[UPDATE, 8/22/06: For the latest, up-to-date commentary on Spike Lee’s film — which I was in — please visit my homepage or my Katrina category.]
Spike Lee’s documentary on Hurricane Katrina — possibly featuring me — will have its world premiere in a free screening at the New Orleans Arena on Aug. 16, followed by its television premiere on HBO “in two-hour blocks on Aug. 21 and 22,” and then it will be aired in its four-hour entirety on Aug. 29, according to the Chicago Tribune and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Actually, only the first half of the film — the Aug. 21 segment — will be screened at the New Orleans Arena (next door to the Superdome) on Aug. 16, according to the Times-Picayune. That half “tracks the storm’s approach and landfall then the mayhem and misery that ensued in the days thereafter.” I’m not sure what the second half contains, but I guess it won’t be seen by anyone until its Aug. 22 television premiere.
Tickets to the New Orleans Arena screening are free, and are available starting today on Ticketmaster and at the Arena box office. Do I have any New Orleans-area readers who would be interested in attending the screening and reporting on it for the blog?
The documentary, which I had previously heard referred to only as “When the Levees Broke,” has apparently had its title expanded to “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” The Aug. 21-22 television premiere is also a change; previously, Aug. 29 had been set as the premiere date, and that’s what my “upcoming events” sidebar has been counting down to for several weeks. (I have now changed it to Aug. 21, which happens to be the same day that my 3L year starts.)
I have no idea whether I’ll actually be in the movie, and if so, what portions of our hour-plus interview he’ll use. But the Times-Picayune article has some information about the film, via interview with Lee, including:
What happened to the levees, or at least Lee’s understanding of that man-made catastrophe, has been the chief local concern about this project since Lee’s October appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
On that show, Lee verbally sparred with panelist Tucker Carlson over the belief held by some that the levees had been dynamited to flood poor sectors of the city.
Not to worry (too much): Based on Lee’s meeting with the critics, as well as an earlier one-on-one interview with yours truly, the villain of the levee tale will be the Army Corps of Engineers.
“I think somebody has to go to jail, somehow, for what was committed down there,” he said.
There are interviews in the film with people who believe the flooding was the result of a conspiracy, Lee said, but they’re balanced by refutations by independent experts.
“We let people say what they think,” he said. “We have people from the Lower 9th Ward who swear on a stack of Bibles they heard explosions. We have scientists say that it wasn’t explosions, that they heard water going through a levee.”
Lee suggests that the government is equally at fault either way: “Take your pick! We blew it up or we built it so flimsy that the (thing) broke. Take your pick!”
Anyway, his mantra “we let people say what they think” is exactly what I was told when I initially expressed my reservations about the project to Lee’s producer. I just hope he holds true to it, and doesn’t distort what I said. We’ll all find out soon enough.
UPDATE: The L.A. Times reports that Lee “felt that HBO would be the right venue for the documentary because ‘when people are mad, they curse. And I didn’t want to censor anything these people had to say.’” Heh. He certainly held true to that philosophy with me, asking me to read this post aloud and telling me I could say it with or without the asterisks, depending on how I felt it should be read. I eliminated the asterisks and said the f-word, because that’s how it reads in my head.
UPDATE 2: Cinematical has more about the movie, and the Washington Post reports that “an audience of 10,000″ will watch the premiere at the New Orleans Arena.
UPDATE 3: Still more from the Houston Chronicle and KLFY, which reports:
H-B-O says Lee interviewed more than 100 people — from diverse backgrounds — who gave a wide-range of opinions about the disaster, including Governor Kathleen Blanco, Mayor Ray Nagin, Doctor Michael Eric Dyson, Harry Belafonte, musicians Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard, the Reverend Al Sharpton, actors Wendell Pierce and Sean Penn, rapper Kanye West and local residents.
And Brendan Loy! :)
UPDATE 4: Lee’s production company must have put out a major press release or something, because everybody is publishing articles about this movie. See, for instance, the Kansas City Star’s TV Barn and the Toledo Blade (scroll about halfway down the page). And the San Jose Mercury News reports:
Lee uses news footage from when Katrina slammed ashore and the days after. He also conducted dozens of interviews with government officials, historians, journalists and average citizens. “We let the individuals tell and guide the story,” he said. “That’s what filmmakers, good filmmakers, do. I wanted to record the raw feelings of these people.” …
The director admitted that some people may feel “Katrina fatigue” after all the coverage of the disaster. But, he contended, “people may think they know” everything there is to know, “but they don’t know.”
