moment they were together, Tom’s father coached young Tom in hockey, centering in him the importance of being number one and of winning – at all costs. Tom’s father lived only until he was 37, and died after a period of illness and decline tracked by his family. Tom did not cry at his father’s death. Instead, he made a promise to honor his father’s wish by becoming an athlete in “the big leagues.” Tom’s life at Milton and in college was devoted to reaching for what his father wanted of him – after hockey was baseball, and then tennis. When the athletic big leagues proved outside his grasp, Tom brought the same drive to his work as a cameraman, earning an Emmy Award at 28. An extremely challenging assignment with a camera crew in Belize brought Tom to the inescapable point of having to consider the source of his own battles with fear, risk, success and failure. Over time, the grip of his father on Tom’s life emerged, and the effect of sublimating emotional responses to his father’s death.
Adrift began as a documentary film about the world of striped-bass fishing. Tom’s brother Gavin, pictured at right, is a commercial fisherman.
From left to right, Adrift filmmakers: Laura Parker Roerden, educational outreach producer; Jamila Wignot, production assistant; Todd Boekelheide, composer; Tracy Heather Strain, producer; Llewelyn M. Smith ’72, writer; Shondra Burke, editor; Myna Joseph, associate producer; and Tom Curran ’81, director-producercamera.
From 1996, when it was clear that film on the world of bass-fishing (Night Train) was developing into a quite a different story, until 2001, Tom worked to realize Adrift. Several Milton graduates helped Tom fulfill this artistic expression, including Jessica Hallowell Lindley, Jide Zeitlin, Josh Bixler (all ’81), and Llewelyn Smith ’72, a seasoned, accomplished and awardwinning documentary producer, director, and writer helped Tom translate his life story to the film’s narrative. He advised Tom to begin by writing notes – everything he could remember – about his life. Those notes, the subject of raw interviews with Lew, ultimately became the film’s narration. Tom drew his sister Maeve, brothers Gavin ’86 and Desmond ’84, and his mother Mary Jane into the interviews, and all contribute to the drawing of a man whose impact on the family, and on friends, was profound. Tom takes questions from the audience after the film, and often the questioners probe the reactions of Tom’s family members to his attempt to make sense of their father in a film. The film sets up a deep reflective silence among viewers, as well, perhaps because of how easy it is to identify with a story so
striking, so intimate and so painful. Eventually the questions do pour out, and Tom answers – quietly and honestly. With the film’s release, Tom and a number of professionals and interested individuals are developing outreach initiatives tied to local television broadcasts of the film and designed to: • Explore the prevailing messages around manhood that adults and youth have internalized. • Re-cast the role of parents, coaches, and other important adults in facilitating healthy emotional development in boys. • Help boys and men safely express and release profound, though forbidden, feelings of humiliation, fear, anger and grief. • Reframe sports and other activities of connection for youth to be an opportunity for healthy expression of feelings, authenticity, and character building. The film’s powerful message is especially for adults, Tom says, and particularly for fathers. Cathleen Everett
37 Milton Magazine