Cut to Dr. Goldner and his wife shown through the glass doors of their kitchen. He wears a light tan & gray short sleeve shirt with vertical stripes and Ms. Goldner a long sleeve khaki shirt with vertical brown pinstripes. We see that they are looking at a letter, and he is reading parts of it out loud.

GOLDNER: 'Your neighbors must want to throw up to have a scumbag...' I haven't used that since I was in sixth grade...

Cut to interior of kitchen, through the glass doors. Medium shot of Dr. and Ms. Goldner standing as they read the letter.

GOLDNER: '...like you lurking in the area. I hope you drop dead for the New Year. A friend of one of your neighbors.' [He folds letter up.] Oh, that was a good one.

MS. GOLDNER: Well this is the first time I got mail, addressed to me.

GOLDNER: Yeah, this is the ... now where did it come? It came to the house, so that means that this person had to know where we live.

MS. GOLDNER: So this was a couple of weeks after they picketed the house.

GOLDNER: Right.

Cut to shot of computer screen open to an Internet browser. The name "wayne" is typed into a search engine input box.

Cut to close-up of Dr. Goldner in profile. Music swells, pensive with an anxious note.

Cut back to computer screen. Internet sites are listed, the results of a search. Prominent among them is an "Army of God" site, a site that linked to a "wanted list" of doctors who provide abortions. After a court decision ruled that such a list was not protected under the first amendment, the list was taken down.

Cut to close-up of Ms. Goldner, chin on hand.

GOLDNER: You'd rather know if you're on a list.

Close-up of husband and wife, in profile, close together, staring at computer screen and looking very serious.

MS. GOLDNER: So now in a way they've gotten rid of it, you don't know who they're targeting.

GOLDNER: That's right.

MS. GOLDNER: So it's almost worse.

Cut to Dr. Goldner in foreground, now wearing a tan & black plaid short-sleeved shirt, leaning over to a VCR. On a couch in the background, the Goldners' youngest [?] son sits with Ms. Goldner, who now wears a two-tone blue sweater with horizontal stripes. She leans over a newspaper. Sound of video rewinding or fast-forwarding.

GOLDNER: Oh.

Cut to video scene, distinguished by a TV-screen shaped black outline to indicate we are watching a video with the Goldners. Four abortion protestors march on an unlined road in winter; snow is on the ground. The first protestor, a gray-haired woman, holds a sign that says "ABORTION A CHILD KILLING PROCEDURE." To her left, a gray-haired man holds a sign depicting an infant's face that says, "FACE IT ABORTION KILLS!" Behind them, a middle-aged man and woman walk carrying a large banner that says "DR. GOLDNER PLEASE STOP KILLING BABIES."

PROTESTORS: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now...

GOLDNER: And then we came back and we had all the messages on our machine.

Cut to Ms. Goldner on the couch, watching the video.

MS. GOLDNER: Right.

Cut to Dr. Goldner, also watching.

GOLDNER: That they were gonna be here...

Cut to Goldner son, leaning on couch and watching the video.

MS. GOLDNER: Oh, you're at the very end of it.

GOLDNER: I know, I know.

Cut to the video of the protestors. A gray-haired woman holds a sign saying "HOW CAN I BLESS THIS NATION WHEN THE BLOOD OF THE BABIES CRIES TO ME FROM THE GROUND?' Next to her a middle-aged man holds a picture of a fetus. They walk past the camera. A middle-aged woman with a sign passes, holding the arm of an older woman who is without a sign. A thirty-something man holding a rosary and a younger woman pass by. Three middle aged persons - one man, two women- pass the camera holding signs saying "FACE IT, ABORTION KILLS ", "STOP ALL ABORTION." and "DR. GOLDNER, STOP KILLING BABIES."

THE PROTESTORS, singing to the melody of John Lennon's song, Give Peace a Chance: "All we are saying, is give life a chance."

Cut to a close-up of the door of Dr. Goldner's house. The camera pans back to show the protestors now standing still, holding up signs at the end of the driveway leading to Dr. Goldner's house. The camera comes to a stop showing four protestors on camera, all holding signs: a thirty-something woman, an older man, a gray-haired sixty-something woman, and a woman who looks to be in her twenties.

VOICEOVER OF NEWSCASTER: Right to life protestors in Bedford, NH, carried their message to the front door of Dr. Wayne Goldner...

Cut to a side shot of protestors, now walking along road. We see Dr. Goldner's house through the trees, in the background.

NEWSCASTER [voiceover]... a local obstetrician and gynecologist.

Cut to a ground level shot of the marchers.

PROTESTORS [singing]: Give life a chance.

