American Experience: We Shall Remain - % % % % %

It never ceases to amaze me how little I know about North American Native American peoples. I learned all about Aztecs, Maya, Incas and Nazcas. But I know diddly about Algonquin or Shawnee people and culture.

This series is beautifully constructed of recreated scenes and interwoven interviews with historians and descendants of the historical figures. Watching the first episode I was struck over and over how enlightening this program is. Our children's history books are mediocre and fail all of us.

City of Cranes - % % % % %

A rumination on the experiences of crane drivers, floating above London, between buildings, carrying great loads with concentration and meditation. This 14 minute short doc is wonderful to watch. It's charming, narrated by interviews with crane drivers, and it's absorbing, marvelous and wondrous, filmed mainly from the crane operators' perspective, containing abstract images of modern life and the balletic dance of the epic cranes sweeping through the city.

At 14 minutes, you should definitely check it out. Next time you sit down for dinner or a snack, instead of turning on the tv, go to POV's website and watch. Glorious.

Directed by Eva Weber. The website for the film. She has also directed The Intimacy of Strangers, available on the Full Frame compilation, disc 5, available on Netflix. I'm bumping it up on my queue, rest assured.

With All Deliberate Speed - % % % %

Combining myriad source materials, interviews, readings by celebrities, and narration, "With All Deliberate Speed" moves from segregation, through the Supreme Court cases that led to Brown vs. Board of Education and into the present day devastation of the public school system.

Made by Peter Gilbert(Hoop Dreams, At the Death House Door, Kartemquin Films), much of the film is spent on meeting and detailing the struggles of black students and their community in fighting court cases which led to Brown. It is a searing reminder of how far we have come that such violence is no longer commonplace. Mixed in with these testimonials though is contemporary footage of black students in today's dilapidated and, once again, segregated schools. Instead of using the law to segregate white students from black, today's white America uses their financial advantages to put their children in private schools and once again, limits the funding of the facilities, thereby leaving black students in unsafe buildings with few books and little respect.

I am torn in my opinion of the film. I think that it is excellently crafted. The narration by Jeffrey Wright is, as is everything he does, marvelous. And yet, the film misses the drama of the subject. It comes close, but I'm not sure that I understood the fear of these children. I am profoundly affected by their continuing emotions on the subject. To know that these experiences have stayed with them all of their lives is profound. And I sympathize greatly with today's student activists, battling a system so much larger than themselves. But the overall tone of the film is sadness that so little has been accomplished by such a great victory. I think I want to see the rage of injustice, but that might just be my personal enjoyment of indignation.

Shut Up & Sing - % % % %

So I gave this doc 4%s for surprising me. It's a well told story of real conflicts in a set of adult women's lives. I didn't end up admiring the Dixie Chicks, in fact I'm sad that they were so wishy-washy, and apologetic when the controversy started. And they never really said anything too firmly. But the story of the group finding themselves as musicians and mature women was interesting to watch.

The film jumps back and forth between 2003 and 2005/6. In 2003 on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, while playing a gig in London, the lead singer, Natalie Bains, said that she was with the audience, on "the good side", probably meaning that she was with the enormous anti-war protests occurring in London at the time. And she wrapped up by saying that they were ashamed that the president is from Texas.

That first tour shows the Dixie Chicks dressed up in trendy semi-punk fashion and working with a corporate sponsor for their tour, Lipton. They start out as total commercial material and through the controversy, lose their fan base. They realize that many of their fans were very fickle and extremely judgmental. As time goes by and the controversy doesn't ease, it frees them as a group from their commercial limitations as are attached to the country music market. Country radio stations won't play them because of a grass-roots boycott by an extreme right nationalist group.

This rejection fuels them creatively and for the first time ever, they write (nearly) all of the songs on their new album, in 2005. The music isn't my taste, but it's moving to see women really express their feelings and experiences through music. Their maturity, confidence and strength are exciting and push them forward into making more interesting and less common music. And as they mount their next tour, they dress like adult women. No more fake punk skirts and bizarre makeup. It's still heavy fashion, but it's more sophisticated and subdued. And they are all mothers at this point. They have families and have been through a rough patch and came out stronger and more independent. They begin to say, screw the record company, screw the financial instability. We believe in ourselves and our music. They take a greater ownership and seem to be more involved in their music. It's a great transformation to see.

