In popular culture, one type of love — sexual romance — is prized above all. But there are many kinds of love that give shape and meaning to life, passionate connections that define what we value and who we are. Despite thousands of years of advice from philosophers and sages and libraries filled with answers, love remains as one of the immense on-going mysteries of life.
The Mystery of Love is a two-hour PBS documentary that puts love on the public agenda. The DVD is available at the PBS store.
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. The Mystery of Love will air on most PBS stations in mid-December. 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.”
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 Mystery of Love 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.
“Today we are inundated with negative, destructive, even violent news. I wanted The Mystery of Love to explore thoughtfully and from many angles those aspects of life which connect us to one another, rather than separate us,” says Executive Producer Joan Konner. “As a journalist, it seemed to me that the most important element of life—love, in its many manifestations—should be openly examined and addressed in the public square.”
“I think people don’t feel that they have permission to talk about something that makes them as vulnerable as love," says scholar and author Dr. Betty Sue Flowers. "So we don’t usually talk about it in public."
As host Anna Deavere Smith reminds us at the end of The Mystery of Love: “Most of us cannot survive, and do not want to live a single day, without love. We can make a choice to live life through the lens of fear, of separation, competition, and loss. Or we can see the same world differently, through the lens of love and connection.”
A transcript of the show is available as a PDF document.
To bring The Mystery of Love to communities and classrooms across the country, the Independent Production Fund is working with Active Voice and the National Council of Teachers of English.
The Mystery of Love is the first in a series of three films being funded by the Fetzer Institute as part of its Campaign for Love & Forgiveness, an inclusive, non-partisan initiative that explores how love and forgiveness can effect meaningful change in individuals and communities alike.
Additional funding provided by:
Southwest Airlines
The Betsy Gordon Foundation
The Mystery of Love is written by Joan Konner and Christopher Lukas. Executive Producer is Joan Konner. Alvin H. Perlmutter is Executive Director. The Mystery of Love is a production of the Independent Production Fund.