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.
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."
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."
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."
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?"
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.
