Fault (2021)

The documentary tells the story of a Caltech geophysicist who is slowly losing his memory to Alzheimers. David G. Harkrider discovered how to tell the difference between underground nuclear tests and earthquakes - a discovery that allowed the US to verify Russia's compliance with test ban treaties, and directly led to treaties banning underground nuclear tests. But he also tried to kill his wife when she told him she was leaving him for a young musician. And so he broke her jaw and half of her ribs and would have killed her had he not looked up and seen his eight and six year old children, the youngest of which was me, the filmmaker. The film is intended to reveal rather than criticize or celebrate a person. To understand the reasons people do what they do, while at the same time completely rejecting their sufficiency. To forgive, rather than to forget, while acknowledging that there may be no difference between the two. The story takes place in Boston, California, New York City and Texas. It mixes science and music together - telling personal stories about Einstein and Nobel Prize winners Richard Feynman, Robert Millikan and Charlie Richter with live and recorded performances of Debussy, Stravinski, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. Shot in sparse B&W by Barron Claiborne, edited by Louis Carballar (Amores Perros), visual effects by Edgeworx (Kid Stays in the Picture), and original score by Jeremy Pelt (5 Times Downbeat Rising Star Trumpeter).