When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts

[cron]

nobody saw this aside from me and hedwig? what the fuck! i think it's easily one of the best films i've seen this year. it was extremely enjoyable to watch aside from all the suffering , the score was great, the four acts thing was there for a reason,  and seriously, the interviews can only compare to those in 'gates of heaven' , one of my favorite films in the world.
i have a question. pardon my ignorance, but  is ray nagin an option for the democrats in 2008? i don't know if there's ever been a president from New Orleans but he attracted attention with Kathrina and people seem to not dislike him.

[pete]

nagin's got his share of critics in the country--if he's running against giuliani then it's not gonna look good.
I saw the first half and so far I've been really moved.  spike has pinned down the feeling of an apocalypse down.  it's an incredibly human film that pits the humanity of the victims versus the big greasy machine of the politicians, the bureacrats, and the trigger happy gun nuts.  I'll say this--if you still talk all that shit about spike being an angry black man or the residents being thugs after watching this film, then you are an aryan gnawing racist.
enough spike glorification, I hung out with two of my new york filmmaker friends yesterday, who made a film called "mardi gras: made in china" that draws a really interesting link between the exploitation of young college girls during the mardi gras and the exploitation of young female workers in the Chinese beads sweatshop.  they are finishing their second film that tracks some of the characters from the first film as they wade through katrina.  it follows the story of 15 people over the course of 9 months.  my friends ran into Spike's crew in the streets and Spike was giving them a lot of shit and his lackies got physical and pushed my friends around.  not cool.
still, if you call spike lee an angry black man, you are a douchecunt.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

or maybe the fact that they were told to get the fuck out of new orleans before katrina hit

You don't quite get it, do you?

Poverty stricken people don't have a choice.  They don't have the money to move.  They either stay where they are and deal with the hurricane and live on, or spend all their money to move.  Hurricanes have been survived before, and they had to take their chances.

[MacGuffin]

When The Levees Broke DVD Due
Spike Lee's documentary on the Katrina tragedy is due in Dec.

On December 19, 2006, HBO will release When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts on DVD. The documentary, helmed by Spike Lee, takes an intimate look at the devastation to New Orleans when the levees broke, and will feature tons of bonus materials and extra features. It will be available for the MSRP of $29.98.

The When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts DVD will feature the following bonus materials:

"Pix" - Photo montage set to music by Terence Blanchard

"Next Movement" - Over 90 minutes of unseen additional segments

[Fernando]

Is that the first time it says a Spike Lee 'film' and not 'joint'?

[Pubrick]

Is that the first time it says a Spike Lee 'film' and not 'joint'?

no i heard that one day he rolled a joint and called it a spike lee film.

then he set fire to the projector. the police came. garbage cans were thrown.

[Ravi]

A Spike Lee joint

[Fernando]

Hey, his bones must be black too! 

[Ghostboy]

I bought this the other day and watched the first half of this last night, and already I think I can safely say that I'd place it near the top of my 2006 best-of list. It's a really staggering documentary, and it's especially valuable to watch it now, when the media's pulled the wool over everyone's eyes about the situation in New Orleans. I have friends down there helping to rebuild houses and stuff, and it's still a disaster zone....but it's all been brushed under the rug. This should get primetime airing on the major networks, PBS, etc. It's a really galvanizing piece of filmmaking. And I've still got two hours left!

[Sunrise]

I couldn't agree more, Ghostboy. I went into this expecting a typical talking-heads, Frontline-style documentary, but Levees kicked me right in the chest. While it does have plenty of interviews, I think it is one of the most beautifully cinematic accomplishments of Lee's career, and certainly of 2006.

[picolas]

i thought this was really really great too. it covers absolutely EVERYTHING but never drags/if anything you want to know more.

[modage]

yes, this was an excellent documentary.  i have been pretty underwhelmed with most of the docs i've seen in the past few years but this was what i was looking for.  it had the length to explore the topic and interviews with enough people that you didn't feel like you were missing something.  it had just enough distance from the event that it could gather the necessary information but close enough that it is still relevant. 

i implore the xixax voters, WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE is a great documentary.  AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, while full of interesting information is not a great film!  it's a slideshow that they taped.  this is what a great doc should do.

[picolas]

i agree with this at the moment but i'm still waiting to see The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

[matt35mm]

Well, I've seen The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which is a good movie, but When The Levees Broke is just far and away the strongest documentary of the year.  The Spike Lee commentary on the DVD is worth listening to, also.

The events following Katrina has been the most damning display of the problem of having a government composed of businessmen.  Yet, the government has done a pretty good job of making people forget about it for the most part.  That's part of what makes this film so important.

The U.S. Government... is a terrible joke.  I don't need to have a disaster happen to me for me to realize that my government is not here for me, and is not going to protect me if anything does go wrong.  The government isn't interested in the lives of the people.

This is also worth watching to see Spike Lee at the top of his game.  He can be hit and miss, sure, but he is an amazing filmmaker and this definitely is a strong hit for him.

So yeah, I'm with modage on this.

[MacGuffin]

Lee: New Orleans story 'is not over'
Source: Associated Press

NEW YORK -- Spike Lee plans to return to New Orleans for HBO to follow up the stories told in last year's four-hour documentary about the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Lee, who accepted a Peabody Award on Monday at the Waldorf-Astoria for directing "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," said he's still not sure when that will be. Now is too soon, he said.

"The story is not over," he said backstage. "It's still something that's evolving, and we want to keep on top of it."

His film was able to tell stories not often seen on television news because of the time he had to work with, and the ability to show things others couldn't. Some of his interview subjects asked if he minded if they cursed; he said it proved essential to conveying the anger of the event.

He collected footage of bloated bodies floating in the floodwaters near New Orleans, much of it taken by the BBC. American news networks could show little of it, he said.

Lee and his team were one of 35 winners of the 66th Annual Peabody Awards, given for excellence in electronic media. They included cable and network entertainment shows, as well as local and network news programs.

Onstage, he told his audience that he became friends with many of the people featured in the program.

"Most of them are still up the creek without a paddle, abandoned by their local, state and federal governments," he said. "We can't forget about them."