My Pilgrimage, Chapter Twenty-Two: The Patience Required By Emotional Arithmetic
By Michael Moriarty
web posted July 17, 2017
The creators of this very moving film?! As impressively gifted as they are, they just don’t know how to pick a title!
Or “synch” sound on their trailer!!
Even the alternate title is wrong: Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning.
All by itself, Autumn Hearts might be best.
Aside from that, I loved the, at times, demanding experience!
Patience!!!!
One must have patience with this film. The rewards are exceptional.
I, however, am obviously biased.
As a graduate of NBC’s mini-series, Holocaust, I can, perhaps, fill in more missing scenes than most audience members can.
However, I, at one time a low-budget filmmaker myself, have paid the price for insufficient funds!
An Impressively Compassionate Cast
That said, my “Soul-Meter” scored Emotional Arithmetic a 10!
Why?
There are about five extraordinarily emotional moments for an audience that simply require the patience one would automatically have with old friends!
If their stories take a bit longer than usual to tell, there are profound reasons for the delays!!!
The three victims of Nazi Germany’s actual Holocaust are excruciatingly aware of how criminally desperate the scientific community is!
How eager
the “know-it-alls” are
to erase
the very memories
that demand to be shared!
Yet, for the first time, however, the film eventually and clearly conveys how painful it is to live around “victims of the Holocaust”.
That rather embarrassingly unfashionable truth is a hard pill for any non-victim to swallow.
I suspect the non-graduates of a concentration camp, film critics mainly, don’t want to be reminded of the everyday world’s compulsory insensitivity.
“I’ve got
my own life
to live!”
As a personal victim of unwanted hospitalization and electro-shock, my sympathies for the two most damaged characters, those performed exquisitely by Susan Sarandon and Max von Sydow, were painfully complete.
I hadn’t been guilty of shooting and killing any, particularly villainous Nazi, as Max von Sydow’s character had been. I was simply, at one young point in my life, “over-enthusiastic” about my discovery, not only of God’s certain existence, but of His Presence on Earth!
Had I chosen to join an Army of Evangelists, “True Believers” that do indeed exist, I would never have been “hospitalized”.
I would have been “normal” among The Evangelical Set.
However, what is most compelling about this recent experience with a great cast of actors is that the ultimate ability of all of them to cope with not only the Past but the frequently embarrassing moments of the Present… confirm my faith in the absolute perfection of life.
Despite the horrifying hardships, the Good Guys do always and ultimately win… and the Evil Ones… actually do go to Hell… in one way or another.
Thanks to everyone involved with the making of Emotional Arithmetic. My patience always pays off! 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty.