![]() ![]() ![]() If you’ve given birth in the past decade and a half, it’s likely that your experience was touched by The Business of Being Born. Lake tells me she’s the happiest she’s ever been, which makes it a good time to look back on the film she marks as “the pinnacle” of a career she loves, “this little movie that was a big deal to a lot of people.” The modern hearth is aflame and the sliding glass door is cracked open to receive the ocean breeze. Perhaps with that heightened awareness of temperature that comes with middle age, she checks several times to make sure I’m comfortable. She built it around an elaborate vine that takes up an entire wall of a covered patio and had crystals embedded in the walls. It’s a brilliant spring day in Malibu, 16 years later, and we’re in the living room of what Lake calls her dream home. The anxiety of that moment, when she wasn’t sure what the legacy of her film would be, couldn’t be farther away. She recalls that a local news channel had been there, but she can’t find the tape. ![]() The film did not really reflect well on the hospitals we filmed at.” Lake is rifling through a box of VHS tapes, looking for footage of the hospital showdown. The film showed doctors talking about “upping the pit,” for labor-inducing pitocin, on various patients, as if trying to turn tables at a busy restaurant. “She didn’t open her mouth, but if looks could kill…”īrandon Maxwell dress, Almasika earrings, Jennifer Zeuner necklace, Lizzie Fortunato ring “We were called Nazi propaganda filmmakers.” And “baby killers.” The obstetrician who had been on call during Lake’s labor was there. It was part of grand rounds, traditionally a chance for hospital faculty to hear a speaker and engage in professional dialogue. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital on the Upper West Side, where Lake gave birth to her first son. Lake and director Abby Epstein screened the documentary at St. Months later, a few miles uptown, the film had a very different reception. At the Q&A, renowned midwife Ina May Gaskin, sporting Princess Leia braids and a hippie skirt, told the house that this was the best film on birth ever. The audience of actors, critics, film executives, midwives, and doulas wept and cheered at the cinematic depictions of real home births, as well as the raw footage of Ricki Lake - Hairspray star, beloved talk show host, and the film’s producer - giving birth in her bathtub. When The Business of Being Born premiered to a sold-out audience at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007, the atmosphere was like “a religious revival meeting,” as Variety put it. ![]()
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