Image Union, episode 0023: A Steady Rain

Image Union episode featuring "A Steady Rain" by Marc Leif. "A Steady Rain" is a short film about abusive domestic relationships, seen through the eyes of a young boy.

0:00Copy video clip URL Color bars and slate.

0:41Copy video clip URL Image Union opening.

1:35Copy video clip URL “A Steady Rain” by Marc Leif. Color film. We see images of a gray, rainy Chicago.

2:18Copy video clip URL A boy of seven or eight looks out a window at the rain. This is Jeffrey (Robby Seaverns). His exasperated mother, Jo Ann (Trisha Dunn), rushes to get ready for work, prepares cereal for Jeffrey, and lectures him to throw away his rusty toy.

5:03Copy video clip URL Jo Ann is working as a waitress in a diner when her ex-husband (Joe Mantegna) comes in. Her co-worker takes her to the back and tells Jo Ann to tell the ex to take a hike, but she won’t. The ex motions for Jeffrey to come to him. Jeffrey isn’t sure.

6:51Copy video clip URL The co-worker covers for Jo Ann by attempting to serve the ex some coffee to go. They argue. He yells at Jo Ann across the restaurant and makes a scene.

8:29Copy video clip URL Again, Jeffrey stares out his window at the rain.

8:34Copy video clip URL Nighttime. Jeffrey’s in bed, mom reads. Knock at door. She lets ex in. She seems to care about him still. She dresses his burnt hand.

10:10Copy video clip URL Ex confronts her about what happened in the cafe. She asks him to leave. They argue. The ex becomes violent and pulls Jeffrey out of bed, aiming to beat him up. Joanne stops it. The ex beats her and rapes her.

13:16Copy video clip URL Jeffrey kneels at the end of the bed and looks at his mom splayed out on the floor after the rape.

13:50Copy video clip URL Later, Jo Ann holds Jeffrey in her lap against a blue window. Jo Ann tells Jeffrey that he’s too young to understand, but that people sometimes can’t control themselves when they want something really badly.

15:45Copy video clip URL Later, Jeffrey watches a father berate his grown son in the alley, on another bleak rainy day.

16:57Copy video clip URL Image of jack-o-lantern. Three kids in costume walk empty city streets alone at night. Two of them run away, and Jeffrey the hobo is left to walk alone. He wanders around past prostitutes and a blind man.

18:58Copy video clip URL Jeffrey enters a pool hall and messes with gum-ball machines. He sees the father and son from the alley, the father still yelling at his son over trivial matters. The older man chases Jeff out of the pool hall.

20:19Copy video clip URL Later, in the alley, Jeffrey sees the father and son arguing again. The son eventually hits his limit and shoots and kills his father, then runs away.

22:45Copy video clip URL Jeffrey runs into the alley and checks on the shot man, who lies dead in a rain puddle. The film ends on the pretty, sad image of Jeffrey sitting in the rain in the alley, hugging the dead man’s body.

24:24Copy video clip URL End credits.

26:28Copy video clip URL A brief segment about the making of “A Steady Rain,” the many Chicago filmmakers and actors that helped create it, and a bit about the lack of attention paid to short narrative films in the United States.

28:04Copy video clip URL Image Union closing.

28:59Copy video clip URL End of tape.

 

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