Critical Moments (2004)

"Critical Moment One" is a spontaneous recording of a one-year-old boy playing with shells and sand on the beach. Though the boy is my grandson, the film isn't presented as a typical home video. His face is never shown, and the camera is positioned behind him, aiming for a close approximation of his perspective. As a young man and later when my own children were growing up, I was deeply fascinated by Jean Piaget's book, "The Construction of Reality in the Child." His detailed observations of his own children's developing behavior gave me a framework for understanding my own observations.