It's not going to revolutionize anything, but it's quality. It didn't change my worldview or leave me in tears. But I think it is a telling statement of the US and traditional country culture that they could toss out these fine musicians so fast and support an ignorant ass like Toby Keith for bashing the Dixie Chicks. Bleck. He comes off as simple minded and as an opportunistic reactionary thug. So I say good luck, Dixie Chicks! I hope their new found freedom enables them to pursue their lives and their music into new directions.

Surfwise - % % % %

Ah the Paskowitz family. "The First Family of Surfing"

Surfwise introduces each parent and child, all 9 of them - 8 boys and one girl. They are each interesting characters, mainly resulting from father, Dorian, and his egoistic, semi-cult leader persona. Dorian decided to raise his children by piling them into a camper and traveling the world surfing. His wife, Juliette, remains enthralled with him as a passionate idealist.

The children, now all adults, have varying degrees of enthusiasm about their upbringing. The film, directed by Doug Pray, concedes to the fantasy for the first part of the film, depicting the sun-tanned, lean, wild, surfing children and their quirky father's ideas of how to raise a family. Dorian at one point shouts that he wanted to be as good a father as a gorilla. So if a gorilla breast fed until the baby was two, that's what they would do. He seems to have taken bits of information from many places and latched on to a father knows best mentality.

The rules of the family, including morning calisthenics, all sleeping in a small camper together even though the parents had sex every night in ear shot of the kids, surfing every morning, eating seven grain cereal, etc... sound very 60s cultish. But much of it is appealing.

The siblings all clearly love each other and family is very important to them all. But as the film progresses, the usual cracks appear in family dynamics. The children resent the father's authority, particularly since he was an absolute dictator. The eldest child takes on a fatherly position and the other brothers resent him and compete amongst themselves, especially in surfing competitions. They were so poor that they didn't all have clothes. Many went shirtless at times. They all express regrets about their lack of formal education. None of them ever attended school, and now as adults have a difficult time reintegrating into society.

The film is lovely, incorporating interviews with this very beautiful family, old family photos, and film of them surfing. It is captivating to see such vibrant children and the ocean's eruptive waves. Clearly surfing is a lot of fun.

It's a great documentary that shows a rounded depiction, with an ambiguous perspective, of a unique family of interesting characters. It explores issues of familial loyalty, best parenting practices, consumerism, hindsight, health and love. All with a gorgeous background of beaches and tanned skin. It's a fun watch.

Taxi to the Dark Side - % % %

Well executed summary of the US' history of torture starting in Afghanistan and leading to the policy in Iraq. But I was never engaged emotionally, nor interested philosophically. It's not smug. It's not super partisan. But it's just not much of anything.

There are so many competing documentaries that tell similar stories. I will say that this is a good overview if you want to show it to your sophomore civics class, but otherwise it's pretty boring.

Unlike Standard Operating Procedures, directed by Errol Morris, "Taxi..." encompasses much more than Abu Ghraib. And it includes press conferences and government documents to back up the soldiers' stories about the intentionally poor oversight and regulation of torture. But the interviews aren't compelling. I wasn't affected by any one person because there are many, many interviews, all of which are 2 minutes at the max (I'm guessing, I didn't really measure), and are so intercut with others that it's difficult to make a connection with anyone, even the dead man who this movie follows from his village taxi service in Afghanistan to his murder at Bagram.

Unlike "Why We Fight", this film is limited in its scope and doesn't attempt a philosophical exploration of how we got into this and why, but rather says that the torture on "24" has prepared the US society for accepting torture and gives very little explanation of the motivations of Dick Cheyney and Donald Rumsfeld, other than PR and carelessness.

