A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Original Title:
Helen and the Bear
Genres:
Documentary
Production Countries:
United States of America
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 81
In the 1970s, Helen, an idealistic young hippie, meets US Congressman Pete McCloskey, a Republican star known for opposing his party and running against Richard Nixon. They fall in love with each other and with the California wilderness; together, they write policies to protect that wilderness in a shared passion that deepens their bond. Helen loves Pete but he is always away for work; in her solitude, she explores her queerness and begins a six-year relationship with a girlfriend. Helen doesn’t want to hurt Pete, but she cannot deny all that she is. The years pass and their marriage lasts, Helen celebrates her 70th birthday and Pete turns 96, they eat magic mushrooms on their wedding anniversaries and take annual road trips to New Mexico. As they prepare for Pete’s death—the first time they will be apart in decades—Helen reflects on their relationship to understand how love breaks us, and makes us better people.
Director:
Alix Blair
Director of Photography:
Alix Blair
Editor:
Katrina Taylor
Executive Producer:
Kirsten Johnson
Producer:
Alix Blair
Rebekah Fergusson
Jenny Slattery
Writer:
Alix Blair
Katrina Taylor
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Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.