Syracuse native captures 50-year love story with new film

By Nate Lechner asst. culture editor

On Friday, Bill Muench will be returning to his hometown of Syracuse, eager to reunite with his friends from Jamesville-Dewitt High School. This homecoming isn’t part of a high school reunion, but the premiere of Muench’s passion project.

“There is no way I ever dreamed that when I was 61 years old, I would come back to Syracuse to premiere a film that I had made,” Muench said.

The film, titled “The Artist and The Astronaut,” is a documentary chronicling the relationship between Pat Musick, an artist, and Jerry Carr, an astronaut. The endeavor was a dream for Muench, having known them for over 20 years. He wanted to explore the unique life experiences of the couple and all the notable events they experienced.

“They both showed up at major historical events through the ‘60s in the ‘70s, either by accident or design, and the film is kind of reliv- ing these famous events through the eyes of the artist and the astronaut,” Muench said.

He originally conceived the documentary at Musick’s 90th birthday party in 2016, at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. While there, Muench reflected on Musick’s life and legacy as an artist and wanted to tell her story.

Musick said that when she and Carr first heard about Muench’s plan for the documentary, they were happy that their relationship was going to be shown to the public.

“Well, both of us were very excited about it. The story of our lives is intriguing to so many people that we’ve met around the world that couldn’t figure out how we put our space together,” Musick said. “That was what Bill saw and wanted to document that, it was just exciting.

After years of research, interviews and production, the documentary wrapped nearly six years later, on Musick’s 96th birthday. Muench will be screening the film at the Museum of Science and Technology of Syracuse this Friday.

Muench said he wanted to depict the evolution of the relationship between Carr and Musick throughout the decades and their work in their specific fields, ending with their time together since retirement.

“I could see how [the documentary] would go back and forth, you would just bounce between the two of them during those decades, and then they got together in 1978,” see movie page 7