An original four-hour miniseries for TNT on the life of Alexander Graham Bell. From Bell’s early years in Scotland, to his retirement on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, we follow his diverse career, touching on his devotion to teaching the deaf to speak, his related interest in the transmission of sound, and his little-known accomplishments in early aviation. Bell’s wife and lifetime companion, Mabel Bell, was deaf, and he had an enduring friendship with Helen Keller. That Bell invented the telephone is almost a footnote to his many other accomplishments and interests.
Filmed on location in Nova Scotia and New Zealand, The Sound and the Silence is a multiple award winner, including the CableAce for “Best International Movie or Miniseries” and three Gemini awards. Cypress was producer, minority financier, script doctor and co-distributor.
Here’s some fan mail for the film:
“We just saw The Sound and the Silence for the second time tonight, for a first viewing yesterday left us absolutely charmed and impressed. It was like hearing chamber music! We rarely see American movies, but here was one of such sensitivity and so thoroughly civilized and humanly positive that we could not resist seeing it again. I don’t know how it will be received by by the public so roughened by what usually appears on screens; it is an antidote against the flood of vulgarity. The actors not only impressed but charmed us on many levels.” (7/29/03)
