Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
In 1971, Jack and Betty Gannon had a car full of family, and the idyllic beach town of Cape May, New Jersey as their intended destination, when a train on a disused line barrelled towards them, ultimately striking the car. Directed by Jack and Betty’s son, the director James P Gannon, the documentary Deerwoods Deathtrap captures the couple’s return ‘to the scene of the crime’ for the first time since that fateful day. Shooting on Kodak Super 8 film to lend the piece a folksy, nostalgic look, Gannon captures his parents as they try to recall exactly how it all happened. Although the outcome was nearly tragic, Gannon mines a healthy dose of dry humour from the ordeal, letting the camera roll as his parents disagree over the details of the crash, and placing them in a series of dramatic reenactments. The resulting film makes for a charming – and, from the safe distance of 50 years, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny – reflection on family, memory and the sometimes razor-thin margin between comedy and tragedy.
Director: James P Gannon
Producers: James D Cochran, April Gannon, Matt Ferrin, Joseph K Gannon, Chris Cipriano
video
Technology and the self
Greetings from Green Bank – the small town where modern technology is banned
10 minutes
video
Stories and literature
What makes John Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ so enduringly powerful?
10 minutes
video
Human evolution
Far from frivolous, cuteness is a powerful – and still mysterious – force of nature
6 minutes
video
Dance and theatre
How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood
16 minutes
video
Family life
On a whirlwind morning, a couple learns if they’re facing an unplanned pregnancy
7 minutes
video
The ancient world
What wine vessels reveal about politics and luxury in ancient Athens and Persia
16 minutes
video
Art
David Goldblatt captured the contradictions of apartheid in stark black and white
15 minutes
video
Philosophy of mind
Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no
5 minutes
video
Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes