Public Broadcast Laboratory; Birth and Death

Item Information

Title:
Public Broadcast Laboratory; Birth and Death
Description:
TV's first examination of death and the meaning it gives to life will be seen on Sunday, December 1, as part of "Birth and Death," the opening feature of the second season of PUBLIC BROADCAST LABORATORY. A passionate celebration of the joys of life, as well as a contemplation of where it ends, this television non-fiction novel was made for PBL by Arthur Barron a practitioner of the cinema-verite method. Mr. Barron began work by searching in a famous natural-childbirth clinic in Manhattan for an expectant young couple who would typify the hopes and aspirations of today's young generation. At the clinic, he found Bruce and Debbie North, two young artists from Brooklyn awaiting the birth of their first child. Through the next two months, Barron and his wife Evelyn, along with cameraman Gener Merner and his wife Carol, lived and waited with the Norths to capture the actual birth on film. The filmmakers shuttled back and forth the length of the city, from the artists' Bohemian digs in Brooklyn to Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, and institution specializing in the care of terminal illnesses. There they found and talked with Albro Persall, a gold smelter, slowly dying of incurable lung cancer, who reflected on his life as it, neared the end. Producer Barron expresses the hop that this startling contrast of birth and death will remind viewers of the abundant possibilities of life. "Birth and Death" follows a young couple through the last weeks of a pregnancy and a dying man through the final weeks of his life: Bruce North, a struggling artist in New York, and his wife Debbie, awaiting their first child; and Albro Pearsall, a 52 year old gold smelter awaiting the result of a terminal lung cancer. The people are real in this cinematographic equivalent of a non-fictional novel. In the course of showing new life coming into the world and old life going out of it, the film witnesses a natural childbirth and the preparation for it, and a dying man's attempts to come to terms with his own existence. Awaiting the birth, the Norths resist parental strictures on the desirability of finding a secure job once the child is come; awaiting his death, Pearsall regrets never having sought to do much more in life than earn a living. PBL Side Bar: The sound man for "Birth and Death," the opening broadcast in PBL's second season, had more to worry about than the rest of the crew sweating out the imminent arrival of a baby. The sound man was Carol Marner, a petite, blue-eyed brunette who was herself eight months pregnant as the time approached for Debbie North, heroine of the film, to give birth. Viewers can follow Debbie's hectic preparations for natural childbirth on the two hour broadcast. During the final days of filming, Carol, in addition to all the extra weight she was carrying, bravely lugged a heavy sound recorder as she worked alongside her husband, cameraman Gene Marner. She recalls that her only real worry at the time was whether her baby might to decide to arrive at the same time as Debbie's. Luckily, the averages held steady and once the filming was accomplished, Carol's baby arrived on time. David Levine, the caricaturist whose vivisections of the world's mighty enliven the covers of Time, Newsweek, New York magazine, and The New York Review of Books, does not always dip his pen in acid. The lighter side of Levine is visible in "Birth and Death," the 120 minute broadcast that opens PBL's second season. As witnessed in the film, Levine often takes a holiday from his pricking of the powerful, and heads for New York's Coney Island to savor the sweetness of life. On the beach he sketches old New Yorkers at their leisure. Seen painting with Levine is the caricaturist's apprentice, Bruce North, the expectant father in "Birth and Death." Film Editor: Birth - Zena Voynow. Film Editor: Death - Gene Marner (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
Production company:
National Educational Television and Radio Center
Producer:
Oppenheim, David, 1922-2007
Producer:
Barron, Arthur
Director:
Barron, Arthur
Creator:
Marner, Gene
Film editor:
Marner, Gene
Interviewee:
Pearsall, Albro
Interviewee:
North, Bruce
Sound designer:
Marner, Carol
Interviewee:
North, Debbie
Film editor:
Voynow, Zina
Date:
December 1, 1968
Format:
Film/Video
Genre:
Documentary
Location:
Library of Congress
Collection (local):
American Archive of Public Broadcasting Collection
Series:
Library of Congress > Public Broadcast Laboratory
Subjects:
Social Issues
Health
Parenting
Extent:
02:00:17
Link to Item:
https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-516-3f4kk9555p
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Notes:
Episode Number: 201