Taxi... does include an interview with John Yoo, legal adviser to President Bush and author of the "torture memo". He's one slippery cat. He claims that there's no advantage to imprisoning innocent people for years in Guantanamo and so therefore it must not happen. That's some poor logic from a UC Berkeley law professor. I think I'd rather have some added safe guards in place beyond it just not being a good use of resources to imprison and torture people for years with out trial.

Because there isn't enough material to make the story all about the taxi driver, Dilawar (only three photos are used of him that were taken prior to his death), it includes interviews and a short history of the torture policies of the Bush administration. So it starts with a human story with a face and then disappears for an hour into Iraq and Abu Ghraib, all of which has been covered better in other films, and then comes back to Dilawar's death and explains that he was so badly beaten and forced to stand for long periods with no sleep that his legs became, and this is from the coroner's report, "pulpified". Eew. But we don't get to know the soldiers that well, nor the Afghanis and Iraqis. So it's really the equivalent of a poster board presentation. Good information, boring, by the facts delivery.

See Standard Operating Procedures, Iraq in Fragments and My Country, My Country. You'll get the torture, the nation and the people much more than from "Taxi..." and if you want to understand the US government's role, watch Why We Fight and some of the numerous episodes of Frontline available for streaming on their website for free.

I can't believe this film won an Oscar. The best part of it was the title design. But Best Documentary doesn't have a sub-category for Best Graphic Design, so I guess the Academy had to roll-in all together.

Inheritance - % % % %

A very troubling documentary about the fallout of trauma for both the survivor and the perpetrator's offspring, "Inheritance" introduces us to Monika, daughter of Amon Goeth, Nazi concentration camp leader and vicious murderer, who was played by Ralph Feinnes in Schindler's List. Monika's life has been haunted by the sympathizers, like her mother, who hid the truth from her and taught her their own kind of hatefulness, and the growing realizations of from whom she came. She is a sad person, whose shoulders slouch and whose hair falls in her face, attempting to conceal the shame and fear she bears.

Monika contacts Helen, a survivor of the camp who worked in Goeth's home as a servant, who now lives in New Jersey with her three adult children. They arrange to meet to provide information and closure for each other.

But while Helen is able to come to a greater sense of personal closure through the trip, Monika remains thoroughly shattered by the shadow of her father's brutality. She is so shamed to have come from such a monster and so afraid of becoming him, that she willingly tortures herself by meeting with one of his surviving victims and visiting the actual location of the brutality.

This film revisits one my current themes: children filter the trauma of their parents. If we are all fortunate to live lives without further trauma, perhaps we can come to a greater society. Until then, the tortures and miseries of previous generations will be worked out by their children, who are better capable of seeing their parents' ills, but will necessarily inherit and absorb some of them.

And so Helen, who survived such horrors, has made a kind of peace with herself, but the somewhat younger Monika has been handed the full weight of her father's sins without anyone to help her comprehend their ramifications. She is crippled by her upbringing and the realization that her father was a monster. There is a mention early on that Monika and her husband are raising their grandson because their daughter has a drug problem. It seems to me like so many children are burdened with things they were not present for, but whose results profoundly affect their approach to life, and they are unable to cope. So perhaps Monika's grandson will find a healthier state of mind.

The film was so uncomfortable with Monika's sorrow, but I came away with a pondering question. How can we help each other heal? Monika expresses fear that Helen's daughter will look at her with hate, and she also recognizes the terror in Helen's eyes when she discusses Amon. Can the next generations assist the previous? How can one face such circumstances, or accidents of birth?

It's so sad how much we desire to know our parents, as if we can get a firm grasp on ourselves through understanding them, and as if we could gain control or power over them by understanding them better. Monika's desire to know and understand her father seems to hold a need to be loved and I suspect she hopes that she might meet someone who might one day tell her something good.

