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Four documentary films

May 13, 2006

We went to the Historic Normal Theater this evening to watch a collection of four Oscar-winning short documentaries, on Norman Corwin, Kevin Carter, Hiroshima, and Rwanda.  The one about Rwanda was not what I expected and should be seen by everyone.  Reviews follow below the fold:

The first one is entitled A Note Of Triumph: the golden age of Norman Corwin.  It distresses me that many people do not know who Norman Corwin is.  He is a poet, writer, broadcaster and producer who is best known for an inspiring international broadcast on the occasion of V-E day when Germany surrendered at the end of WWII.  My father used to quote him and I have heard several of his broadcasts on tape.  With material like that it’s not hard to fill 40 interesting minutes, but I’d have been just as happy listening to a collection of Corwin’s broadcasts.

The documentary ended with Studs Terkel quoting the closing prayer of Corwin’s most famous broadcast:

“Lord God of test-tube and blueprint
Who jointed molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of conquerors and give instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father’s color or the credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of the little peoples through expected straits,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.”
- Norman Corwin, from “A Note Of Triumph”

“Every schoolchild should know this”, said Terkel.

The second film was about the life and death of Kevin Carter, the Pulitzer-winning photographer whose suicide followed years of torment.  Carter was a war photographer who stared into the cruel face of man’s darkest inhumanity.  Most people will remember his photo of a vulture awaiting the death of an emaciated Sudanese child.  Many cruel and thoughtless people blamed him for the child’s situation.  In fact, Carter was so sick when he took the picture he could barely stand, and the child was in such a condition that even if he could have summoned a jet and flown her directly to the best hospital in Houston, the outcome would still have been in doubt. 

I remember Carter’s suicide and probably wouldn’t have gone to the theater if I’d known this piece was in the show.  But then I would have missed the fourth film…

The third film was The Mushroom Club, a capable but not exceptional documentary about ten survivors of the Hiroshima bombing.  But I would rather have just seen the entirety of Keji Nakazawa’s incredible, amazing animation about the bomb than this documentary which showed a few seconds of it.  Alternatively one could read John Hersey’s Hiroshima, first published in 1946.

The fourth film, God Sleeps In Rwanda, I expected to be the ultimate downer.  But instead it was inspiring and uplifting.  Rwanda suffered an inconceivable genocide that left the devastated country 70% female, even though Rwandan culture had traditionally denied women significant roles in society. 

The women profiled in this documentary – some as young as 12, having been brutalized, raped, and seen the slaughter of their entire families, took roles of responsibility.  One became a policewoman (new to Rwanda) and is studying to become a lawyer so she can help HIV positive people – like herself.  One began raising her siblings and says; “One day I will be a wonderful mother.  I know this because I am doing it now.”  One became a mayor – no education – and organized the whole community of mostly women to rebuild houses and actually build a road, by hand, to the capital so commerce could reach her community.  There were others.

I would like to make everyone whining about how rough they have it in America, watch this film.

Then we walked home in a cool, light rain, which was refreshing after sitting in the theater.  A well-spent evening.

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