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00:00:30Transcription by CastingWords
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00:01:59Transcription by CastingWords
00:02:29Transcription by CastingWords
00:02:59Transcription by CastingWords
00:03:29The thing that is the most exciting about it is the story that's behind the obvious story
00:03:34the story that you're weaving in the background
00:03:37of putting the pieces together in this wonderful jigsaw puzzle of personalities and beliefs and mythologies
00:03:46I fall in love with all the characters I work with
00:03:56and then after decades of being in this fantastic career peculiar things started to happen
00:04:14I was having a really tough time reading
00:04:27I'm missing like three letters out of a seven letter word
00:04:32the words were floating around
00:04:37I just thought am I like losing my mind do I have like Alzheimer's or something
00:04:43the ophthalmologist said you have dry macular degeneration
00:04:52you're losing your central vision
00:04:57I'm losing my sight
00:05:03there's no cure
00:05:07who am I without the visual world
00:05:26who am I without the visual world
00:05:30this is the living with vision loss class
00:05:54this will go into how the vision loss has changed your life
00:05:59getting it out
00:06:00is the first step towards getting back in control of our lives
00:06:06I think the hardest part is
00:06:08the friends and family who call and say
00:06:11how's your vision how you doing you getting better
00:06:12what are you doing to you know get it better
00:06:14it's not going to get better
00:06:17it doesn't go that way
00:06:18my biggest problem is dealing with the overwhelming degree of loss
00:06:25I don't like knowing that I'll never see my kids again
00:06:30I was the one I used to take care of the whole family
00:06:34now I was the other end of it
00:06:37people had to take care of me
00:06:39I like to give I don't like to receive
00:06:41my identity is so wrapped up in being a film editor
00:06:45and it's all visual
00:06:47and then I started to lose my sight
00:06:51and it was this overwhelming feeling
00:06:56it just all of a sudden
00:06:57I just felt like I was drowning
00:06:59the center of my vision
00:07:10is beginning to disappear
00:07:13and it feels like I take my peripheral vision
00:07:17and move it over the middle
00:07:20to cover the hole
00:07:21objects in front of me
00:07:33appear and disappear
00:07:35as I fill in the blanks
00:07:37people's faces are starting to look like a Picasso
00:07:44and the Picasso face
00:07:48is so unnerving
00:07:50that I look away
00:07:51and as soon as I look away
00:07:55they look away
00:07:56and I've lost them
00:08:00and this loss
00:08:06feels so familiar to me
00:08:08all right
00:08:09and then I've spent源
00:08:12and then I see
00:08:13as soon as I know
00:08:15the amazon
00:08:17is so beautiful
00:08:18that I know
00:08:19and I love
00:08:20and I'm making sure
00:08:21it just shows up
00:08:23and I love
00:08:23and I don't know
00:08:24how to get along
00:08:24I know
00:08:25the fear
00:08:26of being with the
00:08:26heart
00:08:27is sohon
00:08:28all right
00:08:28I love
00:08:29and I need to
00:08:29and I love
00:08:30and I know
00:08:31beautiful
00:08:31to come
00:08:32and I love
00:08:33I don't know
00:08:35I love
00:08:36I grew up in this very suburban house.
00:08:44I was the eldest of five, and everyone called me Bunny.
00:08:52And I felt like the kids, I felt like they were like my kids on some level.
00:08:58When my dad came home from work, he would walk over to the piano, sit down, and begin
00:09:04to play.
00:09:14There was this freedom in him.
00:09:19And we all would go bananas and run around the house and scream and yell, and my mother
00:09:25loved it.
00:09:27She would laugh and embrace the craziness.
00:09:34Music was bringing in so much joy.
00:09:41When we went outside, it really was different.
00:09:44I was painfully shy, but not when I skated.
00:09:50I would come into my body and feel the music that was in our house.
00:09:57I feel so free and alive.
00:10:08Johnny and Janie are not yet quite grown into manhood and womanhood.
00:10:16They are in between.
00:10:17And the in between period is known as puberty.
00:10:22This name is used to describe the physical growth and change that bring sexual maturity.
00:10:28As I was growing up, mom never talked to me about puberty or sex or anything like that.
00:10:43It's 1964.
00:10:44No birth control for unmarried women.
00:10:50And abortion is illegal.
00:10:59high school, a boy, one night.
00:11:20I just thought everything was natural.
00:11:37I didn't feel bad until, oh my god, you're pregnant.
00:11:42It's like it just seemed like the whole sky fell down then.
00:11:53And then my father drove me to grandma's and said, you're going to be staying with her
00:12:00for a while.
00:12:14I'd always wanted mom and dad to be proud of me and here they had to hide me away.
00:12:21I felt such shame for bringing this upon my family.
00:12:26I felt so alone, waiting for grandma to come home from work.
00:12:41And then all of a sudden, my parents picked me up.
00:12:56I have a little bit of amnesia about that place, but when I went in there, I was actually
00:13:18so relieved to be at a place with other girls who were like myself.
00:13:30I made friends with this girl who could play piano.
