https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fCPu8lpm6k
Death: A Love Story (1999)
A timely documentary that looks into the gift that death offers when we are able to put our fears, confusions and denial aside and simply sit and listen to our loved ones as they pass.
Watch The Film
More than a film, this intimate exploration of the dying process is a powerful teaching tool.
An Official Documentary Selection at the Sundance Film Festival, this film follows the journey of husband and wife filmmakers Mel Howard and Michelle Le Brun as they confront Mel's unexpected terminal illness and ultimate death. Through their intimate and compelling story, we discover the psychological, spiritual, and sociological aspects of death in American culture.
Contrasted against Mel and Michelle's search for dignity and grace, is the world of medicine, both traditional and alternative, which they must first traverse. In the end, Mel shares his death and discoveries about life with extraordinary clarity and wisdom. This final segment of the film is revelatory in its treatment of death. Profoundly uplifting and thought-provoking, Death: A Love Story portrays the rite of passage we all must one day face. In all of its irony, power and poetry, it shows us that life's greatest gifts can sometimes be found in the seed of death.
"... an eye-opening, sobering encounter with modern medicine and remarkable evidence of filmmaking playing a part in the healing process."
Hollywood Reporter
Sept. 7-13,1999
David Hunter
"In this most intimate and powerful of collaborations, Le Brun and Howard confront death in a manner that allows it to give life meaning."
Los Angeles Times
September 2,1999
Kevin Thomas
"... remarkable for its unflinching look at Howard's dealings with the medical establishment."
San Francisco Chronicle
October 25, 1999
Peter Stack
"Death in narrative film is often mawkishly rendered, but here, death is truly a love story."
International Documentary
April 1999
Thomas White & Cara Mertes
"Often we shrink away from discussions of illness and death, as if even uttering such words will increase our susceptibility."
The Boston Globe
March 19th, 1999
Renee Graham
"As Howard's body shrinks with the disease, his spirit rises to a shamanic stature..."
The Boston Phoenix
March 19th - 25th
Peter Keough
Endorsements
”"This film is as important as it is unique. The filmmaker has created a painstakingly objective birdseye view of the dying process as it slowly overcomes the most important person in her life "All of us should watch it and learn from it."
Douglas Tyler, MDDiplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine
”"Thank you for making this extraordinary work!"
Bruce RubinWriter, Producer, & Director: Ghost, My life
”"Thank you for sending me the video of Death A Love Story. I found this a beautiful way of expressing Mel's passage from life to death. I shall share this video with our staff."
Jacob Karula MDProfessor of Clinical Medicine, USC
”"Over the years of his (Mel's) illness, his wife, Michelle Le Brun and he recorded hundreds of hours of their confrontations with disease, the medical profession, themselves and mortality. It is this struggle to deal with death that makes this film valuable, for it is a struggle we all must face."
Jeremy KaganDirector, Writer, Producer, Former Artistic Director Sundance Institute, Head of Directing Program, USC
”"In our society, in western culture as a whole, death is generally kept out of sight, ignored, or made impersonal, either as statistics or as the gore of sensationalism. This attempt at avoidance results in a level of superficiality that is penetrated only when one is faced with one's own death or the death of a loved one. Entertainment that is also art involves the viewer inescapably in the mystery of life and death. Death: A Love Story is entertainment that is also art."
GangajiSpiritual Leader
”"Your piece moved me in a deep, profound way. It's hard to write about sometimes, because these words are said all too often. But from the bottom of my heart. I was changed forever in a deep way when I left that theater. Mel and you gave me one of the greatest gifts of waking me up to my life."
Audience Member
”"When I was getting my BFA from Boston University, I struggled with finding a definition for "art". I came to the conclusion that art is something that is created with love, moves me emotionally, and stays with me long after seeing it. Your film is an articulate, beautiful, intelligent, witty, and profound work of art."
Audience Member
”"This documentary was a live-expanding and life-changing experience for me and I am eternally grateful for the gift you and Mel have bestowed upon so many of us."
Audience Member
”"Your movie is really important in that it not only addresses death but shows the wonder, amazement and life that can come out of having to deal with it."
Audience Member
