About Objects and Memory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twenty years after 9/11, what have we learned?  How do we respond to momentous events, again and again?  How do otherwise ordinary items come to symbolize experiences, aspirations, and identity? OBJECTS AND MEMORY, a PBS documentary, captures moving remembrances of extraordinary historical events and the innate human drive to maintain connections and continuity by preserving the past and speaking to the future.
OBJECTS AND MEMORY is about the things in our homes and museums that mean the most to us because of their associations with people, places, and experiences.   These days with the extensive losses due to Covid-19, people are reflecting on what they most value and the things that represent those they love, as they did following 9/11.

Why are objects meaningful?  What is it about a piece of paper, an ID card or a teddy bear that evokes powerful memories?  How do deeply personal possessions create community and vitalize history?
When people’s lives undergo sudden upheaval and incomprehensible loss, they seek a bridge between the irreplaceable past and a hopeful future.  OBJECTS AND MEMORY uses 9/11 as the focal point of the documentary and also features visits to the memorial site of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial to elaborate on the power and poignancy of objects retrieved from and left at the sites. The film captures rarely seen footage of the recovery effort and its dramatic challenges, and presents moving, evocative images of everyday objects that became treasured possessions following the life-altering disaster.  Stories by family members, witnesses to the tragedies, and historians tell how objects remind us of special experiences and emotional connections.  

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The filmmakers Jonathan Fein and Brian Danitz knew that many films – as good as they may be – grow dated and stale over time, so they strove to craft a work that, by illuminating ever-present, universal human responses and values, would remain relevant and meaningful.   The fact that the film is sought out years after its original release is a testament to that achievement.
Shawn Halford, senior director of programming and scheduling at PBS’s National Program Service for 21 years wrote, “Your program is one of the very few that continue to see broadcast play after so many years – the overwhelming majority of shows never see that much affection over time from PBS and stations.”  And recently the producers got email from a Massachusetts UPS driver who wrote, “I saw the film on PBS a few years back and it captured (excuse the language) the sh*t out of me. All of it was very moving. Now that my kids are old enough we want to share it with them.”

With the all-too-many traumatic events that have occurred since 9/11 – and still are occurring – OBJECTS AND MEMORY sheds light on fundamental human responses and concerns and helps us understand how we navigate through a fraught material world by imbuing otherwise ordinary things with meaning.

In presenting meaningful physical symbols - those that speak, those that reach out, and those that heal - and their stories, in the unusually dramatic setting of their retrieval, OBJECTS and MEMORY explores the things we most value.   Without the objects, the stories would lack vibrancy; without the stories the objects would lack significance. Taken together, the images of the objects, the stories they evoke, and the stories of their collection lead the viewer on a journey where the commonplace is transformed into the remarkable and where the stuff of history is highly personalized.

 

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