00:13:34So we would sneak out and go to the rec room and she would play these amazing things that
00:13:40were classical pieces and jazz and I would rock back and forth in my chair and I would just
00:13:46be back home.
00:13:47who is the unwed mother is she a tramp a neurotic a girl from the wrong side of the tracks?
00:14:02perhaps you may feel she is not the kind of girl you would want to invite into your house.
00:14:27the doctor told me if I felt any contractions to get up to the third floor right away.
00:14:40I remember holding the hand of a woman.
00:14:45I felt safe if I could just hold on to that hand and not let it go.
00:14:57And there were these beautiful lights.
00:15:02I felt this overwhelming feeling of connection to this life inside of me.
00:15:16And then, it felt like everything dropped out of me.
00:15:22Everything went black.
00:15:30Mom had said, don't look at the baby.
00:15:38There was a screaming in my head.
00:15:45I looked through this window and I saw this young girl picking up my daughter.
00:15:55And everything in my cell said, go in there and grab her.
00:16:04I called my mom and I just said, I can't do this.
00:16:17I can't go through this mom.
00:16:21I could feel my mom on the other end.
00:16:28And she just said, oh, Bonnie.
00:16:32There was a really long silence.
00:16:46And I knew that the sadness we were both feeling was just too much for her.
00:17:08When I read the adoption papers, I couldn't stop crying.
00:17:18The social worker said, you will shame your whole family if you don't go through with it.
00:17:26And don't try to find her until she's at least 21.
00:17:38My parents never mentioned it again.
00:17:42And nobody ever told my brothers and sister.
00:17:55I felt such shame for not standing up and fighting.
00:18:20To keep my daughter.
00:18:41To keep my daughter.
00:18:56Everything inside of me longs to make sense of this world without a center.
00:19:02In a clockwise direction, where is your least dangerous vehicle?
00:19:09Least dangerous vehicle.
00:19:12Nobody's making a left anywhere.
00:19:14Right hand turns could be happening.
00:19:17And it's very noisy.
00:19:20Right.
00:19:21So you're thinking about a little too much, OK?
00:19:22OK.
00:19:23The two lanes.
00:19:24That's dangerous.
00:19:25For a clockwise crossing, is your near parallel.
00:19:31Not knowing if you don't pull your goal.
00:19:32Without you.
00:19:33Hey.
00:19:34For a혀.
00:19:35For ahammer.
00:19:36For a Levi would have faced that 넘치는yi сильно.
00:19:38I don't know.
00:20:08I don't know.
00:20:38I don't know.
00:20:46It is 1967.
00:20:48I'm 21 years old, two years before Stonewall, and homosexuality is illegal in San Francisco.
00:20:58And I walk into Maud's, this dark, cavernous lesbian bar that was filled with hidden women.
00:21:10It both frightened and thrilled me.
00:21:18I'd always been attracted to women, but for the first time in my life, I felt rebellious enough to act on it.
00:21:27It was sort of a criminal euphoria, a freedom.
00:21:35It was like I had been liberated from an archetype of woman that was so strict.
00:21:48I lowered my voice.
00:22:12I started wearing comfortable shoes.
00:22:15I walked a little heavier.
00:22:18And it's like I was willing to take up space.
00:22:28I met a woman who was a filmmaker, and she said, would you do sound for me?
00:22:49And I said, sure, I'll do sound.
00:22:51How do I do sound?
00:22:57She said, here's a Naugra.
00:22:58And I went, boing, boing, boing.
00:23:00That is a fabulously designed machine.
00:23:03Everything was built as if it was a beautiful watch.
00:23:18She recommends me for a job at Studio 16.
00:23:25Denver Sutton, the owner, says, what do you know about film?
00:23:27I said, I know nothing about film, but I will work harder than anybody you've ever met.
00:23:32And I get the job.
00:23:35So I ended up doing the books, cleaning the bathrooms, shooting, mixing.
00:23:41And editing was the thing that stole my heart.
00:24:02Denver's specialty was industrial films and educational films.
00:24:07And so I got to work on some marvelous things, like the product picker-packer, which was a
00:24:37And there was this incredible industrial about this machine that Crown Zellebeck had, of how to wrap toilet paper.
00:24:44And so it was not a terribly artistic beginning, but I loved every part of it.
00:24:50Even though a caller is expected, or a delivery man is well known, never answer the door unless you are fully clothed.
00:25:01I would walk down Broadway every night on my way home from Studio 16.
00:25:21I think it was really comfortable about North Beach.
00:25:32I had no reservations when I was asked if I would edit on several adult films.
00:25:41I went by the name of Lorraine Sprocket and worked on such distinguished films as Dingle Dangle, Brisco Fiasco, and Easy Come, Easy Go.
00:26:02I was beginning to learn about the art of metaphor.
00:26:17Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
00:26:25Everywhere I looked, artists and activists were breaking the rules.
00:26:32There were all these experimental filmmakers coming through Studio 16.
00:26:41It was like an awakening for me of what was possible in film.
00:26:54There was this time in San Francisco where everybody started taking their clothes off and shooting film.
00:26:59And it was just like, over time you'd turn around, there was somebody new on camera.
00:27:04And it was such a feeling of freedom, of acceptance and openness about our bodies that had been previously shamed.
00:27:15Just under the surface, I still held the secret of relinquishing my daughter.
00:27:27And the sadness of not being there with her as she was growing up.
00:27:34Just under the surface, I still held the secret of relinquishing my daughter.
00:27:40And the sadness of not being there with her as she was growing up.
00:27:48I had told no one, and I continued to wait for her to turn 21.
00:28:01I'm having a really hard time revealing to my friends in the film community that I'm losing my sight.
00:28:27I just don't want people to think I'm less capable.
00:28:37This really lovely filmmaker that I know asked me to come to the screening of her film.
00:28:52What I should have said was, I can't see. I can't see your film.
00:29:01I couldn't say that.
00:29:05And so I went.
00:29:08I left my cane at home.
00:29:13It was a foreign language film.
00:29:18And I couldn't read any of the subtitles.
00:29:22And the characters were like big blocks and shapes.
00:29:26And I couldn't see any of their faces.
00:29:35What am I doing?
00:29:38I'm pretending that I can see.
00:29:47Losing my daughter and losing my sight feel so connected.
00:29:54You used to be able to get in the car and turn the key and go anytime you wanted to go.
00:30:07And you can't do that anymore.
00:30:09It's just this sense of you don't have the freedom that you had before.
00:30:26And I think that's one of the biggest things is this loss of being independent.
00:30:31Yes.
00:30:32Siri, open Uber.
00:30:36Closing error. Uber.
00:30:38I'll just go.
00:30:39Dictate.
00:30:40Correct.
00:30:41I want you to listen to what it tells you because you're going to forget what to do next.
00:30:45You're so quick to single finger double tap to start the dictation.
00:30:49You're not taking the time to listen to what you need to do when you're done.
00:30:53Okay.
00:30:54So you're going to touch the dictation button and then you're going to listen to what it tells you to do.
00:30:58Dictate button.
00:31:01Double tap to start dictation.
00:31:04Double tap with two fingers when finished.
00:31:07When finished.
00:31:11Ronert Park Smart Train Station.
00:31:15Part of the process is learning how to slow down a little bit.
00:31:28Because when you have usable sight, you just know where to go.
00:31:32And as you start losing your sight and you're still in that mode, like, oh, let's just get right to it real quick.
00:31:38Right.
00:31:39You need to stop and take the time because you're no longer reading with your eyes, you're reading with your hearing.
00:31:44So I don't know what direction you're going to go.
00:32:13But I'll get you past the yellow step, okay?
00:32:15Okay, great.
00:32:16Thanks, son.
00:32:17Thank you so much.
00:32:18Step, you're...
00:32:20Right there.
00:32:21Okay.
00:32:22Thank you so much.
00:32:23Am I on 3rd Street right now?
00:32:24Getting directions to 3rd Street, St. Raffel.
00:32:30Markle.
00:32:31Benjamin Moore.
00:32:32Markle.
00:32:33Benjamin Moore.
00:32:34Markle.
00:32:35Markle.
00:32:36Benjamin Moore.
00:32:37Can you tell me if this is 2nd Street or if it's 4th?
00:32:38This is 4th.
00:32:39Perfect.
00:32:40Okay.
00:32:41Is it okay to go now?
00:32:42It must be because these guys are going.
00:32:45Getting directions to 3rd Street, St. Raffaelle.
00:32:51Mark, Benjamin Moore.
00:33:00Can you tell me if this is 2nd Street or if it's 4th?
00:33:04This is 4th. Perfect. Okay.
00:33:07Is it okay to go now?
00:33:09It must be because these guys are going.
00:33:12I just got to get back.
00:33:14I'm going to turn right, and then I'm going to turn left,
00:33:18and that'll get me back to the train station.
00:33:33Oh, good. At least I know you're going, so I'm fine to go.
00:33:37Okay. Next time I'll have it wired.
00:33:44Each day there's something new that comes along and says,
00:33:52uh, uh, uh, uh, you don't know this one.
00:34:08And it's almost like I have to start all over again.
00:34:11I get frustrated with myself about not being able to learn new stuff.
00:34:16You have to be intentional about doing everything.
00:34:20That's what blindness does to you.
00:34:22It chips away at the things that you can do,
00:34:25um, and you hold on to the things that you can do.
00:34:29I went from being just a really gregarious person
00:34:33and lots of people around me
00:34:35to being really isolated and feeling alone
00:34:38and not figuring out how I could climb my way back out of this thing.
00:34:44I remember when I took acid the first time.
00:35:09I began to see my sadness in a totally different way.
00:35:15I began to see past this small box of my suffering.
00:35:43Seeing myself as being part of something much bigger.
00:35:52This web of connectedness.
00:36:13Everyone who has macular degeneration sees differently.
00:36:23I have these blind spots and missing puzzle pieces
00:36:27that I fill in with what I think should be there.
00:36:32Maybe these current visual distortions
00:36:40can be more than just a limiting disease.
00:36:44And I know what is not as you can see.
00:37:02So
00:37:08Discovering the world through sound is now this crazy experience.
