Even a news junkie like myself can overdose on information. And commercial television channels have been feeding the addiction as a way to offset their current financial crises. But there reaches a point when even I don't want to turn on the television.
That would be a mistake, especially this summer.
It All Depends On Your ...
P.O.V., an award-winning independent documentary film series, begins its fourth season on public television in mid-June. This year, as in past years, the documentaries convey a "point of view" via the personal stories of people who definitely have a story to tell.
The series opens June 18 (check local listings) with an absolutely powerful documentary, Absolutely Positive, the story of a number of people who have tested HIV positive. The director of the film, Peter Adair, himself HIV positive, shows talking heads that soon become talking friends. Through 11 voices -- male and female; heterosexual and homosexual; Asian American, African American, and Anglo American -- this film demonstrates the diversity of those who are affected by the AIDS virus.
Because the AIDS crisis is so identified in the public mind with the gay community, Adair begins with interviews with several men who describe how the newly liberated gay community was quickly shaken by the identification of the HIV virus. But many straight people have also felt the effects of AIDS. Intravenous drug users and blood transfusion recipients also discuss the ways that the virus has changed their lives.
The sense of relationship and identification with people with AIDS is what drives this film, but Adair's (Word Is Out and Stopping History) wit and insight add a palpable depth to the breadth of experience. In describing life after the positive results, Adair describes living with a monster: "Is there a balance between denial and obsession?" The answer requires a quiet simplicity, and the stubbornness of feeling that "there is more glory in surviving a fatal disease than dying of a natural one."
Several people describe painful scenes in church situations and with church members. One woman and her newborn son, both positive though her husband was not, told of being at a church barbeque when the children were squabbling over whose juice glass was whose and one of the deacons made a crack about not worrying about the glasses since none of the children had AIDS. She said the assumption that church people would not be affected by AIDS made the fact that they were infected embarrassing and unbearable.
Tongues Untied presents the story of a group barely tolerated by its own community. Director Marlon T. Riggs takes on the derogatory accusations, judgments, and jokes that confront black gay men.
This award-winning documentary uses a multimedia approach with poetry, montage, and drama to help the viewer feel the depth of pain caused by racism within the gay community and homophobia in the African-American community. As a black man, Riggs feels the critique of so many segments of the black community -- progressives, intellectuals, nationalists, church members. In a segment of caricatures representing each group, they offer their insights into the "problem" of black gay men and each has an excuse for dismissing the black gay experience.
The film ends powerfully, with voices reciting Joseph Beam's "Brother to Brother: Words From the Heart": "Brother to brother, brother to brother/Black men loving black men/A call to action/A call to action/An acknowledgment of responsibility/We take care of our own kind when the nights grow cold and silent/These days, the nights are cold-blooded/And the silence echoes with complicity."
Berkeley in the Sixties is a wonderful documentary about the rise of radical politics and counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film tells the little-known story of the moment of transformation as the '50s became the '60s -- the overreaction of the House Un-American Activities Committee to a student free-speech demonstration. When the government produced a documentary about the communist threat present in the protests of students, Berkeley became a Mecca for free-thinkers. A movement that would change America was launched.
Many significant players in that era of the University of California-Berkeley's history provide background to impressive historical footage in order to take us back to an exciting time when the promise of a democratic America existed still unjaded. Unfortunately the quality of the soundtrack (which includes a segment from a Phil Ochs rally performance) does not match the intensity of emotion provided by student leaders of the '60s.
A good friend and nonviolence organizer commented as we previewed this film, "If the movement had a school, this film would be required viewing." Its value is not merely nostalgia. There are lessons to be learned, and the people who provide the narrative for this film are good teachers.
Maria Serrano, a peasant and revolutionary in El Salvador, tells the story of fighting the repression of another government that is not responsible to its citizens in Maria's Story. As viewers we walk the paths of the Salvadoran guerrillas, we experience the pain of families divided as they work for change, we hope with Maria for the day her daughters pack up their guns and pick up their notebooks.
Maria, an FMLN guerrilla since 1987, says she agreed "to participate in this film ... to explain our reality to the North American people." She feels that since the United States props up the Salvadoran government, the United States has a special responsibility to be involved in positive change. And as Reagan did so often during his presidency, Maria takes her case directly to the American people in this documentary. Age-old questions about violence and nonviolence are raised by Maria's (and the Salvadoran government's) activities in this film, but the questions must be raised again and again before the American people.
Other documentaries in the 12 weeks of programming include Chemical Valley, the story of Institute, West Virginia, where a Union Carbide plant produces toxic material; Turn Here Sweet Corn, showing a family farm transformed by the whims of suburban real-estate developers; and Honorable Nations, a depiction of the land lease by the Seneca Indians to the city of Salamanca, New York.
It's not enough to say, "There's something here for everyone." No, everyone should see each of these powerful presentations. P.O.V. and the independent filmmakers get inside the story by getting inside of people.
Now that's the way summer evenings should be spent. Enjoy the company. Stay tuned.
Bob Hulteen was Under Review editor at Sojourners when this review appeared.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!