Looking beyond the spin of Big Pharma PR. But encouraging gossip. Come in and confide, you know you want to! “I’ll publish right or wrong. Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.”
Email: jackfriday2011(at)hotmail.co.uk
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Any views, comments?
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Having only seen the first half, I'm here to tell you that this is programming not to be missed. Like this duo's previous work on the award-winning Four Little Girls, the story of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, When the Levees Broke is both a skilled documentary film and a potent political artifact.
The overall feeling I got watching this incredible film was disbelief. The stories of New Orleans residents, simply filmed in workaday 16mm, coupled with perfectly edited images of the destruction and suffering wrought first by Mother Nature and then by our government's failures, are powerful enough to create a sense of disorientation. The film conjures what we were all feeling last summer extremely effectively: What are we watching? This is America? What's happened to civilization? What's happened to our government?
Accompanied by the haunting melodies of jazz musician Terrence Blanchard, Lee tells one of America's most tragic episodes with mostly pictures and the words of victims. Several notable exceptions such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, social critic Michael Eric Dyson, and actor Harry Belafonte also graced the screen. But I question whether their contributions provided significant added value.
It was the power of the first-person testimony that gave this project legs. Personal accounts of how one's survival was interwoven with death and neglect tends to trump social analysis from afar, myself included.
Many of the photos in Lee's documentary we've seen already, but it is good to be reminded. In fact, it is necessary for our collective humanity. We needed to be reminded of what can happen when the perfect storm intersects with the perfect breakdown of government at every level.
One does come away with the feeling that Lee places the greatest portion of the blame on President Bush. Which is understandable, he does, after all, have access to the most resources.
The president's "You're doing a heck of a job Brownie," which Lee played back three times, may go down in the annals of history as the gold standard for political ineptitude. But the president was hardly alone in falling short on the leadership meter.
while I am certainly not as poetic as the previous comments in my reviews I can say this was an incredible and often heart-wretching story. The only problem being that this is not a story this is what happened.
I am sure there is plenty of blame to go around, but if things turned out for the best the same people that are pointing the fingers at others ineptitude would be stepping forward for the glory.
I am still saddened and awe struck with how poor the response was, how even basic necessities such as water and other supplies were tangled up in red tape.
While pictures need to be interpreted in context, the picture that, for some reason, struck me as the most ironic was the one of the police officer leaving the looted Wal-Mart with a handfull of DVD's.
3 comments:
Having only seen the first half, I'm here to tell you that this is programming not to be missed. Like this duo's previous work on the award-winning Four Little Girls, the story of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, When the Levees Broke is both a skilled documentary film and a potent political artifact.
The overall feeling I got watching this incredible film was disbelief. The stories of New Orleans residents, simply filmed in workaday 16mm, coupled with perfectly edited images of the destruction and suffering wrought first by Mother Nature and then by our government's failures, are powerful enough to create a sense of disorientation. The film conjures what we were all feeling last summer extremely effectively: What are we watching? This is America? What's happened to civilization? What's happened to our government?
This was from the HuffPo:
Accompanied by the haunting melodies of jazz musician Terrence Blanchard, Lee tells one of America's most tragic episodes with mostly pictures and the words of victims. Several notable exceptions such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, social critic Michael Eric Dyson, and actor Harry Belafonte also graced the screen. But I question whether their contributions provided significant added value.
It was the power of the first-person testimony that gave this project legs. Personal accounts of how one's survival was interwoven with death and neglect tends to trump social analysis from afar, myself included.
Many of the photos in Lee's documentary we've seen already, but it is good to be reminded. In fact, it is necessary for our collective humanity. We needed to be reminded of what can happen when the perfect storm intersects with the perfect breakdown of government at every level.
One does come away with the feeling that Lee places the greatest portion of the blame on President Bush. Which is understandable, he does, after all, have access to the most resources.
The president's "You're doing a heck of a job Brownie," which Lee played back three times, may go down in the annals of history as the gold standard for political ineptitude. But the president was hardly alone in falling short on the leadership meter.
while I am certainly not as poetic as the previous comments in my reviews I can say this was an incredible and often heart-wretching story. The only problem being that this is not a story this is what happened.
I am sure there is plenty of blame to go around, but if things turned out for the best the same people that are pointing the fingers at others ineptitude would be stepping forward for the glory.
I am still saddened and awe struck with how poor the response was, how even basic necessities such as water and other supplies were tangled up in red tape.
While pictures need to be interpreted in context, the picture that, for some reason, struck me as the most ironic was the one of the police officer leaving the looted Wal-Mart with a handfull of DVD's.
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