The two moments of greatest tension between Monika and Helen point to some of the greatest fears present in our social unconscious. Helen becomes overwhelmed by the power of Monika's feelings and she must walk away to protect her own fragile feelings. And later, Helen makes it clear that she cannot even hear the lies that Monika was told. While Monika wants to express the change between her and her parents' generation to gain appreciation from Helen, Helen simply cannot accept a discussion of the lies because it is so offensive to her. Other peoples' experiences can be so upsetting whether because of empathy and/or because of our ego-centric perspectives on their experiences. What does it mean for me?

Reason # 594985 that film is important:
In a post-screening interview, Helen says that "Schindler's List" made it possible to discuss the horrors of the Holocaust with family members and strangers. By having a reference point, others became more able to understand, and after becoming engaged by the film others have more of a desire to understand the experiences.

Crumb - % % % % %

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating these films' quality, but this was honestly a well made biographical documentary of a very interesting person. Honestly.


A comic book artist is certainly a great subject matter for a film. Composed primarily of Robert Crumb's drawings and interviews of him and those in his life, "Crumb" depicts the sad life of the Crumb family and Robert's attempts to live beyond the mediocrity of his childhood by processing his own psycho-social issues through his drawings. He is paralleled with his older and younger brothers: one who lives at home with their mother and is continually on tranquilizers to moderate his violent tendencies; another who lives alone, meditating on a bed of nails for several hours a day to quell his impulses to pull women's shorts down.

His former girlfriends and old haunts are interviewed as well. We follow Crumb around, watching him draw people, seeing the world through his eyes. Yet Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Bad Santa) refrains from mocking the people on the street directly. Indirectly, there are definite allusions between characters Crumb sees and his seemingly subsequent drawings. Yuppies in a yogurt shop are followed by caricatures of muscle-bound, meat heads. Zwigoff's presence isn't denied, nor is it obtrusive. He occasionally prompts those on screen with questions, but relies on the camera and editing to point out the connections intended for the audience.

Interviews with cultural critics, from art critic, Robert Hughes (who calls Crumb the Breugel of the second half of the 20th century) to former Mother Jones Magazine editor, Deirdre English, including a very young Peggy Orenstein, cut back and forth showing the many interpretations of the work. When Orenstein tells Crumb that as a young girl she saw her brother's collection of Zap Comics, including many of his cartoons, and that she was extremely confused about adulthood and sexuality, Crumb at first tosses his hands in the air. He says that he can't defend himself, but follows with a story of his daughter's fear and confusion watching Goodfellas. So some art is only for some people, even then only those who choose it, and his is therefore not for children.

It is a sensitive telling of a small man's life which connected with other men's lives. His work is controversial because it exposes many of our species' and society's ugly impulses. The film does not interrogate whether his sexual fixations and fantasies are biological or psychological, which would be an interesting, although expansive, discussion. While it touches on the racist imagery depicted in some of his work, especially from the 60s, the film neglects to include any African-American voices, nor those well versed with African American History. I suppose that the previous editor of Ms. is familiar with the kinds of bigotry and oppression involved in any discussion of racism, but no other experts or authorities are called upon to respond.

The film is also shot on the eve of his departure from the America he so successfully satirizes. At the end, Crumb, his wife and daughter, move to the south of France. The US was not a fantasy-fulfillment land for him, and so he takes his fantasies and exits. He seems to be someone who narrowly escaped mental illness, unlike his two brothers, through expressing and experimenting with his demons. These expressions found camaraderie with others' demons and gave him friends, love and support. It seems that without these friends and support, that he might be living in a one room apartment in squalor and greasy hair. Instead he lives in France. Ah! The transformative power of art!

Economic Hitman Speaking Freely - If you like Noam Chomsky...

While essentially an extended interview of one man in one location, “Speaking Freely: John Perkins” posits numerous paradigm shifts for the economically and politically minded. Filmicly, it is boring. As one who possesses an economics undergrad major, and a passionate advocate for social justice, I found John Perkins’ description of the world to be a good, hard push on a swing. It spun me around and gave me a new perspective on what I had thought I knew so clearly, and simultaneously connected with suspicions I’d had for some time.

In the opening minutes of the documentary, Perkins claims that poverty is not the core problem. It is extreme wealth that necessitates poverty, which is to blame. It is not possible for a small percentage of the world to be as profoundly wealthy as many are in “developed” nations, without the rest of the world being profoundly poor, without resources or opportunities for significant advancement. Thus over half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day. And they are getting what they pay for.

One of the first concepts taught in economics is scarcity. There are a limited number of anything. There are only so many gold deposits on earth, so many potatoes at any given time, or so many hours in a day. We affix a price as a means of estimating the goods’ or services’ relative value. Four frappaccinos is worth as much as a sweater at H&M. So for a small percentage of the people on earth to control a vast percentage of the resources, objects, land and people, it is necessary for most people to not have any access or control over those scarce resources. Wealth is a representation of power over goods and people.

Instead, the conversation in our society is directed towards the lives of the poor, when really their circumstances and choices have little effect for change. It’s the choices of the wealthy and powerful that determine the circumstances of the lives of the poor. The poor have few choices. Should I work at this degrading job or work at that poorly paid job? Do I live in this slum or that shack? What can I afford to eat? So we should flip the conversation around and discuss how the wealthy and powerful can equalize the circumstances by equalizing access to resources. And this sounds very Robin Hood indeed.

Who is in control of this system? The corporatocracy. This marvelous word, apparently created by Perkins, draws attention to the power structure of the economy. We don’t live in a democracy. Corporations and those who run them finance our elections. They control the conversations politicians can have and what most people can learn about through the media. They are not a monolith, but rather operate within the same system, based on the assumptions of economic theory, and resultantly think alike.

And then he gets into his area of expertise. As an “economic hitman”, his self-appointed title, Perkins worked for one of the major international monetary funds, like the IMF or the World Bank, convincing the nations of the global south to accept development loans in exchange for accepting disadvantageous policies, such as dictating the subcontracting US or European companies or dictating the domestic policies of such “developing” nations.

As evidence he sites the fact that the poor are poorer and more populous. If these financial deals were indeed intended to improve the standard of living of people in the global south, they have failed. The forecasts created to justify these loans were totally off. This points to the real intentions of those who designed these loans. The loans have been clearly been designed to favor the wealthy nations, and particularly the wealthy corporatocracy, and to maintain the status quo.

While the World Bank was founded upon noble intentions to rebuild Europe after WWII, it quickly devolved into a means of securing loyalty to the west and alienating the communists, who would disturb the distribution of wealth and power. Once the CIA succeeded in inserting the Shah of Iran, as Perkins' narrative formulates, the powers that be realized that war, an ugly and embarrassing means, was not the only means of maintaining their hold. They could use economic incentives to manipulate a few powerful leaders in various nations to follow their dictates.

Once these nations are securely in debt, wealthy nations extort these weaker nations' resources by forcing them to sell off their natural resources or keep their wages and benefits low for multinational companies to take advantage of.

And we all, on some level, do know that this is how it works. We live in a society in which brazen selfishness is considered street smart or intelligent. Of course USAID doesn't pass on its finances to foreign NGOs. Why would the US government want to benefit foreign NGOs? Well, because the money is intended for the people living in poverty and it doesn't matter how it gets to them. Of course, we say, we can't just give the poor money. They'll use it for other purposes. Those governments are corrupt. That homeless guy will spend it on crack. We continually need to maintain power over other people by defining the ways in which they live their lives so that it will benefit us the most.

What makes people without financial power more dangerous than those with it? Are they really more sinister? more psychologically damaged? more reckless? more financially stupid? Our nation spends $12.4 billion a year on plastic surgery and we're all worried that the guy on the street is going to buy beer with the nickel we might give him. But I digress.

Aren't there checks and balances in these large non-governmental financial organizations to prevent this kind of corruption? Yes, says Perkins. There are some within the IMF and World Bank who's job it is to point out inconsistencies and manipulations. But inevitably, it's in the interest of these institutions to go forward with the loans. The money, after all, comes from the wealthy governments, which comes from the wealthy corporations, and the leaders of these institutions are selected by the wealthy governments, like Paul Wolfowitz, recent Bush placement as president of the World Bank.

