Posted on 08/20/2006 8:08:20 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Bush the villain of Katrina film Bob Dart August 21, 2006
Tears marked his 70-year-old cheeks as Arthur Brown, leaning on a walking stick, walked from the film that sought to tell his story.
"I think it's a great movie," said Brown, on Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
"I'm mad," he said. "We lost everything. I've worked all my life - minimum-wage jobs - and raised eight children. Now I've got nothing. My wife is 65. What little savings we had is gone. FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] hasn't been any help. It's just not right."
Brown was among thousands of survivors of Hurricane Katrina at the world premiere of the four-hour film at the New Orleans Arena on Wednesday night.
One was Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, whose profane and sometimes profound commentary is a highlight of the film. "This was unnecessary," she said of the tragedy. "I hope everyone watches [the movie] and learns from it."
The documentary will be shown in two-hour slots on the American cable network HBO tonight and tomorrow. It will air the entire four hours on August 29, the first anniversary of the disaster.
Lee said his work was aimed at the forgetfulness of a nation. "People are still in dire straits," he said. "We want to put the focus back here."
Lee has chronicled America's racial divisions since his 1989 film Do the Right Thing. But it's more people in poverty than people of colour whose suffering is depicted in When the Levees Broke. Corpses with all shades of skin are shown in the fetid floodwaters.
The Government is the villain in Lee's lens, and the audience of about 8000 booed when President George Bush and Michael Brown, the former director of FEMA, were on screen. Chuckles and jeers erupted at three rapidly repeated shots of Bush saying "Brownie, you did a heck of a job."
While the film shows the raw power of the storm, it blames much of the tragedy on the failure of man-made levees and a negligent government response.
"What happened here was a criminal act, " Lee said.
A review in New Orleans' Times-Picayune criticised the film for focusing on the African-American experience and giving short shrift to white folks.
Lee said any reviewer who didn't see white faces must have slept through the film. Indeed, from a weeping disc jockey to an angry homeowner who said "Go f--- yourself, Mr Cheney" when waylaid by a vice-presidential photo op, white people in the film drew applause from the mostly black viewers.
Nahhhh...no agenda here...just Bash Bush!
Isn't Spike a little late to the Bush bashing party?
What happened was a hurricane.... A HURRICANE you goddamn piece of ----.
Must be open season on the President again. Court TV's 9/11 piece airing tonight appears to be another Bush-Bash-Fest. A pox on all of them. If I read the review correctly, the "Jersey Girls" really unload on him, totally ignoring WHO was President for 8 years prior to 9/11.
Oh he isn't late, this is all about the upcoming November elections.
Liar.
HURRICANE KATRINA- archive of links Click the picture:
You forgot lap dances.
The President should learn that silence is preferable to a nervous, ad lib comment.
Hate to see the bigoted Spike Lee get any free ammo.
The first responders were the Coast Guard & National Guard.I believe they constitute action by our government.
FEMA was in the Superdome on Monday but had to leave because Nagin had not prepared for the huge numbers plus half the roof blew off.
No power or water because there were no generators.
I was without power for 10 days in Mobile but thanks to FEMA I had plenty of ice,water & food.
Sure it was hot but I lived through the summer of 1936 without power.
Not Bush's job to hold my hand after a storm.
Spike Lee went to the Sergei Eisenstein school of film making. I'll be shocked if he doesn't include a sequence showing a baby carriage falling down a flight of steps.
The DNC has trained their slaves well.
All of these 9/11 shows, documentaries are being played up to try to convince American voters that they, the liberals, would much more effective on security. But in the guts of most liberals there is that acknowledgement that they are glad that Bush and the Pubbies did the heavy lifting. Even the most partisan person realizes that this is partisan bashing under the guise of documentaries, news reports and retrospectives alike.
Lee says the speed of the US government response was so inadequate that it qualifies as a crime.
In the most controversial part of the double header, the director gives voice to residents who said levees surrounding poorer parts of town were bombed to protect richer parts from flooding.
I guess Lee is going to DONATE all of the money from this film to NEW ORLEANS rebuilding?!!! /sarcasm
He is concerned about ONE THING, his bank account.
******
the film reminds viewers that although Katrina shattered the entire Gulf Coast, New Orleans and its mostly black residents got hit especially hard
Cameras follow trumpeter Terence Blanchard, the longtime composer for Lee’s films and a New Orleans native, as he and his mother visit the family home in the Gentilly Woods section of the city for the first time since the flood. “Oh Lord have mercy,” weeps Wilhelmina Blanchard, nearly hysterical. “You can rebuild this stuff,” Terence murmurs, clutching her shoulders. “That’s easier said than done,” she says. “I knew it was devastation but I didn’t think it was this bad.”
“We want this film to spur action,” he said. “Things still aren’t right. People are still suffering.”
Lee says he’s considering a follow-up documentary to “Levees,” perhaps focusing on how New Orleans’ black middle class has been gutted, and what that may mean to the city.
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