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The Child’s Point of View

DRUNKEN explores childhood observations and historical/cultural models of drunkenness. What do children, most of whom have never been “drunk” on alcohol, see – and what do they make of it? For a child, an observation of a fractured reality brings into play an array of subconscious reactions. The film underlines the intensity of the confrontation with an adult’s drunken episode, and questions adult representations of these behaviors.

Being Drunk is Being Disabled

Drunkenness in its extremes is a diminution of our “real” daytime selves, a state of loss:

• loss of focus

• loss of physical and emotional control

• loss of communication

• sometimes loss of consciousness.

It’s a wonderful release, and a “time out,” but, like many extremes, has dual truths.

How Do Children Respond? Freeze, Flee or Fight

DRUNKEN interviews adults about childhood exposures and persisting impressions of drunken behavior. It is a film about the disconnection felt by many children and their impulses to freeze, flee or fight.

One in Four

Children show keen awareness of the disabilities of the drunken, and there are a lot of children watching. One in four American children is exposed to drunkenness by the age of eighteen.

Drunk is Normal

In the movies, drunkards are both funny and sad. Home movies, early slapstick and classic comedic cinema extend conceptions of drunkenness across the generations and point to normalizing cultural models both comedic and violent in nature.

Home Movies & Early Films

We are pairing local, personal stories with on-the-street documentations of “benders”; home movies set in local, often seasonal, cultures; and images from early cinema. Resources include home movies and the archived collections of early films including those of our fiscal sponsor, Northeast Historic Film – a repository for moving images specializing in collections from Maine families and other “amateur” films.

Our Agenda – Those who Don’t Disappear

Drinkers sober up and the drunkard disappears. Children do not. In the United States, drinking alcohol is legal. As is being drunk, to a degree. Much attention is paid to the drinker balancing between drinking and drunk, who “disappears” after the hangover. DRUNKEN tells the stories of those who do not disappear, for whom strong impressions remain. We strive to create a healthy confusion for viewers, leading to reassessment of observed events. We hope to provoke questions about how each of us affects others when in our own altered states.

Where Drunken Behaviour Takes Place

Though children largely define their experiences as individual and theirs alone, many confrontations with drunkenness have roots in specific cultures. We take the overlaying settings of drinking in Maine as microcosms for other American drinking cultures.

Team and Resources

The filmmaking team is based in Maine and represents the best of Maine’s professional film community. We are drawn from a variously-talented group of individuals whose work ranges across broadcast documentary, commercial and educational markets. Please watch our “crew” video to learn a little more about everyone.

Most of our home movies document Maine families and residents, and most are available to us because they have been preserved by Northeast Historic Film, Maine’s moving image cultural history archives.