Sound and Fury is the story of Heather Artinian, a young deaf girl caught up between the opportunity to hear the sounds around her and the opposition of her family and the deaf community which accepts deafness as a way of life. Heather, her deaf parents, parents hearing siblings, non-hearing and hearing grandparents are caught up in the issues and politics of giving Heather the ability to hear through a surgical implant known as a cochlear implant. (CI) is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing.
Heather has both hearing and non-hearing friends. It is clear she wants the opportunity to be like her hearing friends. Heather’s mother is somewhat interested in letting her daughter get the surgery, but her father, Peter is against it, “if somebody gave me a pill that would give me hearing, would I take it? No,“ he states. Heather’s grandmother lobbies her son to allow the surgery. The family is in turmoil from the beginning but starts to research the possibility. At one point Heather’s mother, Nita even checks into the possibility of getting an implant for herself.
COCHLEAR IMPLANT DIAGRAM WIKIPEDIA
Sound and Fury dubs voices for the all the deaf people who are signing. This convention helps watching the documentary since no sub titles are required. Deaf people should be able to read the signing most of the time. The story explores all the issues associated with the “deaf world” and its relationship to the “hearing world.” In so doing Sound and Fury brings to light the actuality of being deaf and how deaf people do not feel that it is a handicap as a life style, even though there are some difficulties.
The documentary allows all the arguments, pro and con the question of not only cochlear implanting Heather, but what it means to her parents and others concerned. Chris Artinian, Peter and Mari, Peter’s hearing brother and his hearing wife, give birth to twins, one of who is deaf. Chris and Mari go through the process of learning about cochlear implants and decide to go ahead with the operation. Heather’s mother who is now apparently leaning against the implant argues with Mari to the extent that you start to wonder why she really is against this operation. Marianne, Heather’s Grandmother is for Heather getting the implant and pushes her son Peter to do this for Heather.
Sound and Fury has many aspects as a documentary. It is educational, cultural, social and in certain aspects anthropological. It brings the “deaf world,” into focus as one in which people do not consider themselves handicapped. Sound and Fury is a moving, insightful documentary that has a number of surprises in store for the audience.
NOTE:
As of April 2009, approximately 188,000 people worldwide had received cochlear implants; in the United States, about 40,000 adults and over 30,000 children are recipients. The vast majority are in developed countries due to the high cost of the device, surgery and post-implantation therapy. A small but growing segment of recipients have bilateral implants (one implant in each cochlea).
Cochlear implants can restore hearing in patients suffering deafness due to loss of sensory hair cells in their cochlea. In those patients, they can often restore sufficient hearing to allow unaided understanding of speech in a quiet background, but the restored, electrical hearing is much less rich than natural hearing, and offers only very limited appreciation of musical melody, or speech understanding in noisy environments. Source Wikipedia
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Tags: academy award nominee, cochlear implant, Deaf culture, Documentary Film Review
