POV

In 1996, a "dog's age ago" in Internet time, POV launched one of our first websites entitled "Re: Vietnam | Stories Since the War." It was conceived as a companion website to the POV/PBS broadcast of the Academy Award-winning film, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. On the site's homepage, a quote from Maya Lin expressed the ethos of the site:

The site's producers aimed to contribute something new to our collective understanding of the Vietnam War by offering people who lived through that wrenching period the opportunity to talk about Vietnam's legacy and enduring impact on society. They hoped that twenty years after the war's end people were finally "ready to listen to each other's stories."

This fall, I'm excited to announce that POV's interactive team has begun work on relaunching "Re: Vietnam" as a new site entitled "Regarding War." We plan to include conversations and stories about all wars — particularly our current deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan — and to update the site with a new look and functionality that combines community features, social networking opportunities and the ability for users to share their own stories, images and video with the click of a mouse. (The original site encouraged visitors to share their stories and images, but the options were via email, telephone, fax or the mail — as in, the U.S. mail!)

Read more about "Re: Vietnam" and "Regarding War" after the jump...

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TAGS: afghanistan, iraq, military, re: vietnam, regarding war, soldier, veterans, vietnam, war

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Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

Wow. Life. Support. Music. is quite a documentary. I think it's hard not to be moved by this stirring story of a totally decent guy (and a great musician) who collapses onstage with a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. The man, Jason Crigler, and his family are sympathetic enough, and the narrative arc is intensely dramatic, but I think there's something else that's at play here: the film is oral history at its best.

Director Eric Daniel Metzgar signals early on to the viewer that this is primarily a story being told by the people who know Jason: the screen shows a talking head in a box, retelling an incident. Then, another box appears with another talking head, and so on, until there are several people speaking, practically finishing each other's sentences. Although Metzgar doesn't return to this visual motif, the rest of the film maintains this structure of people telling different parts of the same story, that of Jason's recovery.

I'm currently writing an oral history for Spin Magazine, so I can appreciate the skill and the hard work it takes to weave together these voices. It certainly helps that Jason's family is hyper-articulate. The modern tradition of oral histories is rooted in the work of Studs Terkel during the Great Depression, and, more recently, was well applied by Legs McNeil (Studs and Legs sound like names cut from the same cloth, no?) in his book about the history of punk. But there's something especially appropriate about Metzgar's use of the form here in this heartbreaking depiction of a guy whose memory went blank for about a year and the people who were there to help him, and who remember what he went through.

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Independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup.

I love it when fictional feature filmmakers are heavily inspired by documentaries — especially such prominent ones as Gus Van Sant. His film Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the gay activist-turned politician who was killed in 1978, is a fantastic bit of fictional filmmaking with a heavy dose of nonfiction influences. First, there was Rob Epstein's The Times of Harvey Milk, the 1984 documentary that many of the people who worked on the film watched as an initial sounding board. (In an interview, Epstein told The Advocate that Van Sant's film is "beautiful," but he also admitted that he had been in discussions with Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and that it is "a bit of a sore point" for him. Hmmm...)

But there's much more to it than that. Reading the Milk production notes, I noticed that Van Sant gives props to the work of Fredrick Wiseman and none other than the granddaddy of docs, Robert Flaherty. "The reason that we like [Wiseman] is that he is usually shooting something completely compelling and somewhat rough," Van Sant says. "Because the situations he is filming in don't allow elaborate equipment or lights. Yet he is completely relaxed in the face of very intense places and people."

When you see the film, you'll understand why. Van Sant goes for the same real-life, documentary vibe he did with his previous Elephant, and this time he uses archival footage seamlessly, jumping from both the real to the fictional world with ease. It is truly deft filmmaking and I can't think of a fiction film that has more adeptly utilitzed nonfiction imagery to complement and carry a fictional tale. So while the film is fiction, it is both based on reality and uses reality to effectively tell the narrative.

TAGS: gus van sant, harvey milk, sean penn

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The Judge and the General explores the criminal investigation of General Augusto Pinochet, who led a military regime in Chile for nearly 20 years. In 1973, Pinochet led a military coup that ousted the democratically elected president Salvador Allende. In the service of his anti-Communist crusade and with U.S. help, Pinochet's military and intelligence community consolidated power with a campaign of violence that included secret prisons, torture and murder. Hundreds of Chileans "disappeared" — never to be seen again.

In 1998, relatives of victims filed suit against the former dictator and a judicial lottery assigned the case to a conservative judge, Juan Guzmán, who was known to be a longtime Pinochet supporter. The filmmakers, who were granted unique access to Judge Guzmán's criminal investigation, might have expected to document a cover-up. Instead, they witnessed a profound personal transformation as Guzmán descends into what he calls the "abyss," and uncovers a past that includes his own role in the tragedy.

For Judge Juan Guzmán, a man who says that his investigations "opened the eyes of my soul," there is one clear choice: "A wounded country needs to know the truth."

For filmmakers Elizabeth Farnsworth and Patricio Lanfranco, The Judge and the General was an opportunity to explore the aftermath of the 1973 coup. Patricio is Chilean and lived through it all. Elizabeth helped make a film in Chile in the early 1970s and has been haunted by what happened there ever since.

Patricio Lanfranco says: "One of the hopes I had for the film was to encourage the same kind of transformation in Chilean society. The Pinochet regime was a huge mistake that we committed as a society, and it is important for Chileans to see the truth and make sure this situation could never happen again."

Elizabeth Farnsworth says: "I was interested in understanding the phenomenon of 'the Good German,' the conscientious person of high ideals who goes along with state terror because it offers safety and order in a time of chaos."

