
an independent film that takes place over a quarter of century. Joseph
Lovett's film The Accident is a personal film journey, a search for the
'real' lives of his long-dead parents whose memories linger as little
more than snap shots.
'When
I began the project, I thought it was a strictly personal film. Twenty
three years ago, as a 28-year-old fledging filmmaker, I began to wonder
what I would have thought of my parents if I had gotten to know them.
My father died an agonizing cancer death and four years later, my
mother died outside our home in a freak accident, crushed by her own
car against a neighbor's tree. I was the only witness. It was clearly a
defining moment in my life.
So, I set out to learn about who my
parents were by creating a video portrait made up of interviews of the
people who had known them. As I listened to my brothers and sisters
recollect the same incidents, I was startled to discover that there is
no true history, no objectivity, no one picture of my parents. Everyone
saw them differently. Each interview revealed different aspects of my
parents and of the dynamics of a large and volatile family as it grew
through changing circumstances.
At the age of fifty, with a
career of documentary film-making behind me, I decided to confront some
of my own fears and enter the film myself. It was time to deal not just
with my parents and their deaths but also the effects of their deaths
on me; time to confront childhood traumas with an adult on my side:
myself.
Anthropologist, Margaret Mead, referred to the project
as my 'parental memory tape.' Though this film is a personal one, its
themes are not. As I have shown excerpts to individuals over the years,
I have learned that the search for one's parents is a universal voyage,
even if they are living. 'The Accident' is a journey through external
and internal dramas that draw people in as they hear their own stories
reflected in mine.'
