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He takes Karen’s jewelry box out of the crate, lifts the hand-carved horn lid, and removes the inner tray. Unfortunately, whatever he sees inside is invisible to the camera.
    When Karen walks in carrying a basket stuffed with bedsheets and pillow cases, Navidson has already turned his attention to an old hairbrush lying next to some perfume bottles.
    “What are you doing?” she immediately asks.
    “This is nice,” he says, removing a big clump of her blonde hair from the tines and tossing it into the wastebasket.
    “Give me that,” Karen demands. “Just you watch, one day I’ll go bald, then won’t you be sorry you threw that away.”
    “No,” Navidson replies with a grin.
     
     
     
    It is unnecessary to dwell here on the multiple ways in which these few seconds demonstrate h ow much Navidson values Karen, [15—See “The Heart’s Device” by Frances Leiderstahi in Science, v. 265 August 5, 1994, p. 741; Joel Watkin’s “Jewelry Box, Perfume, and Hair” in Mademoiselle, v. 101 May, 1995, p. 178-181; as well as Hardy Taintic’s more ironic piece “Adult Letters and Family Jewels” The American Scholar, v. 65 spring 1996, p. 219-241] except to highlight how despite his sarcasm and apparent disregard for her things the scene itself represents the exact opposite. Using image and exquisitely controlled edits, Navidson has in effect preserved her hair, called into question his own behavior and perhaps in some ways contradicted his own closing remark, which as Samuel T. Glade has pointed out could refer to either “watch,” “b ald,” or “sorry” or all three. [16—Samuel T. Glade’s “Omens & Signs” in Notes From Tomorrow ed. Lisbeth Bailey (Delaware: Tma Essay Publications, 1996).] Even better, Navidson has permitted the action and subtlety of the composition to represent the profound sentiments at work without the molestations of some ill-conceived voice-over or manipulative soundtrack.
    In keeping with this approach, the second moment also does without explanations or disingenuous musical cues. Navidson simply concentrates on Karen Green. Once a model with the Ford Agency in New York, she has since put behind her the life of Milan fashion shoots and Venetian Masques in order to raise her two children. Considering how beautiful she appears on the dreadful Hi 8 tapes, it is hardly surprising editors frequently relied on slides of her pouty lips, high cheek bones, and hazel eyes to sell their magazines.
    Early on, Navidson gave Karen a Hi 8 which he asked her to treat like a journal. Her video entries—which Navidson promised to view only after the film was shot and then only if she agreed—reveal a thirty-seven year old woman who worries about leaving the city, growing old, keeping trim, and staying happy. Nevertheless, despite their purely confessional content, it is not a journal entry but rather an unguarded moment captured on one of the house Hi 8s that demonstrates Karen’s almost bewildering dependence on Navidson.
     
     
     
    Karen Sits with Chad and Daisy in the living room. The children are in the midst of a candle-making project which involves several empty egg cartons, a dozen long lengths of wick, a bucket of plaster of Paris and a jar full of crystal wax. Using a pair of red handled scissors, Daisy cuts the wicks down to three inch pieces and then presses them down into an egg cup which Chad in turn fills with a layer of plaster followed by a layer of the tiny wax beads. The result is some kind of candle with plenty of goop to go around, most of it ending up on the children’s hands. Karen helps brush the hair out of her daughter’s eyes lest she try to do it herself and end up smearing plaster all over her face. And yet even though Karen keeps Chad from overfilling the molds or Daisy from hurting herself with the scissors, she still cannot resist looking out the window every couple of minutes. The sound of a passing truck causes her to glance away. Even if there is no sound,