00:37:26I'm beginning to see through hearing.
00:37:38I'm beginning to see through hearing.
00:38:08After years of working at Studio 16 on industrials and educational films, I started working on
00:38:17low-budget feature films for family entertainment.
00:38:22So I was looking around for editing rooms and I saw that Coppola had opened American Zoetrope
00:38:28on Folsom Street.
00:38:31And I rented a room.
00:38:32Like I would walk down the hallway and it was Coppola's The Conversation.
00:38:39Kill us if he got the chance.
00:38:42Phil Kaufman's White Dawn.
00:38:48And all these mavericks that were about to change film history.
00:38:54Eventually, I got a huge break working with some of these trailblazers.
00:39:04These guys were experimenting with everything.
00:39:16It wasn't just groundbreaking films that they brought into San Francisco, but a revolutionary
00:39:22shift in who got hired.
00:39:25A lot of women were brought into sound post-production.
00:39:34That was historic.
00:39:39An unprecedented movement in film history because sound editing, sound mixing, sound recording
00:39:46had been a male province entirely up until the 60s and 70s.
00:39:53Woohoo!
00:39:54Hi!
00:39:55Hi!
00:39:56Hi!
00:39:57So good to see you, honey!
00:39:59Hello, my darling.
00:40:00Hi, how are you?
00:40:01Where did Sue go?
00:40:02Sue!
00:40:03I can't see.
00:40:04What the hell?
00:40:05That's all right.
00:40:06I'll give you a big hug and tell you I'm Marilyn.
00:40:09You look wonderful.
00:40:10If I could see you.
00:40:11Bonnie Cole.
00:40:12Oh, Bonnie!
00:40:13How are you?
00:40:14How are you?
00:40:15Oh, hi, Terry!
00:40:16Good to see you again!
00:40:17So, you have something that will sort of blow things up so that you can see it better?
00:40:27That and these, all I have to do is like, like, put my head back and forth because I'm
00:40:33not seeing anything out of the middle, but I can see a little bit out of the, you know,
00:40:38peripheral vision.
00:40:39Yeah, yeah.
00:40:40I try to hold on to every little bit of eyesight that I have.
00:40:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:43You know, I fly around here like, you know, I can see.
00:40:45Uh-huh.
00:40:46You know?
00:40:47But, um, I can't.
00:40:49Yeah, yeah.
00:40:50So there you have it.
00:40:51I know!
00:40:52They all are!
00:41:00We are sort of an invisible group of women.
00:41:03Film, in many ways, brought us together.
00:41:06I am very grateful to all of you for being so freaking fun and nice and crazy.
00:41:13All the women that I met were just generous and fun-loving, worked hard, hard, hard.
00:41:21It wasn't an easy job, but it was rewarding in the sense that you felt like you were part
00:41:27of a new family, you know?
00:41:28Yeah.
00:41:32Friday night, you know, close up shop and there'd be a party.
00:41:37And there was, everybody shared.
00:41:40That was so much fun and we would dance around, like, remember?
00:41:43Well, it always seems like people should dance in the editing room.
00:41:46Oh, yeah.
00:41:47Right?
00:41:48You guys were the best!
00:41:54It's not just a job.
00:41:58There's so much more than that.
00:42:00This feeling of deep kinship.
00:42:09There was this kind of generosity of spirit among the sound people.
00:42:14It was really just this opportunity to see how everything went down.
00:42:18What are you doing?
00:42:19I'm cutting sound from Mosquito Coast.
00:42:27There's Harrison Ford going back and forth.
00:42:33This huge group of people were working towards this one goal of bringing this story to life.
00:42:43Eventually, I met Vivian, and that is a story unto itself.
00:43:06One day, from across the room, this woman walked in.
00:43:10After work, a bunch of us from the studio decided to go to Coppola's Eccentric Hamburger Joint in North Beach.
00:43:23Karen played a tune on the jukebox.
00:43:33She climbed up on the countertop and started miming out the song.
00:43:40In the thrill of a knowing smile.
00:43:45This was the craziest and most dynamic woman I had ever met.
00:43:50...surprise.
00:43:53I stand here beholding my future unfolding right before my eyes.
00:44:05We proceeded to have a film life together.
00:44:24That started off a whole series of editing dialogue on more and more feature films.
00:44:29In preparing the tracks for the mix, I would work with the actors' words.
00:44:39It was the most exacting work, but I felt really close to the performance.
00:44:50Roger.
00:44:51And then when I got to do ADR and re-record their voice, I would try to help the actor get back into the feeling of the scene.
00:45:02How could I tell him what music meant to me?
00:45:06In 84, we worked on Amadeus.
00:45:11Even though I was working in the dialogue department, Mozart's music would be emanating from the mix room and through the halls of the Salzand Center.
00:45:22I felt the same joy as I did as a child, listening to the music in my family home.
00:45:32In 1984, Karen and I bought a little farm on the wrong side of the tracks, and we called it Mom's Head.
00:46:01We began two different lives.
00:46:07The fast-paced world of feature films on one hand, and living on a two-and-a-half-acre farm on the other.
