2006 Fiction

The Mystery of Love: Transcript

The Independent Production Fund

Everyone seeks love, but so often we barely recognize what love is or the countless ways it can thrive in our daily lives. Fueled by one-dimensional and misleading caricatures of love and romance in the popular media, we imagine that love is only about finding an ideal mate. But love has many more dimensions and possibilities.
In a world of deepening violence and misunderstanding, we need to explore the forces that hold things together. By expanding our definition of love, we learn to honor equally the many forms of affection and connection that create a healthy life and society.
The Mystery of Love examines the many faces of love through in-depth stories of marriage, family, friendship, divine love, altruistic love, brotherly love, the love between parents and children, and love of community.
The TV special also includes insights and commentary from leading authorities who have worked with the subject of love, including Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, Jr., Betty Sue Flowers, Ph.D., Ethel Person, M.D., Rabbi Alan Lew, and Frances Vaughan, Ph.D.
Hosted by author, playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith, the special is produced by the team that brought Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers to PBS. Bill Moyers calls this broadcast "as deep, tender, and ineffable as the subject itself, and as eye-opening, exhilarating, and beguiling as the first moment it happens to you.”