A video exploration of the Declaration of Independence’s most ambiguous "self-evident truth" through portraits of six people whose paths intersect at a maximum security prison in Pittsburgh, PA. Molly Rush is a mother of six and a member of the Plowshares Eight who faces jail for damaging nuclear missiles at a GE plant. Rush doesn’t "pursue happiness," but finds meaning in acting against the threat of total annihilation. Her husband, Bill, an engineer and family man struggles to understand her apocalyptic fears and worries about their children. Molly visits a fellow activist in jail, Warden George Petsock, who opposes breaking the law for any reason. At home, Petsock dreams of retiring and purchasing a mobile home. His wife Ida May ponders the happiness she sacrificed in thirty years of supporting George’s career. Finally, two "lifers," Ron Grimm, a Vietnam veteran, and Walter Henderson, an African American who works in the prison garden, contemplate the paradox of pursuing happiness while incarcerated and if that right was really meant for everybody.
Main Credits
produced and directed by Julie Gustafson and John Reilly; principal camera and videographer, Julie Gustafson; editor, Julie Gustafson and Nicole FauteuxAdditional Credits
produced with the advice and support of humanities scholars: John Demos, Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, Jay Ruby, Muriel Dimen, Eugenia Bain, Laurence Thomas, and David Noble; second camera, Hart Perry; sound recordist, Martin Lucas; additional sound, Victor Sanchez and Nicole Fauteux; Plowshares courtroom scene, Tom Loftstrom, Art Kamell, and Terry Williams; opening clip of Molly Rush from "In the King of Prussia" by Emile de Antonio; editing advisors, Emile de Antonio and Leslie Danoff; videotape editing, Rebo Associates and National Video Industries; creative consultant, Alan Miller; assistant editors, Pam Cohen, Lola Romano, Helene Susman, and Carla Zackson; montage design, Nathaniel Merrill; additional editing assistants, Paula Holland, Joanna Molloy, and Michael Danza; sound mix, William Willumstad and The Sound Shop; production assistants, Margaret Ahwesh and Michael Cantella; radio announcer, Martin Marinara; funded by The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Rockefeller Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the ArtsDate
1983Staff and Producer Comments
Tom Shales of the Washington Post said filmmakers Julie Gustafson and John Reilly “put a viewer at emotional risk almost immediately…the more you know…the more you want to know, and the more deeply you care.” Deirdre Boyle, in her book VIDEO CLASSICS remarks on the literary quality of PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, saying some of the dialogue rivals the likes of Samuel Beckett. “The tape is a major documentary and artistic achievement.” Filmmaker Julie Gustafson, who along with John Reilly produced PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, remarked in a 1984 VIDEOGRAPHY interview: “Though we hadn’t initially intended this, we realized when Molly Rush visited her fellow Plowshares activist in prison that we could use the techniques of many dramatists -- unified characters, action and place -- to construct the film. We updated this with the video verite techniques we always use, shooting hours of footage from the daily lives of our real life ‘characters.’ Their personal stories and meditations on ‘the pursuit of happiness’ made it possible for us to bring these abstract philosophical ideas to life in a modern context.”
PBS & Permanent Collection of the Museum of Modern Art 1984; Best Documentary at the Chicago Film Festival, 1982. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix www.eai.org/titles/the-pursuit-of-happinessRunning Time
59 min.Video Tape Format
Digital file
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