REVIEW - "FRED'S STORY"

From: http://www.pdassoc.com/fs.html

A charming older gentleman tells about the forty years he spent inside Mansfield Training School, a Connecticut institution closed in 1990. Fred Calabrese tells of the unpleasant realities of decades of institutional life, then a move to his own apartment. And Fred is a disturbingly honest but overwhelmingly charming speaker on his own behalf.

Rather than imposing its own analysis, the video leads the viewer to understand and reflect on what institutional living and freedom have meant to one remarkable man. His reflections on life inside are intercut with footage expressing the ideals of the institution. Rather than a traditional, third-person documentary about the State institution or Fred's life, each speaks for itself. Fred talks about his life and shares his indomitable, lyrical spirit.

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REVIEW - "STEPS"

The Boston Globe – Wednesday, April 16, 1980

Eric Neudel’s “Steps” is an overpowering emotional experience.  The centerpiece of the film is an extended sequence in closeup in which Pamela Daly, the girl who lost the use of her legs in an auto accident, describes the accident.  As compelling as the sequence is, it remains the film as a whole that is the most compelling.  And the compelling thing about the film is its sensitivity to its subject, the friendship of Pam and Margaret Powell.  “Steps” is inspirational in a way we’ve forgotten films can be.

Boston Herald American – Wednesday, April 16, 1980

Another extraordinary bit of cinema-verite is Eric Neudel’s “Steps”.  “Steps” shows us two ordinary people coping with the aftermath of a tragedy.  Peggy and Pam have been friends since kindergarten.  Six years ago, as a high school senior, Pam was in an automobile accident that left her crippled from the waist down.  But there is almost no pathos to the movie.  Wisely, Neudel centers on the friendship – its abiding quality, its ebb and flow in time, its roots in the banalities of everyday life.  Peggy and Pam recreate their shared history by reading from old letters and recounting the past.  Pam’s narration of the night she was paralyzed possesses the sort of simple yet genuine emotion that no commercial scenarist could ever be expected to capture.

The Boston Phoenix, Section Three – January 27, 1981

***STEPS (1980).  Moving and rather surprising in its power, Eric Neudel’s documentary charts the changing course of a strong friendship between two Boston women, one of whom was rendered paraplegic in an auto accident at 17.  Neudel employs home movies, letters read aloud, still photographs, interviews, and cinema verite footage to tell his story.  At first, you feel as though you’re watching a sentimental look at undying friendship, but as the handicapped woman begins to talk about her accident, you suddenly realize that you’re about to witness an astonishing revelation.  Steps has the startling force of an epiphany.

RealPaper - January 29, 1981

Boston filmmaker Eric Neudel’s superb documentary about the friendship between two women after one becomes handicapped at 17 because of injuries sustained in a car accident.  Steps demonstrates how the women’s relationship withstands emotional and physical change in one of the most beautiful, touching stories of friendship ever filmed, destined to become a classic.

The Boston Globe - Friday, January 30, 1981

Comedies, of course, aren’t the only uppers.  The most inspirational film on the screen this weekend will be Eric Neudel’s “Steps”, opening a three-day engagement Sunday at the Coolidge Corner Movie House in Brookline.  The 60-minutes “Steps” was one of the hits at the theater’s first Boston Independent Film Festival last spring.  “Steps” is one of the most moving accounts of women’s friendship you may ever see.  One of the women is a paraplegic as the result of injuries she sustained in a car accident when she was 17.  You leave this film with a sense of hope for the human race, no mean accomplishment in these cynical times.