Okay, after this I promise to only talk about cheesy summer movies that star Oscar-winning actresses acting like cats or involve improbable brainwashing plots or have at least one foot in another century. But for today, I have to tell you about 2 other documentaries that I saw.
The first, CONTROL ROOM, tells the behind-the-scenes story at Al Jazeera, the Arab-language broadcast station that's seen all over the world. The filmmaker follows the editors and anchors and producers as they tell the story of the lead up to and early days of the war in Iraq in March - April 2003. It is fascinating - and instructive - to see the editorial process from such different eyes, to see how the same set of facts can be presented with such a different interpretation. Often funny, occasionally infuriating, and always absorbing, CONTROL ROOM is very worth seeing if you are interested in seeing another view of how the world sees us today. The "stars" of the movie are an American information officer and a former BBC newsman currently reporting for Al Jazeera. The latter is the heart and moral conscience of the film, a man who understands the reasoning and motivation behind each side's presentation of the story, and who spent much time - and humor - trying to bridge the gap between the viewpoints. The American officer, meanwhile, represents all that's best about Americans: he's honest, and open to new ideas, introspective, and openly curious. There are plenty of ideologues on both sides in the film, but these 2 men give hope that someday we'll find a common ground.
Then there was THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND (on DVD), which was interesting in a historical sort of way. Of the many factors that went into the changes associated with the late 1960s, how much did the violence done and fear engendered by the Weathermen contribute? The film follows the exploits of the radical group calling itself The Weather Underground with a mixture of current interviews and file footage of fiery speeches on 1960s campuses and city streets. There are interesting and somewhat frightening stories here, good music, and more bombings than I remember, but I'm not sure I finally understood what these people thought they would accomplish. And come to think of it, they didn't seem too sure either. Mostly, in light of recent events, it reminded me that violence is seldom the answer and usually counterproductive. It also reminded that when chaos threatens, normal people (and the FBI) have a tendency to overreact. In what may be the biggest irony of the story, when the bombers were finally caught or turned themselves in, most were not prosecuted because the FBI had broken too many laws while pursuing them. If nothing else, wiser people might learn a lesson with contemporary relevance there. In a million years, I doubt Bridget Dohrn would have predicted she'd end up looking like a soccer mom with a flair for "craft-fair" earrings and Eileen Fisher duds or Mark Rudd that he'd be a math teacher at a community college in New Mexico and bear a passing resemblance to Gil on CSI. Some of them went to jail, some died, and some just got old and irrelevant. Call me jaded, but all that old footage of student radicals juxtaposed with their gray-haired, pudgy, contemporary selves, reminded me of nothing as much as an episode of COLD CASE.