GOLDNER: [voiceover] Now, see, they're allowed to use the word kills, but I guess when they start�

Cut to Dr. Goldner, watching the video.

GOLDNER: [over his shoulder to his wife] ... using the word murder it's considered slander, so that's why they use kill.

Cut to eye-level, front shot of marchers.

Cut to medium shot of a middle-aged man in a coat, shirt and tie and wearing a hat that says "Choose life".

MAN IN COAT, SHIRT & TIE: We feel that we need to accelerate the pressure, if you will, in view of his, uh, digging in his heels so to speak.

Cut to interior of Goldner house, rear view of three family members watching the video, which shows the snow, their house, the protestors marching.

GOLDNER: I wish that I had gone out.

Ms. GOLDNER: No you don't.

GOLDNER: Yes I do.

Ms. GOLDNER: All they would have done is started praying for you.

Cut to close-up front view of Dr. Goldner, pointing at the television with the remote.

GOLDNER: And there's the guy who said 'If there's violence well that's not our problem.'

Close-up of Dr. Goldner's hand on the remote control. He presses a button. Music begins, with an underlying low, pulsing beat.

GOLDNER: 'What will be will be', he said to the camera.¹⁰

Cut to Dr. Goldner's TV screen, shot of an older man who carries a sign that says "WAYNE GOLDNER STOP KILLING BABIES" walking. Freeze-frame. Frame unfreezes. Man walks forward. Beat of music, pulsing.

Fade to black. Music continues with a melody line added, upbeat, with pulsing beat quieter in background.

Begin film titles. LIVE FREE OR DIE is letter boxed on the top half of screen, white on black, underlined in green. On the bottom half of screen, green-leafed trees whisk by as the camera looks out from the side window of a moving car.

Cut to camera view through the front window of the car. The open road stretches ahead as the camera puts the viewer in the driver's seat. The car travels up the open road. Titles change: A Film by Marion Lipschutz & Rose Rosenblatt.

Cut to close-up of New Hampshire license plate with the state motto: Live Free or Die as a tire rolls behind it. Cut to outside view of light blue car driving towards the camera. Split screen widens and letter boxing drops away. Full screen shot of a light blue car driving towards camera.

NARRATOR [voiceover]: We set out to make a film about the abortion provider crisis, how violence and harassment have driven more and more doctors away from doing abortions.

Cut to shot of blue skies with wisps of white clouds, panning down to white building. Trees and grass are green, indicating spring or summer.

III. Intention vs. Reality

An analysis of the scene shows the filmmakers' elegant use of image and sound to shape our interpretation of content. The film opens outside the Goldners' house at night, the time of day when darkness prevails and every shadow can be a threat. The opening notes of the musical score are melancholy. The camera introduces us to the Goldners at a distance, through the glass doors of their kitchen. It passes through the glass barrier and invades the intimacy of the Goldners' kitchen - does this foreshadow, perhaps, what the filmmakers will depict (through innuendo) as the invasion of the Goldners' home life?

Dr. Wayne Goldner reads an anonymous letter to his wife. It is piece of hate mail that speaks of butchers, the slaughterhouse and scumbags. It was received "a couple of weeks after they picketed the house." Who are they? The New Hampshire Right to Life is the only group that has picketed the house. The implication is clear: the hate mail is linked to the picket. Perhaps the writer would not have known where Dr. Goldner lived if the protestors had not picketed the house. Perhaps the hate mail came from the ranks of the protestors themselves, or from someone inflamed by the passion of their protest. The filmmakers make their first innuendo: the peaceful New Hampshire Right to Life protest is responsible for the hate mail.¹¹

Immediately following the reading of the hate mail, the camera records the Goldners surfing the Internet. They are searching for a "hit list" of abortion doctors, to see if Dr. Goldner is the next target of violence. They cannot find it; the list has been taken down. "That's almost worse," says Ms. Goldner, "You don't know who they're targeting." The question hangs in the air: who are the "they" that are targeting Dr. Goldner?

The camera does not let us wonder for long. The next shot shows us the New Hampshire Right to Life protestors. Here are gray-haired men and women holding rosaries, singing "Give life a chance" and picketing for a cause they believe in. They speak no words of anger; they do not shout. They raise signs and march peacefully, like the men and women who marched at Selma, Alabama. A middle-aged woman supports the arm of an older woman. A middle-aged man passes by, then a younger woman. This is the enemy. This is "they" -- the cause of the Goldners' fear.

