I’ve just finished watching it. Available on youtube if you look.
Four hours long. A brilliant work IMO.
No narrator, no ego and little agenda, other than a pedicle for normal people to air their grievances.
A lot of it is heart breaking. To see US citizens in that position is very hard to comprehend yet alone understand. It made me think of the Irish famine and it’s importance to the cause of Irish self determination. The people who called the shots from a local level to the highest office had other priorities. They left people to the faiths after a natural catastrophe. You can do little about nature but the safety net before and more importantly what happens after are very important. US citizens were let down by their leaders from every level. In the same way that millions were left hungry and desperate after the blight took their crops in my Island. Shameful.
It is a very complete work of documentation IMO. Lee hopefully will get an oscar from it and I look forward to seeing it in it’s final form in a cinema* and on DVD.
Anyway, if you are interested in this, and IMO everyone should be, it is a marvellous documentary and Lee deserves a lot of praise for removing himself from the actual movie. As I said there is no ego in this movie. This isn’t a Michael Moore movie (I’m a big fan of his BTW, while still understanding that he brings a huge amount of his own shit to his movies).
It shows what happened and the results of the weather and the neglect that the people of NO had to suffer.
A incredible moving experience and one that I hope that many of you will share.
*A group experience will bring it to another lever IMO.
“doc”? WTF? If this isn’t a documentary then nothing is. Your definitions need to be re-examined.
I’ll accept that the docu pushes the plight of the people, but it deals with all sides. It shows that from normal people looting flatscreen TV’s, to the mayor’s concerns about the business, to the state and federal fuck-ups, few(well a lot actually) people are clean. Shit happened but a huge amount of people where left high and [del]dry[/del] wet by almost everybody on all sides until it got so bad that it had to be fixed.
If by “it” you mean the actual Gulf Coast from NO to Dauphin Island, then yes, I live in the South and I have been down there several times amongst the FEMA trailers since the hurricane hit. What of it?
No, I meant the documentary and I thought that was plainly obvious within the context of my OP and your reply. You seem capable of saying “doc” about it. I don’t see why you actually living in or visiting the area has anything to do with what you consider a documentary or not. You may not like it or disagree with what is said in it but that’s another ballgame.
The whole " " thing implies to me that you have a problem with the label of it being a documentary.
Have you seen the documentary that Spike Lee has made? If not you are not in the position to judge it.
If you have seen it and you still say it isn’t a documentary then you don’t understand what a documentary is. It doesn’t have to be something that you agree with to be one.
I like this definition: A work, such as a film or television program, presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration.
The whole thing is just interviews and news footage. There isn’t even a narrator.
Again just to be clear because you seem to be having a problem answering a very easy question. Have you seen the documentary that Spike Lee has made? if you have why do you call it a “doc”. If you haven’t why do you call it a “doc”. Basically either way, why do you seem to think it isn’t a documentary?
Documentary isn’t a positive or negative term. It’s a classification.
Are you kidding? Its been on HBO here nonstop for a while now. Yes, I’ve seen it. And I actually live nearby AND I’ve actually been to the scene of the crime, so to speak. You, telling me, how great and beautiful Lee’s film is is like me telling you how fantastic some movie on The Troubles is despite me living a world away and you being in the thick of it. Get your head out of the clouds. You seem to be confusing art with reality and are trying to process the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the third-strongest landfalling U.S. hurricane ever recorded with some kind of moral / political barometer. IT WAS A FREAKING NATRUAL DISASTER.
I don’t get HBO even I wanted to. I don’t live in America and had no idea that it’s already been shown. You never gave any indication that you had seen it of not.
You seem to think I was making some political point. I wasn’t. If I wanted to do that I would have posted it in GD or the PIT. I was giving my impression of the movie. Obviously that encompasses all aspects of the movie. From natural disaster to the mistakes made before and after the fact. You know this because you have seen it.
And your link to a wiki article about the troubles means nothing. If you had linked to the BBC documentary about the IRA or the follow up about the Loyalists you may have a point as you’d be linking to documentaries about the Troubles.
I honestly didn’t know the thing had been shown. I thought the youtube links where a pre release thing that was just put up on the net by somebody who got a copy.
Whether you agree with me or not in liking the thing is a different matter from you implying that it isn’t a documentary. A point which you still haven’t addressed BTW.
Oh and why the fuck can’t I post my impressions of a movie on a message board that I am a member of? The only point I argued with you about is that you said it isn’t a documentary. After that you just basically said “I live here, what do you know”.
I know fuck all other that what was in the movie and what I’ve read and saw in the media. If the movie isn’t up to much in actual facts then help me out, point me in the right direction. So far you’ve just come across as a bit of a jerk to be honest and it’s somewhat confusing to a slightly drunk and tired Irish guy who was just posting his impressions of a movie he had just seen on a area of a message board that is designed for exactly that.
I’m still totally confused about why you don’t think it’s a documentary. That’s the only thing I’ve been arguing with you. You seem to have a completely different understanding of the term that me but you don’t seem to want to talk about it and instead just post things from the position of authority.
Meh, whatever. I’ve asked the same thing several times and you won’t answer. Hopefully someone else has something to contribute from a POV of the movie and not just a vague slam and then just noise.
If anyone else what to address the whole “doc” thing I’m very open to being educated.
*Yeah, yeah, dixie and all that. The kidding thing.
This seems to be an argument, not a discussion, between two people and no one else seems to want to step in (I don’t blame them.) The level of commentary is close enough to personal insults that Moderator intervention seems necessary.
Let’s be clear: This thread is discussion about a movie, period. If you want to debate what makes a documentary vs a fiction film, that’s fine. If you want to debate the technicques, that’s fine. If you want to discuss the facts of life during and after the storm, that belongs in a different forum.
Operation Ripper, if you want to contend that this film is NOT documentary, then argue so. But your tone, from your first post here, is needlessly nasty and offensive. I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. If you’re trying to say that film isn’t reality, start a different thread: no one in their right mind confuses film with reality. However, if you’re trying to say that this film is fiction, then for cryin’out loud SAY SO and offer some evidence, and drop the attitude.
Well, I’ll step up - I’ve only seen the first three parts on HBO On Demand, but I was impressed. I was expecting more of a bias, and it’s true that there aren’t a lot of white people in the film, but overall I thought it was pretty even-handed (there was plenty pro-Nagin and plenty anti-Nagin, for example) and the interviews were excellent. Of course any documentary is going to have some sort of selective bias in it - you pick who to interview, you pick what footage to put in. But on the whole i thought it was a very personal view of the tragedy. And no, I don’t generally care for Spike Lee.
I do live in hurricane country but not on the Gulf Coast, and I have not been there since the storm.
This actually seems pretty damn cool, and the kind of thing Spike Lee could really sink his teeth into… he’s worked his New York history to the bone, he loves the docudrama style, so… why not go into topical shit?