After losing sight in 1983, John Hull began keeping an audio diary, a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness. Following on from the Emmy Award-winning short film of the same name, Notes on Blindness is an ambitious and groundbreaking work, both affecting and innovative.
Notes on Blindness is a 2016 British documentary film directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney. The film profiles writer and theologian John M. Hull, who became totally blind, just days before the birth of his first son, after decades of steadily deteriorating vision. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, Hull began documenting his experiences on audio cassette and wrote his autobiography Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness in 1990. He discusses difficulties such as remembering his families faces, and being unable to find audio versions of the academic books he wants to read, and thus having to ask friends and family to record them for him. The film is based upon this work, and his taped diaries and letters. The directors previously created a 2014 Emmy winning short film on the same subject, which this film builds upon.