Less than 5 minutes into the film -- even before the credits have rolled -- the filmmakers have suggested a connection between the peaceful protest that characterizes the majority in the pro-life movement and the violence that exists at its fringes. The opening scene is cut with such fluidity that the viewer is unaware that the scene is constructed from three real events separated by more than a year's time. The New Hampshire Right to Life conducted a single peaceful picket outside of Dr. Goldner's home in January of 1998, as part of a local dispute over sex education in the Bedford, NH school district. Dr. Barnett Slepian's murder, alluded to in Ms. Goldner's remark "you don't know who they're targeting next" took place in October of 1998, eight months later. And the Nuremberg Files web site, which contained what Planned Parenthood called the "hit list" of doctors who provided abortions, was not shut down until February of 1999.

All of this argues for a 1999 time stamp on the film of the Goldners surfing the web, a full year after the protest outside their home. But what viewer of the film would not think, in watching the footage of the protest, that it was related to the Slepian murder and the hit list of abortion doctors?

The filmmakers manipulate time and place to make it appear that the picket took place in the atmosphere generated by the Slepian murder. Is this unprincipled? Ellen Cheshire, commenting on the form of the documentary film, writes, "The majority of fact-related films are not unbiased recordings... The mere fact that a certain subject has been chosen involves an interpretation of what should be shot and the manipulation of time and space in the interest of tension and story-telling. In addition, they are usually carefully scripted, structured, cast and located to express a distinct message and point of view."¹² Without a doubt, it increases the tension of the storytelling to show the Goldners looking up their names on a hit list, wondering if "they" are targeting him next, and then watching as "they" picket the Goldners' house a whole twelve months earlier. Only the most careful observer would realize that the Goldners are speaking of two very different sets of "they."

One might argue that the inflamed passions aroused on both sides by the abortion controversy, and in particular the killing of abortion doctors and the bombing of clinics, make the manipulation of time and space justifiable, a valid carrying out of what Cheshire calls the documentary filmmaker's task of providing a film "carefully scripted, structured, cast and located to express a distinct message and point of view." But is the fact that violence exists at the fringes of both sides of the abortion controversy¹³ enough of a reason for the filmmakers to cast the NHRTL in the role of suburban terrorists? Even Dr. Goldner's wife says that had her husband gone out to talk with them during the protest, "All they would have done is started praying for you."

Film is a "hot" medium; it provokes emotion before it stimulates thought. The final shots of the opening scene paint an ominous picture of the protestors. Dr. Goldner, watching the video, points out one particular man: "there's the guy who said 'if there's violence, well that's not our problem.'" The camera freezes the frame, a technique used for emphasis: that's him, that's the one who according to Goldner spoke of violence. Music begins, with a low, pulsing beat. The frame unfreezes; the man takes a few more steps. The camera freezes the frame again, ratcheting up the tension. Dr. Goldner repeats in voiceover, "what will be will be", as the music increases in volume and beat and the opening credits roll. Is there any doubt that the filmmakers intend to portray this man as dangerous?

If the film leaves a doubt, Dr. Goldner himself does not. When questioned in Wilmington, Delaware, on March 13, 2001 as to whether the film showed pro-life activists engaged in terrorism, he again quoted that protestor as having said, "what will be, will be", and reiterated his opinion: "Make no mistake, that is terrorism!"¹⁴ That evening in Newark, Delaware, following the showing of Live Free or Die at the University of Delaware, Dr. Goldner upon questioning about the terrorism of the NHRTL, introduced the phrase "stealth terrorism" and referred, again, to the man who said, "What will be will be."¹⁵ Yet the viewer has only Goldner's recollection of that or any other menacing remark. For all that the camera catches, even though Goldner insists that the man made his remarks in front of the cameras,¹⁶ the protestor in question might be anyone's father or grandfather peacefully picketing. His family will now see his face spread across the nation as an example of a pro-life terrorist. Is this just? The discerning and selective viewer will draw her or his own conclusions.

As the credits roll at the end of the opening scene, the camera drives us down the open road from the inside of a car. The narrator announces the intent to document how violence and harassment have lead to an abortion provider crisis. The car drives into town and up to a white, steepled building. The camera pans up to show a wide-open vista of blue skies and wisps of white clouds, then pans down again to the white building. The film ends on a bright, sunny note: the courageous doctor again assumes the mantle of champion of women, undeterred by the violence or harassment.

The innuendoes continue throughout the film. The film lauds Dr. Goldner for possessing "an activist gene" but excoriates the NHRTL and Betty Breuder for exercising that same gene. It depicts abortion rights activism as a good thing, and pro-life activism as dangerous. The words "terrorism" and "terrorist" are spoken repeatedly. Failing to see even an angry word from the pro-life activists profiled in the film, the discerning viewer may join this author in demanding: "show us the terrorists!"

Endnotes