Agony of New Orleans, Through Spike Lee’s Eyes

[Sapphire Blue]

Agony of New Orleans, Through Spike Lee’s Eyes
By FELICIA R. LEE
Published: August 3, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — From the beginning Spike Lee knew that Hurricane Katrina was a story he had to tell. Watching the first television images of floating bodies and of desperate people, mostly black, stranded on rooftops, he quickly realized he was witnessing a major historical moment. As those moments kept coming, he spent almost a year capturing the hurricane’s sorrowful consequences for a four-hour documentary, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” to be shown on HBO this month.

(snip)

Mr. Lee’s reputation helped get his camera crew into the city’s water-soaked homes, he said. It allowed him to stretch out a complex story, with themes of race, class and politics that, he said, have too often been sensationalized or rendered in sound bites. He received permission, for example, from Kimberly Polk to film the funeral of her 5-year-old daughter, Sarena Polk, swept away when the waters ravaged the Lower Ninth Ward. “She came to me in a dream,” Ms. Polk says in the film. “She said, ‘Mama, I’m falling.’ ”

“Levees” opens with the Louis Armstrong song “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” and offers black-and-white images of the city’s Southern-with-a-twist past — Mardi Gras, Confederate flags — interspersed with scenes of children airlifted from demolished houses, a door marked “dead body inside.”

(snip)

Mr. Lee said he intended most of the “Levee” stories to come from the ordinary people who endured the Superdome’s makeshift shelter or long searches for loved ones. So “Levees” includes many people like Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, depressed and outraged after her family was evacuated to different places around the country and she waited four months for a government trailer. “Not just the levees broke,” she says in the film. “The spirit broke.”

(snip)

As a kind of thank-you to the many residents like Mr. Ervin, the first half of “Levees” will be first shown free on Aug. 16 to 10,000 people at the New Orleans Arena. HBO is to show the first two hours of “Levees” on Aug. 21 at 9 p.m., the last two on Aug. 22 at 9 p.m. It will be shown in its entirety at 8 p.m. on Aug. 29, the anniversary of the hurricane, one of the country’s worst natural disasters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/arts/television/03leve.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Can't wait.

When Lee is on, he's an extraordinary filmmaker and when he's not he's still better than most.

[malaise]

4. Ditto

I won't miss this.

[merh]

2. I wish I had HBO

I'll have to find someone with it to record this for me.

Thank you Sapphire Blue :hug:

Oh, and an update on Jessie's case.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/15195262.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[jonnyblitz]

6. I am sure it will be online "somewhere" once it is aired.

If you know how to find such things. ;)

[merh]

10. do you think a little bird can whisper the "how to find"

to me via pmail?

:hi:

[jonnyblitz]

11. or course, merh!!

As soon as I know it has aired I will keep my eye out for you because I want it, too! :hi:

[merh]

15. thanks so much

:hug:

[Sapphire Blue]

7. Me, too!

Thanks for the update on Jessie! This is a start, and long overdue, but why, as stated in the article, is she "not currently scheduled for a court appearance, according to the federal court clerk's office" if "Typically, people accused federally of a criminal act are arrested and brought before a magistrate judge for a court appearance"???

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/15195262.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[Cleita]

3. Yes, I'm looking forward to it.

K&R

[Swamp Rat]

5. k&r

No HBO so I can't watch it. :(

[jonnyblitz]

9. bit torrent is your friend. nt

[Swamp Rat]

14. I have never used it

How can I get started? (I use an Apple computer)

[KamaAina]

12. Especially in NOLA itself, you might consider finding someone with HBO

and organizing a viewing party similar to, say, a pay-per-view fight. I'm in the same situation out here...

I imagine at least one of our other terrific NOLA DUers has HBO.

Here's a thought: Does Cooter's have HBO?! "I'll have another Abita Restoration Ale, pleasssshe (burp)"...

[Swamp Rat]

13. YEAH YOU RITE!!!

I have been going to Cooter's since it first opened, when it was in a small room in the front and had only one pool table. When I made it back to NOLA right after Katrina, I ran over there (literally) to have some ale and an alligator andouille po-boy (food in most other places in the USA is UTTER DOG CRAP! if it even has a taste to it). They will only play sporting events, normally, but I know the staff very well, so I might get them to put it on in the backbar.

[EFerrari]

8. I don't know if I can watch this even though Spike Lee is

one of our favorites. I'm glad he did this, though. And may his viewership be huge.

[proud patriot]

16. I look forward to seeing the film

I only hope the academy finally recognizes
him with an Oscar.

I'm still miffed about that .

[wicket]

17. I can't wait

God bless Spike Lee for doing this, he is an amazing film maker.

[AtomicKitten]

18. This is a story that must be told and preserved.

The devastation, the cruelty, the shameful indifference, the truth - all must be excavated and exposed.
It's a story that all Americans should digest for its full impact and implications.