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HBO: This is a very personal film. What inspired you
to make it?
Irene Taylor Brodsky: I think somewhere deep in my gut I always
knew I wanted to tell the story of my parents'
life, and I say "life" because in a way, their two
lives are one life because to me they're so
inseparable. They've been married for over 45
years. Our upbringing with deaf parents was
somewhat unorthodox, so I think part of me
did start to understand that they had a very
special story. But I didn't really have the
impetus to tell it until a few years ago when
they told me they were going to get cochlear
implants.
I was very surprised, but once I got over the
initial shock, I realized this was a good chance
to turn the camera on them finally. So I think
the cochlear implants were just an excuse and
a narrative tool to tell a love story. And that
story was of two deaf people in love, coming of
age in a very difficult time for people who were
deaf.
HBO: Initially, you had concerns about the
operation, and what their "new world" would
be like.
Irene Taylor Brodsky: Well, I think the selfish part of me wondered
what it would mean for me, and a certain
identity I always had as the daughter of two
deaf parents. So I wondered what it would
mean for our family dynamic.
The more transcendent thoughts, I guess you
could say, had to do with what this would
mean for the way my parents digest the world
around them. I was worried that it might
upset an equilibrium they had worked so hard
to achieve. They were already well adjusted to
their deafness. This operation was going to
force them to start all over again.
I wondered, would they both react the same
way? Would they both like it? Would one of
them do well and the other not so well? And
what would that do not only to their dynamic
as a married couple but the way they relate to
the world around them? I was worried it all
might be too unsettling.
But ultimately I didn't need to worry about
them because they're just not worrying kind of
people. If they were, they would have let their
deafness get the better of them a long time
ago.
HBO: Where are things now with each of them?
Irene Taylor Brodsky: Although they do connect with the aural world
around them much, much more than they did
before, they still have to lip read to
communicate. And I think that's a very
fundamental similarity to their lives before the
surgery. As much as things have changed, the
most defining thing that's remained the same
is that they still need to look at you in order to
have a conversation with you.
HBO: When your parents started to communicate
their experience of hearing, what were some of
their first impressions?
Irene Taylor Brodsky: Well, my father has a great moment in the
film when the audiologist asks him what his
very first sound sounds like. And my father
looks at him, he pauses, and then he says,
"Well, what does color look like? How do you
describe what red looks like?"
So this reminds us how relative sound is, that
it's a relationship with our brain rather than a
fixed constant. It's important to us because of
what it means to us. And so for my father,
what he initially heard was just a sound. It
had no context - no meaning - whatsoever
because he hadn't heard it in that way before.
I think the same can be said for my mom
hearing music. My mom always had a very
strong connection to music, and I think it's
because she had two music-minded parents.
She was raised in a very musical household
and grew up with the vibrations of rhythm
and beat. So, her desire to hear music was a
huge part of her motivation to get the implant.
At 65, she had already become a very musical
person, but music to her was literally a
feeling, it was a touch, a vibration. Those
experiences sparked her emotional response
to music. When she finally heard music, it
was so different. It didn't have that same
resonance as before. Even now, she still
prefers to feel sound and feel music.
HBO: What do you hope audiences will take away
from the film?
Irene Taylor Brodsky: This film is not simply about cochlear
implantation. Superficially it's about that. But
I hope people take away a sense of intimacy,
that seeing these two lives they feel a sense of
privilege to be a fly on the wall because these
two people really gave me the greatest access
a filmmaker could ever ask for.
They never asked me to turn off the camera.
So it's like you're just sitting in their living
room with them, following them through a day
in their new life together. I hope audiences
can just take away a certain intimacy for two
people in love because at its heart this film is
really a love story. That's what I get out of it,
and I hope that's what others can too.
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