Editing Time Indefinite (section)

==Synopsis==

In the film, director Ross McElwee gets married, finally putting an end to his family's worrying; his grandmother dies; his wife Marilyn has a miscarriage; and his father, a medical doctor, dies suddenly within a week of McElwee's wife's miscarriage. His mother had died of [[cancer]] ten years earlier and so McElwee returns to his father's house, where his father's housekeeper ministers to him about [[Christianity]] and [[faith]].

McElwee goes to visit his friend Charleen, who is now living alone in a new apartment. She had lived on an island in an old two-story house abandoned by the [[U.S. Army]]; she and her husband worked to restore it and lived together there for years before becoming estranged. Charleen then lived there alone, but on returning home from a trip she finds that her husband has set fire to the house and died downstairs at the grand [[piano]] in an [[arson]]/[[suicide]]. Charleen has her husband's [[cremation|cremated]] remains in a bag inside a box and tries to get rid of them but can't bring herself to do it.

McElwee's brother is a successful doctor; on a visit to his brother's practice, Ross talks with his brother about their father's death, which took them both by surprise. Ross's brother receives a patient who has a large malignant tumor on her breast; the woman has had the tumor for years without seeking medical help. Ross's brother takes a slide of the tumor for his files; it has spread across much of her chest and is both multifaceted and multicolored. Ross incorporates his brother's interview with the woman—and the slide his brother takes—into his film, musing in [[voiceover]] about motivation and fatality and marvelling at the power of denial.

Eventually Ross abandons the film, only to continue it later: his wife is pregnant. The pregnancy comes to term and Ross and Marilyn go with their baby son to visit Charleen, who criticizes them for bringing children into such a hostile and unpredictable world but speaks to the passion that drives life and procreation. Ross and Marilyn dote on their son and seem largely unbothered by the criticism.