Juan Guzmán was such a person. As a young man, he closed his eyes to the terrible things that were happening in his country. But as we see in The Judge and the General, Guzmán had the courage to face his mistake and expose the truth.

What do you think of Judge Guzmán, his support of Pinochet as a young man and his change of mind? Why do millions of people stand by and allow injustice to happen? Have you ever been in a situation where you kept quiet instead of standing up for what's right? What can be done to encourage citizens to fight against injustice?

TAGS: history, south america

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The Judge and the General filmmaker Patricio Lanfranco was 19 years old when General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Chilean president Salvadore Allende in 1973. His co-director, Elizabeth Farnsworth, had spent time filming in Chile in 1970, and some of the people she had met there were killed in the coup. Elizabeth and Patricio met in 2000 when Elizabeth went to Chile again to work as a journalist for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. They realized they were both very interested in human rights cases, and decided to make a film about Chile together.

After they met Juan Guzmán, a conservative judge who had been assigned to a criminal case against Pinochet, the two filmmakers knew that his was the story they had been waiting to tell. His extraordinary transformation — from youthful Pinochet supporter who believed the tales of mass murder and human rights violations to be mostly Communist propaganda, to a skeptical man with the courage to undertake a thorough and personally dangerous investigation — shows not only how people can be bystanders while acts of cruelty and repression are carried out by their government, but also how those same people can make the decision to face the truth about their own complicity and help to bring justice to the victims' families.

Patricio Lanfranco says, "Guzmán shows that it is never too late to be a good human being, to recognize one's own mistakes and one's own blindness and take responsibility for it." Read more from Elizabeth and Patricio's interview.

Do you have a question for Elizabeth and Patricio? Your question might be chosen for inclusion in a special Online NewsHour Insider interview with the filmmakers being taped Wednesday, August 20 at 11:30 AM ET. Enter your question below or on the NewsHour website. If you submit your question before Wednesday morning, Elizabeth and Patricio may answer your question as part of this special podcast.

Added August 27, 2008: Elizabeth answered selected viewer questions. Read what she has to say about the Chilean military's complicity, a Spanish version of the film and more.

TAGS: behind the lens, filmmaker, history, south america, war

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It sounded like a perfect partnership. Renowned sculptor John Houser dreamed of building the world's tallest bronze equestrian statue, a stunning monument to the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate that would pay tribute to the contributions Hispanic people made to building the American West. The city of El Paso, Texas, was looking to improve its economic fortunes and thought Houser's statue would increase revenues by creating a significant tourist attraction that would celebrate the city's Hispanic heritage. What both partners failed to consider was that different segments of the community remembered Juan de Oñate in very different ways.The Last Conquistador documents the conflict that resulted when Native Americans and members of the Acoma Indian community brought to attention the fact that Juan de Oñate nearly wiped out their ancestors and sold them into slavery. Though violence was associated with nearly all conquistadors, Oñate was so brutal that he was actually recalled to Mexico City, put on trial and convicted for the acts he committed.

El Paso quickly divided along lines of race and class, forcing the artist to face the unanticipated moral implications of his work and city leaders to wrestle with a decision to spend public money on a tribute to such a controversial man. After completion of the statue, everyone was forced to come to terms with a landmark that is viewed by some as a monument to culture and others as a glorification of genocide.

Houser says about Oñate, "It's not up to me to defend him or accuse him." What is the role and responsibility of the artist to the community when creating public art?

Maurus Chino says, "Violence is violence; genocide is genocide, and there has to be recognition about what really happened." In response to suggestions that it is time for the Acoma to "let go" of the past or "get over it," a Native American man says, "Our city is thinking about putting up a statue of an individual that massacred or tried to wipe us off the face of the eart... You're going to tell your grandchildren, 'I remember 9/11.' Well, we remember Juan de Oñate."

In response to criticism of the monument's subject, Conchita Lucero asks, "Which one of us hasn't had a benefit of the things that the Spanish brought?"

TAGS: arts, mexico, native american

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Bill Moyers Journal previewed POV's Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North last Friday on most PBS stations. Moyers examines racial inequality in America through the prisms of the legacy of slavery and the current socio-economic landscape, and interviews Douglas Blackmon of the Wall Street Journal, historical and cultural sociologist Orlando Patterson and economist Glenn C. Loury.

You can watch streaming video of the entire show on their website.

And don't forget to set your TiVo or to stay home and watch Traces of the Trade," which premieres on PBS tonight at 10 PM (check local listings).

Watch a preview, listen to our extended podcast interview with filmmaker Katrina Browne, learn about the debate surrounding reparations for slavery, and much, much more at:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/tracesofthetrade

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San Francisco's Castro neighborhood has undergone a timewarp transformation over the past few days for the filming of Milk, Gus Van Sant's new movie based on the life and times of Harvey Milk. Milk was a 1970s-era activist and politician who was named one of Time magazine's 100 most remarkable people of the 20th century for being, as they put it, "the first openly gay man elected to any substantial political office in the history of the planet."

Milk was elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977 only to be shot and killed, along with Mayor George Moscone, one year later by fellow Supervisor Dan White in an assassination at City Hall. One of my favorite documentaries, The Times of Harvey Milk, recounts the events surrounding the campaign, his time in office and the aftermath of his tragic death, including White's ridiculous "twinkie defense," and the stirring candlelight vigil march held in Milk's honor, in vivid, moving detail. The film won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1984.

See Sean Penn as Harvey Milk after the jump...

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TAGS: academy awards, gus van sant, lgbt, politics, sean penn

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