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Testament, a quiet, determined picture full of love and anguish, seems to leave its audiences devastated. It may also be one of those rare films which makes an impact on the world at large. But it might never have been made if Lynne Littman hadn't had her first baby, and found herself unemployed and feeling "without an identity."
Until this point she had been known as a director of documentaries. Number Our Days, a work about elderly Jews in Venice, California, had won her an Academy Award. Once a Daughter was a probing study of four mother-daughter relationships.
So it was, with an infant son, that late one night Littman read Carol Amen's "The Last Testament" in Ms. magazine in August of 1981. A memorable piece of fiction in diary form, it recorded three months in the lives of a family after a nuclear attack.
Many people had been after Amen (self-described as "an inspirational writer," whose story had originally appeared in the magazine of the Franciscan Friars). None, apparently, had Littman's tenacity. Rights in hand, she set about after funding, trying for six months to get it from anti-nuclear organizations.
Enter Lindsay Law, of PBS' American Playhouse, a man Littman calls "responsible for an entire new movement in American films." Law gave her $500,000 "with no interference and with complete support. It was a dream situation." John Sacret Young began the screenplay adaptation; the expectation of all was that this would be a 60-minute film for American Playhoiuse, and would have no other life.
Then two things occurred: when Young's script came in it was for a 90minute film; and Arco, a principal supporter of American Playhouse, dropped out as a second-season backer of the series. The final third of the $750,000 budget was needed before shooting could begin. The script was shown to prospective backers, who, Littman recalls, "wept and passed. But John's script was really wonderful. It was seductive to backers, beautifully written, and at that time the subject hadn't been dealt with."
Through Littman's co-producer Jonathan Bernstein, Lawrence Vangor of Entertainment Events Inc., an American company whose financing comes primarily from Europe, saw the script. An Englishman who describes his company as "active, not passive investors," Vangor felt "vehemently that this...