UPDATE 5: Here’s another Times-Picayune article.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina
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July 13th, 2006 at 12:42:58 pm
I saw Spike Lee on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” It was sad. One can only hope that Spike Lee doesn’t do for Hurricane Katrina what Oliver Stone did for the Kennedy assassination.
July 13th, 2006 at 2:53:15 pm
Odds are you will be the only one in the theatre, so I wouldn’t worry about your reputation too much.
July 13th, 2006 at 3:40:33 pm
Do we know if this will make it to DVD, seeing as I don’t have cable but I do have Netflix?
July 13th, 2006 at 3:55:25 pm
I won’t be the only one in the theatre, Angrier, because the movie isn’t playing in a theatre — well, unless you count the New Orleans Arena, but I won’t be there, so that doesn’t make any sense either — it’s coming to a TV screen near you, on HBO.
No idea about DVD, Sean, though I will attempt to record it on DVD myself… assuming I can find a friend at Notre Dame who gets HBO!
July 13th, 2006 at 8:20:10 pm
Cool. So if nothing else I can see it next time you’re in Newington.
July 14th, 2006 at 12:18:59 pm
Wish I could, if only so my wife (ND ‘81) could see it, since we have moved to NOLA, a place she has only visited before, this Spring, but I know we can’t (It’s my home town). We don’t get HBO either, so I too hope it gets out on DVD (or I can get somebody to organize a viewing party).
July 14th, 2006 at 4:17:09 pm
You KNOW that if Spike DOES
use youuse clip(s) of your interview :> it Will include the part where you Eliminated the Asterisks :). Veryarticulate bigvocabularied bloggergeek weathernerd lawschool whiteboy says Eff. :) A Light moment in an Angry film. ;> Touch of Levity on the Levee. :]Love,
~ Levy ;}
PS ~ Mah. We don’t have HBO either. Dropped it years ago ’cause all it ever had was Stupid movies. / Still the case, apparently. :) Yoooou make Us a DVD too. :>
July 15th, 2006 at 10:40:45 am
[…] re | Latest wildfire news Katrina Update: Spike Lee offers his take on Hurricane Katrina | Blogger Brendan Loy may be in film Global Warming With Brok […]
July 18th, 2006 at 9:29:16 am
School daze
wake up!!!!wake up!!!
July 20th, 2006 at 1:58:55 pm
I am sick of all of this Katrina coverage, questions, ponderances, speculations
and conspiracy theories when nothing is being done about the problem at hand, the people
of New Orleans and the assurance that New Orleans will be revitalized as an uplifted black city
and not a starbucks emerald city. will it happen again?
July 26th, 2006 at 5:38:49 pm
I have seen the PR clips on Spike Lee’s version of Katrina. It would appear he has avoided many of the truths when pointing his finger at those responsible for not evacuating the thousands of residence in New Orleans. Frankly, I cannot understand why Mr. Lee would not begin his Movie with the most important question: “Why did Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco fail to execute their Hurricane Evacuation Plan when they were informed that Katrina would reach a category 5 ?” Had they followed their Hurricane Evacuation Plan when notified, none of the residence would have endured all the pain and suffering, nor would these folks been stranded for days, or would the residence experienced such large loss of lives. Another question I believe Mr. Lee should have addressed in the movie: “Why is it Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco were held responsive for murdering all these folks by not performing their sworn duty?” And lastly, Is Mr. Lee’s purpose in producing the movie because of his hatred of Mr. Bush or is he interested in stiring up more anger, because it is obvious he’s not interested in exposing the failures of the first line of Government responsible for taking immediate actions to protect the welfare of all their citizens. How sad! We all know both the Mayor and the Governor were evacuated so they would be out of harms way. I guess they understood how dangerous a category 5 Hurricane is to anyone in it’s path.
August 17th, 2006 at 3:12:08 pm
Brendan,
I attended the premiere of Spike Lee’s joint last night. I am pleased to tell you that you are the very first interview of Act I. A prophetic quote from your web log scrolls across the screen, setting the tone for the first act. Thank you for your concern last year.