00:46:16When we first came here, the owner said, oh, there's a kicker bar out there, and we said, right.
00:46:37When we got profiled by Bay Area Backroads, we had to change the name to the Buffalo Gals Saloon.
00:46:46I mean, for very serious, professional people, what's going on here?
00:46:51Well, why not?
00:46:52But every time we'd have a party, we'd have about three or four hundred people come over, and there'd be like something people couldn't bear to part with, but they thought, this is perfect for the kicker bar.
00:47:02but every time we'd have a party we'd have about three or four hundred people come over
00:47:12and there'd be like something people couldn't bear to part with but they thought this is
00:47:17perfect for the kicker bar and then it just slowly started accumulating
00:47:22anyway it still works I have to get it clean so it doesn't play all the chords at once
00:47:45I have many times talked to people who say I'm not that blind I'm fine
00:47:51I can get around the house I can see everything and I'll ask them what happens when you leave the
00:48:00place that you inhabit all the time and go someplace that you're not very familiar with
00:48:14yeah I went to LA for a screening and I thought I'd be okay because I had an assistant at the
00:48:19airport and then a car to pick me up I went to the hotel got in the elevator and I couldn't figure
00:48:28out what floor I was on or how to get off and I didn't realize I needed a key card or anything
00:48:34about what was going on I said I'm just stuck in this elevator so I guess I'll just wait in this
00:48:40elevator until someone comes along and I just thought how could you not have anticipated that
00:48:45and then so I came right back home and and signed up for Braille good for you
00:48:50and slowly just for the first time the other day just ran my fingers over it and a word popped in and I
00:49:06just went I'm touching a word I mean and because I've been using so much of my hearing that the sense
00:49:15of touch was this sense that I hadn't totally pursued and I just went whoa it's coming alive in my fingers and
00:49:23going up to my brain it's a it's a tough thing I'm not I'm up to e and the alphabet but you can make a lot of
00:49:32words with e and then a through e a through e just extraordinary that the word is touch
00:49:40one day I look out the window and there's a little man in a tree
00:49:59it kind of looked like Mark Twain in a way right away when I saw it it was only a day later that I
00:50:07had an appointment with my vision therapist and I said this little man showed up in a tree she goes
00:50:13that's the Charles Bonet syndrome people with sight loss often see children and animals and people in
00:50:21period costume and they look completely real what I think caused it is the incredible eye strain that I
00:50:33had over about a week of trying really hard to write I don't want to lose it due to eye strain but
00:50:45I can't give up this trying to see it's unstuck I mean I just don't want to I want to keep my sight as
00:50:59as long as I can I just felt like I saw a bit of magic
00:51:05this is a big deal for me Oh
00:51:20you
00:51:21you
00:51:23you
00:51:23you
00:51:24you
00:51:26you
00:51:28you
00:51:28you
00:51:30you
00:51:30you
00:51:32I had this great run of dialogue editing
00:51:56and working on these fantastic films in the Bay Area.
00:52:00But the work started to dry up, and I had to go to Los Angeles for a job.
00:52:09L.A. had a different vibe.
00:52:18And they said, phone call for you, and it's Walter Merch.
00:52:22And Walter Merch said, we were wondering if you'd like to come back up to Berkeley
00:52:25and edit picture on Unbearable Lightness of Being.
00:52:28And I went, can somebody make me a plane reservation this instant?
00:52:33I had worked for decades as a dialogue and sound editor, and now to be a picture editor,
00:52:54it was an extraordinary opportunity.
00:53:00They were trying something different.
00:53:04Searching for a new beauty.
00:53:09Yes.
00:53:10We worked with some of the most wonderful men.
00:53:14Oh, my gosh.
00:53:15You know, I mean, they were so helpful.
00:53:16All the directors were really helpful in my career.
00:53:19Phil Kaufman gave me one job after another.
00:53:22It does disappoint me that still to this day, there are the statistics for women in roles of leadership
00:53:31in the different creative departments are no better than 40 years ago.
00:53:35Mm-hmm.
00:53:36That sucks.
00:53:37It's very complex to sort of tease it out.
00:53:39Like, why didn't we get the opportunities we all deserved?
00:53:43I mean, a lot of real, you know, you look at the room and how much talent is sitting in the room.
00:53:47Oh, my gosh.
00:53:48And, yes, we were successful in editing, but why was it so impossible to take that next step?
00:53:53And then there is this really strange space, which is us as women working our buns off, working on films reflected through the eyes of a man.
00:54:03As film editors, we're not always controlling, we're not controlling the content and we're, we're artists for hire in a way, so we, we're available for what's being made already.
00:54:15When I was first asked to work on Henry and June, I thought, holy cow, this is the beginning of cutting picture on big budget films.
00:54:24And I just felt like, this is really success.
00:54:31But my definition of success started to change.
00:54:37This isn't me.
00:54:40This is not me.
00:54:41Of course, it's you, it's, it's the you inside me.
00:54:44It's a distortion.
00:54:46I remember thinking, you have to be really careful, Viv, you could lose yourself.
00:54:56My eyesight's getting a little worse and my eyes are darting around, looking for a way to
00:55:26put together the pieces.
