A Blockbuster Week for Documentaries

 When I heard that the Discovery channel would be broadcasting a two hour feature on the assassination of John F. Kennedy on October 17, I knew I had to include it for this week’s blog and hope that it would suffice. For all intents and purposes I think it did. I just don’t know what decade it would be classified in, as it was compiled in the digital age from footage that is nearly half a century old.

But more importantly, when it comes to the subject of documentaries, I am determined to watch pieces that educate and inspire because they strike a personal chord, rather than just watch something  for the sake of saying I watched x amount of documentaries.

So now I’ve become witness to the end of an era which I could never have claimed before. 

The Lost JFK Tapes: The Assassination is compiled of real-time news footage and uses radio reports as narration, from the weekend the President was shot in Dallas on November22, 1963.  The film offered a fascinating look not only into the monumental event, filling in the holes that obviously exist in the story for someone like me who was born in the ‘80s. Furthermore, it was a treat to get a firsthand look at the reporting from that era, especially as a former journalism student and TV reporter hopeful. Reporters from that time really paid their dues and paved the way for people like me who have information pop up on a screen in front of them with no effort at all and claim to have their fingers on the pulse of the world. No, this was definitely before the time of the rip-and-read, follow-the-pack style of journalism that we see all too often nowadays.

And that’s the thing— it’s easy to think that in 2010 we’ve heard it all and seen it all but this footage has laid dormant in archives in Texas for nearly 45 years! Apparently, there’s a museum that is dedicated to preserving the history of this tragic day. I guess it was instincts that told reporters from 3 local News stations to leave their cameras running for hundreds of hours at various locations like the Dallas Love Field, Dealey Plaza and police headquarters. Unbeknown to them, they would be providing ordinary people in generations to come with access to some of the most poignant moments of the century.

It also featured moments shot by area residents who witnessed the motorcade first hand, proving that citizen journalism was valuable long before the camera phone.

And this is the value of film. Not only can it take you to Middle-Earth, Narnia and Pandora, but it can take you into the past to share experiences just as those who were watching at home did. As a broadcast and film student knee deep in mid-term madness, it’s easy to throw up your hands and wonder, ‘what the heck am I doing this for?!?”  But it’s films like these, chock full of emotion, community, history and excitement that allow you to clear your head and remember the true value of the medium. Even when you want to hang yourself with a reel of 16mm…

The world of Triads and the Chinese underworld is also something I’ve never bore witness to and have remained completely ignorant of. And while I knew that Asian gangs exist and were noted among the most vicious of gang-societies, they just seemed irrelevant. I grew up in Scarborough and until the late 90s when I was in high school, you were afraid of nearly everyone but the Chinese.

History Channel’s Underworld Histories focused on San Francisco’s Chinatown, chronicling the birth and demise of the Chinese American underworld from September 4 1977, into the ‘90s.

This documentary used news footage, montage stills from crime scenes, mug-shots dramatizations, and interviews with those who survived the 20 year period to tell the story.

What I learned is that while all gangs have a signature M.O. and distinguishing features, they have a common denominator in their origins: poverty.   It was the conditions of poverty, discrimination, and lack that bred the paradigm of  “take care of our own” and self-policing that has been adopted by various communities in North America including the Black, Irish and Italian American communities.

Nelson Lum, Ex-sergeant for the San Francisco Police Department confirmed, “the Chinese community has always taken care of its own from the time of the railroads.”

The story opens on September 4, 1977 the night of the Golden Dragon massacre, the worst killings in San Francisco history, where five innocent bystanders were killed and many others injured.

Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow who had a hand in this massacre and has been in American prison for nearly a third of his life recounts without emotion, “The first time I drew blood was when I was 9.” He sums up the lure of gang life in San Francisco as easy money.  “Back then Chinatown was like a gold mine.”  The Chinese distrust of American institutions, including banks, led to a huge amount of cash and valuables being stored in homes. Money was gotten in every way from petty theft to full on armed robbery.

This piece, in my opinion, does double duty educating viewers not only on a terrifying time in San Francisco’s history, but also in revealing how the tapestry of the United States and Canada were woven, i.e., why we have Chinatowns in existence today. 

Historically, gangs are the product of unmet needs. And yet when I compare this experience to my own growing up in Malvern, a “high-risk” area in the east end of Toronto, it makes me wonder what the unmet needs of today are. We live in a country of free-health care, welfare and subsidized housing for all. I have no sympathy for criminals of any sort but trying to compare San Francisco in the ‘70s to Jane and Finch in 2010 is like comparing apples and oranges and a subject I will have to remain ignorant on because gang violence is beyond reason.

The final blockbuster of the week is a subject that has already made the pages of Canadian history: Colonel Russell Williams. In a special commercial free edition, W5: the Confession walks the audience through an analysis of the original interrogation tapes which recorded the confession.  

Host Bob McKeown acknowledges that Canadians have never seen anything like it and short of the acting that we see on criminal dramas, he’s right. 

The story is told with photo stills, reenactments, the actual interrogation footage, and computer graphic images. There is also an interview with Jessica Lloyd’s brother Andy and Marie-France Comeau’s friend Alain Plant.

McKeown’s narration breaks the interrogation into stanzas, showcasing the brilliant work of Detective Sergeant Jim Smith like a maestro.  

Williams seems delusional and defiant until the end, and his confession did not come until nearly four and a half hours into the interrogation. McKeown let the audience know that the video has been edited, specifically the silences, of which the two would fall into many times over the hours they spent together. Close to the end we see Williams put his hand up to his throat, almost as if the words that were needed for a confession were trapped there.  

Experts were brought in to interpret what the audience is seeing, one of whom was Paul Ciolino, an interrogation expert and former US police detective. It’s easy to forget the tragedy with Ciolino’s colourful interpretations: “This guy is guilty and I’m gonna get him” as he summarizes Smith’s tactics, or “man I am screwed, I am so screwed” translating William’s body language.

Perhaps we had never seen anything like it because in the past we have never wanted to see anything like it.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Canada’s on the brink of major changes. What I perhaps omitted or didn’t think to include was that some of that change may not be for the better.  Bob McKeown, as respected as he is by his peers I’m sure, seemed very excited to me and could barely contain what appeared to be a smile on the corners of his mouth. And I get that it is exciting to be the first and to do something new, but we are walking a very fine line between sensationalism and journalism with certain aspects of this piece, in my opinion.

I remember seeing the ‘missing’ posters for Jessica Lloyd who lived in Tweed Ontario (just outside of Kingston) on utility poles at Main and Danforth in Toronto.  This is as real as it gets.

And the still photos of Jessica and Marie-France Comeau remind us of that reality.  Lest we forget that while watching the thrill of the hunt, while marveling at the unraveling of this Canadian military leader, precious lives were lost. Two innocent women were tortured sexually assaulted and killed—Jessica thrown off the highway like trash. Torture tools used on them both (and other victims), spread out on a table like playing cards.  This larger than life subject was tempered well with any and all reminders that this man is a monster.

Detective Smith warns Williams that his options are down to two when he says “ I don’t think you want the cold-blooded psychopath option…like Bernardo.”  I just wish he hadn’t given Williams’ the option of thinking that that he was any different ; that’s his only option as far as I’m concerned.