As a resident of Jefferson Parish, the documentary showed me nothing new. I have lived it and I have heard it all before from friends, co-workers, and the local news. I thank Spike for putting this documentary together so that the rest of the world can get a glimpse of what it means to live in New Orleans.
August 17th, 2006 at 3:41:13 pm
You are most welcome, and thank you very much for letting me know! Now I can get together with friends on Monday to watch the movie, without fear that it’ll be a big letdown when I’m not actually in it.
On a much more important note, you have my utmost sympathies on all the hardship that you and the people in your life have been through.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:42:14 am
I wathched the show on HBO last night and might i say it was very moving. . .Lord Jesus Christ up in Heaven, the atrocities those who endured that storm suffered and are still suffering are UNFATHOMABLE. One can’t even begin to imagine. It is impossible to watch w/out shedding a tear or many tears for that matter.
Let us pray …
August 22nd, 2006 at 4:44:10 pm
This will happen again because we live where we should not.
When they tell you to leave you have to leave with water and food
because there is very little help coming and you never know if it
is coming because of the severity of the disaster. It is not “race”
related — we need to take care of ourselves as much as possible.
Hurricane chief foresees ‘mega-disaster’
Max Mayfield says U.S. setting up for storm worse than Katrina
MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) — If you thought the sight of New Orleans flooded to the eaves — its people trapped in attics or cowering on rooftops — was the nightmare hurricane scenario, think again.
Max Mayfield, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center, says there’s plenty of potential for a storm worse than Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,339 people along the U.S. Gulf coast and caused some $80 billion in damage last August.
“People think we have seen the worst. We haven’t,” Mayfield told Reuters in an interview at the fortress-like hurricane center in Florida.
“I think the day is coming. I think eventually we’re going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it’s going to be a mega-disaster. With lots of lost lives,” Mayfield said.
“I don’t know whether that’s going to be this year or five years from now or a hundred years from now. But as long as we continue to develop the coastline like we are, we’re setting up for disaster.”
Looking back nearly a year to the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, and the third-worst hurricane in terms of American lives lost, Mayfield said Katrina itself could have been a greater disaster.
More than two days before Katrina struck the Gulf coast August 29, the hurricane center had predicted its future track accurately and also warned it could become a powerful Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.
New Orleans was squarely in the danger zone, and emergency managers and residents had plenty of time to prepare.
“One of my greatest fears is having people go to bed at night prepared for a Category 1 and waking up to a Katrina or Andrew. One of these days, that’s going to happen,” Mayfield said.
Katrina went just to the east of New Orleans, sparing the city the worst of a massive storm surge and the strongest winds. But the city’s protective levees failed.
Storm surge could go up the Hudson River
The worst-case hurricane scenario? Mayfield has many in mind. A stronger hurricane closer to New Orleans. A direct hit on the vulnerable Galveston-Houston area, the fragile Florida Keys or heavily populated Miami-Fort Lauderdale.
Or how about a major hurricane racing up the east coast to the New York-New Jersey area, with its millions of people and billions of dollars of pricey real estate?
“One of the highest storm surges possible anywhere in the country is where Long Island juts out at nearly right angles to the New Jersey coast. They could get 25 to 30 feet of storm surge … even going up the Hudson River,” Mayfield said.
“The subways are going to flood. Some people might think ‘Hey, I’ll go into the subways and I’ll be safe.’ No, they are going to flood.”
Mayfield, a silver-haired, 34-year veteran of the hurricane center who became its public face in 2000, is a tireless campaigner for hurricane preparation, warning the 50 million people who live in U.S. coastal counties from Maine to Texas that they are all in the path of a future storm.
Confidence can be dangerous
He is mystified by a study that found 60 percent of people in hurricane-prone U.S. coastal areas have no hurricane plan — which to disaster managers means up to a week’s worth of food and water squirreled away, a kit with flashlights and other gear, and an established evacuation route to higher ground.
“After Katrina and after the last two hurricane seasons you can’t understand why more people are not taking hurricanes seriously,” Mayfield said.
Katrina, he says, killed people who stayed in their homes with confidence because they had lived through 1969’s Hurricane Camille. Camille was a much stronger storm than Katrina when it crashed ashore in Louisiana and Mississippi as one of only three Category 5s to hit the United States in recorded history.
“There were a lot of people who lost their lives because they thought that they had already lived through the worst they could possibly live through,” Mayfield said.
“Experience isn’t always a good teacher.”
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