00:55:27The Picasso face is turning into a blank face.
00:55:52The blank face.
00:55:53I can't really tell people's expression.
00:55:59Even though I'm, I'm kind of tracking where their eyes might be and practicing that a lot, I still can't see their eyes and I can't see the expressions on their face.
00:56:06Even though I'm kind of tracking where their eyes might be and practicing that a lot, I still can't see their eyes and I can't see the expressions on their face.
00:56:23I knew that they could see me, but I couldn't see them.
00:56:30And I felt so naked, so vulnerable.
00:56:36One of the things I really miss is like when Karen and I are just sitting in the living room watching TV or something and just glance over and I just catch her eye.
00:56:55But now I don't see her face and I just miss seeing my darling's face.
00:57:20We're collecting stories about plants from history. Sweet Woodruff was used during the May festivals and was May wine.
00:57:27We have woad, they mixed it up and they painted their bodies blue in the old days in England.
00:57:32So we have very ancient plants from history.
00:57:35I took a break from editing feature films and immersed myself in growing medicinal herbs.
00:57:44We knew nothing about plants when we first arrived.
00:57:47Slowly planting taught us, the plants taught us.
00:57:51We work in the film business, which is very exhausting.
00:57:56And so we started doing this because for our own health, it felt good.
00:58:02The more we worked around these plants, the better we began to feel.
00:58:07And then children came, busloads of kids from local schools.
00:58:19Ever since relinquishing my daughter, I felt sort of awkward around kids.
00:58:35And then one day, this young girl came up to me and took my hand.
00:58:45And in that small gesture, I felt all of that awkwardness fade away.
00:58:52Moms had evolved from pasture grass to a medicinal garden to a forest.
00:59:09And there was so many plants that were like, I felt so.
00:59:10I was constantly thinking, when I was in our house, the more I was in this way, it was good.
00:59:14And people used to play with the new thing at the very time and I felt it all.
00:59:16And you know that we used to be able to grow see the new plant.
00:59:19And there was a certain amount of plants that were not as many plants that were not as many plants,
00:59:24and then the next generation of plants that were not as many plants.
00:59:26For those plants are not as many plants that were not as many plants that were not as many plants.
00:59:28In other places, so that as well as the plants we have grown,
00:59:30they are selling an swimming pool in the earth.
00:59:31What's also given the last generation of plants that were not as many plants that were known?
00:59:33Power on.
01:00:03Start recording.
01:00:06Calendula aficionalis.
01:00:10Recording is done.
01:00:13Calendula aficionalis.
01:00:21This is a new label.
01:00:23Start recording.
01:00:24Withenia Somnifera.
01:00:29Ashwagandha.
01:00:32Recording is done.
01:00:35Withenia Somnifera.
01:00:37Ashwagandha.
01:00:53Ashwagandha.
01:00:54Say Ashwagandha.
01:00:55Say Ashwagandha.
01:00:57I know you.
01:01:02This will be a little bit warmer for you.
01:01:11A switch to documentaries came as a crisis of conscience.
01:01:16And then a chance meeting with documentary filmmaker Lourdes Portillo.
01:01:25Lourdes, I'm here.
01:01:26I'm going to throw you the key, okay?
01:01:27Okay.
01:01:29I'm going to throw you the key, okay?
01:01:31Okay.
01:01:32I'm going to throw you the key, okay?
01:01:34You know, coming from feature films and I had, you know, worked for all men, you know, in all of my film career up to there.
01:01:43And then all of a sudden I meet Lourdes Portillo.
01:01:45And then all of a sudden I meet Lourdes Portillo.
01:01:49The Great Cook.
01:01:50The Great Cook, the Great Cook.
01:01:51You brought this kind of, this kind of freedom.