What I find most interesting is his personal analysis of how good people can do bad things. Because their actions are not illegal, they exist within large structures, it takes so much effort to make small improvements, and they are making good money, it's easy to justify their part of the system.

I always wonder why people have different takes on the world than me. Is it lack of information or lack of education or what? Am I fortunate enough to have had the financial cushion of my education, which enabled me to move into the arts, knowing that if worst comes to worst, I'll be a secretary at a non-profit, like my last job. I won't starve. I have access to a living wage without sacrificing too much. So I can buck the system. and I've been raised knowing that the church isn't right about everything. Women are equal to men so they should be able to be priests. And the government isn't always right. Look at Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal. Our nation has done some pretty terrible things, like killing Native Americans and supporting legal slavery and discrimination. So that leaves existing within a large structure and that it's just plain hard to get anything to change. Fair enough. People discriminate when everyone around them does the same. People want to enjoy life and not struggle every day against the flow. I see that. So what do we do?

This discussion proves why privatization is a tempting evil. Governments receive large sums of money in exchange for control of their resources. Chicago is in the process of privatizing our parking meters. The city will get a large lump sum to pull us out of the red for a year or two, or to finance our preparations for the Olympic bid. But we'll spend it all now and not have that revenue stream available in the future. In fact, whomever purchases the contract for parking meters will certainly make more money over a few years than they paid the city in the first place. Why else would they do it? So five years down the line and our parking rates are extortionist and the city is broke. I guess it'll help lower traffic and air pollution. Maybe even improve CTA ridership. But who says how many meters the company is allowed to install and operate? Are there any limits on where future meters are installed? There's no government regulation once the control has been sold off and no democratic control over that city resource.

This narrative explains how US citizens can be treated well and welcomed to many nations but the US government can be so deeply hated. The US government manipulates officials, or the entire government and military like in Nicaragua, in order to benefit US corporations, who pay politicians to get elected. Foreigners know that US citizens are almost as helpless as they in this matter.

Included in the discussion of governmental manipulation, is Saddam Hussein's rise to power. I did not know this, but as a member of the Ba'ath party, Saddam was part of a 1959 US-backed attempt to overthrow the new military dictator. According to NewsMax.com, "he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim." "Little attention was paid to Qasim's bloody and conspiratorial regime until his sudden decision to withdraw from the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1959, an act that 'freaked everybody out' according to a former senior U.S. State Department official. Washington watched in marked dismay as Qasim began to buy arms from the Soviet Union and put his own domestic communists into ministry positions of "real power," according to this official. The domestic instability of the country prompted CIA Director Allan Dulles to say publicly that Iraq was 'the most dangerous spot in the world.'" There's more to the story, but I found this quite interesting. I had learned about the US' ties in the '80s to Saddam, and I laughed out loud at the photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, but I didn't know how far back his ties with the CIA went. Another example of the US governments' sneaky plans backfiring in all of our faces. And an example of the actions of the US government when the economic policies and the CIA aren't successful. If we can't manipulate the government peacefully or orchestrate an assassination, we invade.

Perkins' discussion of undocumented US immigrants leads to the conclusion that the only way to stop extra-legal immigration is to alter our trade policies to end our exploitation of their economies, so that people can make a living wage in their own home nations. Using a band-aid on the wound won't stop the bleeding. Slapping a wall up on our border, won't end the need on either side of the wall.

Perkins makes another interesting analogy. He connects modern day militants and "terrorists" to his ancestors who used militancy and guerrilla warfare to toss out the British when they, farmers facing desperation, were forced to bear arms.

He ends on the "it's a small world" note. The misery of those in Afghanistan can affect us. The world is so interconnected that we can't close our eyes any longer. Unlike the citizens of the British Empire, the violence in our foreign policy is clear to us and affects us personally. We don't have continents between us and the consequences of our policies. TV, the internet and air travel bring it into our living rooms.

So yeah, it's an interview inter cut with images of the global south and common people of those areas. But it's got some important ideas that we should be discussing.