01:02:16of freedom like it expanded my idea of what was possible and we both have a
01:02:27very sick sense of humor no I don't
01:02:38Lourdes had this infectious and unique way of looking deeply into the
01:02:46world she imbued her films with a love of culture and family the stories that
01:03:00Lourdes told breathed life into me
01:03:03I just I thought this is really what I want to do this is it's heartfelt it has meaning and it
01:03:22just filled me with happiness nothing in this earth has given me more pleasure you know than
01:03:30to be an artist who makes films that was a major turning point for me in terms of leaving feature
01:03:42films and falling in love with documentaries one of the most haunting films that Lourdes and I worked on
01:03:53with Senorita extraviada about the disappearance and murder of hundreds of young women in Juarez
01:04:03Mexico what we did to begin with was put their photographs up around near the ceiling of the
01:04:12editing room and we surrounded the room with their photos so that we were looking up as we worked they
01:04:22were descending down to talk to us from the heavens
01:04:29there was so much horror that there was no handle for it there was no way to speak about it besides it being horror and you just want to cry or you don't want to see it
01:04:36there was so much horror that there was no handle for it there was no way to speak about it besides it being horror and you just want to cry or you don't want to see it and remember how we tried to to figure out how we were going to approach it
01:05:03how we were going to approach it that that conversation was so meaningful to me this film was going to be about the beauty of the girls that the mothers saw in their daughters
01:05:18we make an effort yeah we make an effort because we know what would happen if we don't
01:05:33after counting down the years my daughter turned 21 and I could finally start searching for her
01:05:58but all the records were sealed or confidential and everywhere I looked I hit a brick wall
01:06:10and then my partner Karen helped me search for her I took a little break from being an assistant sound editor
01:06:22and I became a private detective one of the first things she told me when we started seeing each other seriously was that she had given up a child for adoption and that it was really hard for her
01:06:36I realized that the trauma alone made it impossible to search alone
01:06:43when she talked about resuming her search for her daughter it was a no brainer that I would that I would help
01:06:51I went off to Sacramento where all the records for the state of California were kept on about the fourth day I found a record for a baby girl born on the right day in the right location
01:07:05she lived in Redwood City I realized that she would have gone to high school there so I headed to Redwood City to Sequoia High
01:07:17so as I'm looking through the yearbook I turned the page and there's a picture of a young woman who looked so much like Vivian when she was a teenager
01:07:27I cleared my voice I went and ripped the picture out of the yearbook and drove right to the Sol Zantz Company
01:07:39she's in her little editing room and I take out the picture and I show it to her and she instantly starts crying
01:07:46she's in her little editing room and there's a lot of time in the right side there's a little editing room with her
01:08:03My daughter and I first met in 1988 at a restaurant.
01:08:26I was looking, you know, doing that, you know,
01:08:29that when you're on, like, a blind date,
01:08:31and you're trying to find this person,
01:08:33you don't really know what they look like.
01:08:38I think I saw you, and I'm like,
01:08:40oh, my God, I think that's her.
01:08:41So afraid.
01:08:42And then you're sort of like, well, now I have to do this.
01:08:45You were stunning.
01:08:47You walked in, and I just went, oh, my God.
01:08:52It was sweet and awkward at the same time, you know?
01:08:55Yeah.
01:08:55Lived in two different levels at the same time.
01:08:58I just remember feeling like I was holding my breath.
01:09:00Everything was here.
01:09:01Everything was here.
01:09:02We were just anxious.
01:09:06You were so gracious sharing photographs,
01:09:10you know, of yourself growing up,
01:09:12and I looked at that book, and I thought,
01:09:14I get to see her grow up.
01:09:15Oh.
01:09:16I always knew I was adopted.
01:09:22My parents always knew I was English and Irish,
01:09:25because that's what the document said.
01:09:27I was half Irish, half English, but mostly German.
01:09:33My German name is Kati.
01:09:37My parents were immigrants from Germany.
01:09:42I came around at four months, and then my brother came two and a half years later.
01:09:49He's also adopted from a different family.
01:09:51We lived in a huge house, acre of property in the middle of San Carlos.
01:09:57It was a really beautiful place to grow up.
01:10:00I was one of four of this family.
01:10:04The adoption wasn't something that we discussed.
01:10:08I was their child.
01:10:11When I started coming up to Mom's head, I felt safe here.
01:10:19So when things would go wrong, I found myself coming up here.
01:10:25And I felt there was, I just could breathe.
01:10:31You just, like, walked in this place as if it had always known you.
01:10:38You know, and you had always somehow known this place.
01:10:42I was excited, you know, because it was a door.
01:10:46It was a little bit of light that was starting to come in.
01:10:49And there was some connection.
01:10:55When I introduced Kathleen to my family, my brothers and sister were shocked.
01:11:01They never knew that I had had a child.
01:11:08So I always had this feeling like, I think I'm supposed to be a part of a big family.
01:11:13I just remember we were at some long table, and everybody was talking at the same time.
01:11:19We all understood each other and knew what you were saying.
01:11:23It felt more family-like.
01:11:27Each time I gave her a hug or held her hand, I just felt this was the feeling I longed for, for so many years.
01:11:45We saw each other for birthdays and holidays, and we would talk on the phone for hours.
01:11:57Ten years after finding Kathleen, I worked with Diane Borchelin, who was adopted from Korea by an American family.
01:12:19Our stories are vastly different, but I got a chance to just glimpse a little bit into the life of an adoptee.
01:12:29I think the fact that you had this experience with adoption just, it provided a deeper understanding of the story and that brought out nuances that I think might not have been there if you hadn't been a birth mother interacting with this story, you know, as me as an adoptee.
01:12:43I tried to tell my mother, I tried to tell my mother that I wasn't who she thought I was.
01:12:51I told her my Korean mother is alive.
01:12:55I remember her taking me to the orphanage.
01:13:00We used to live in a house on top of a hill.
01:13:04She said, no, honey, that part's just a dream.
01:13:09You're a war orphan, and both your parents are dead.
01:13:25I would, like, watch you like a hawk, because I thought, you know, I need to know what Diane feels inside of her heart and how you held this process of adoption.
01:13:38You know, I think with adoption, there's always the question of what if?
01:13:42What if I hadn't left?
01:13:43What if I hadn't been adopted?
01:13:45What if my mother had kept me?
01:13:47What would I have turned out like?
01:13:48As I pieced together my own life, I asked myself the same question.
01:14:02What if I had run back to that room and grabbed my daughter?
01:14:07If I hadn't signed the adoption papers?
01:14:14If I had been able to bring her home?
01:14:18I don't know.
01:14:32Look at how long she described her.
01:14:37How long she, too, you've heard?
01:14:41I tried to say, whoa.
01:14:45And I said, whoa!
01:14:47The word mother, over the years we've searched for kind of ways of what to call each other.
01:15:06And so I would email you as different names.
01:15:10You know, let's try out this name this week.
01:15:13This is Phil Wright for us.
01:15:14You know, love bunny, love nana bunny, love Vivian.
01:15:19You were tiptoeing through the tulips on this word, knowing how much of a trigger word that was for me.
01:15:25Because I didn't understand why I couldn't call you mom.
01:15:29And I just, I still have a hard time with that.
01:15:33It's that intimacy of mother.
01:15:37Well, I didn't bring you up, you know.
01:15:40So I didn't, I wasn't your first mother experience.
01:15:44Now it's just like, Vivian, I love you for Vivian, okay?
01:15:49Or, or I call you bio mom.
01:15:53I love it.
01:15:54I'm like, yeah, my bio mom.
01:15:56Yeah, yeah.
01:15:56I love it.
01:15:57So mother's a trigger for my relationship with you as a mother that puts my mom right next to you.
01:16:12And those two can't sit in the same space.
01:16:15So my mom was Mutti.
01:16:20So there was authority in mother.
01:16:25And there's fear in that.
01:16:29And there's discomfort in that.
01:16:31And there's a lot of stuff in that.
01:16:36A little over a year ago, Kathleen started revealing more and more about her childhood.
01:17:00After my parents died, we were cleaning out the house and we found all of my mom's diaries.
01:17:14And I opened it up and first thing I see is this comment about, we adopted her.
01:17:23She's four and a half months old.
01:17:24She's got digestive problems.
01:17:26She's not eating well.
01:17:28And, oh my God, this kid is so stubborn and petulant.
01:17:32And I've got to beat this out of her.
01:17:40I just have a full-on breakdown.
01:17:43Full-on.
01:17:44And it just, it came out.
01:17:49And I was grabbing.
01:17:51I was sitting there like this, just grabbing.
01:17:53And tears are coming down.
01:17:55And it just, everything came out.
01:17:58And all of a sudden, this fit with this.
01:18:02And all of a sudden, oh, that's why I did this.
01:18:05And, oh, no wonder.
01:18:13I was beat into submission.
01:18:15I had no rights.
01:18:18I had no voice.
01:18:20I mean, we got beat with, with the belt.
01:18:22And my dad broke a door jam because he went for my head.
01:18:26I ducked.
01:18:28You know, being tied up to the, to the fireplace because, you know, I would wander.
01:18:35I didn't understand how my life connected through being born, being given up for adoption, being adopted, and then being abused.
01:18:47I was angry at you.
01:18:52I was so angry.
01:18:53It's the first time.
01:18:54And I'm like, I can't talk to you.
01:18:56I need to walk away from you.
01:18:58And I can't talk to you because this hurts too much.
01:19:00And I need to figure out who I am on my own.
01:19:03I felt responsible for what Kathleen went through.
01:19:22I prayed I wouldn't lose her again.
01:19:27I didn't know if, which way our relationship was going to go.
01:19:56It hadn't very little to do with you, but it started with you.
01:20:06There was neglect and, and abandonment that wasn't addressed.
01:20:12And then abuse and everything else was packed on top of that.
01:20:16That wasn't you doing something wrong.
01:20:20My parents did something wrong.
01:20:23So I needed to separate those two things out.
01:20:26Right.
01:20:27It took a while.
01:20:28It took almost a year.
01:20:29I couldn't run after you.
01:20:32I just, I knew that what, what you needed was space.
01:20:37It was a, um, an act of faith that you wouldn't leave.
01:20:42That you'd give me the time.
01:20:45Mm-hmm.
01:20:46And you did.
01:20:46I'm making a conscious effort to be me, to allow you to see me.
01:20:56And I have family.
01:20:57I have real family now.
01:20:59I know it's been 30 years, but I finally feel it because I can't.
01:21:04I couldn't before.
01:21:06Oh, my dear.
01:21:06Oh, my dear.
01:21:36As much as I want to, I can't change the past.
01:21:44When I was younger, I saw myself as someone who didn't really have a choice.
01:21:51Now I want to take responsibility for the decisions I made.
01:21:57And that, in a way, frees me to be more present for Kathleen.
01:22:11Losing my sight has allowed me to use my other senses.
01:22:29To drop in with people.
01:22:34To feel close to them.
01:22:37To feel people's presence a little more.
01:22:42It's entirely possible to hold the joy and the sadness in a moment.
01:23:09To allow both to exist at the same time.
01:23:16And cut.
01:23:25To feel the joy and the darkness.
01:23:34To feel it's possible to act.
01:23:34I need PRINCE THAT'S POWER.
01:23:35Oh, my God.
01:24:05Oh, my God.
01:24:35Oh, my God.
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