"Greensboro: Closer to the Truth"
I had a few random thoughts after seeing this movie tonight (and previewing it at home on Monday), talking to a (very) few people who saw it and then heading back here to write. Because it likely won't be screened around here again anytime soon, I've gone ahead and thrown in a few spoilers. If you want to be surprised, read no farther.
(CORRECTION: Film will be screened at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Main Theater at N.C. School of the Arts, 1533 S. Main St. in Winston-Salem. Also, you will soon be able to buy it off the Web site.)
No, really.
Stop now. Go read the funnies or something.
OK, here we go.
I know I'm supposed to neither notice nor care about this, being a text guy and all, but the cinematography was outstanding. Anyone who thinks filmmaker Adam Zucker was trying to make us look bad could not possibly be correct in the literal sense.
Paid admission at the Carolina Theatre was 206, most of whom were middle-aged or older and most of whom hung around for the Q&A. I had to leave before the Q&A ended, at which point it had gone on more than half as long as the film.
Some of what our city's Establishment leaders had to say:
- Jim Melvin, former mayor and longtime mover and shaker, appeared on camera with a baseball bat across his desk. You'd probably have to be from 'round here to know that the bat symbolizes his (successful) efforts to get a new minor-league baseball stadium built downtown, but I suspect to some viewers who aren't from around here that it'll conjure up a Bull Connor image that he didn't intend. Whether Zucker intended that, I couldn't say.
- Melvin estimated that a poll taken today would show roughly 85 percent of Greensboro not supporting the truth-and-reconciliation effort. He also added, contra a civil jury's finding, that the city had had no involvement with the shootings. Finally, referring to people involved with the truth-and-reconciliation movement, he said, "We don't have much time for these people."
- Later in the film, Melvin touts his lifelong residence in Greensboro, claims he knows what's going on in town and adds, "I don't need some commission to come in and tell me what's going on."
- At-large council member and possible mayoral candidate Florence Gatten said of Nelson Johnson that "a leopard never changes his spots." She added that as a Presbyterian she always hopes for reform, but said, "I haven't seen it." Later in the film she said, "Greensboro is like a 1950s town in a Ziploc bag with the zip lock closed." Some audience members mocked her remarks.(Full disclosure: Florence and I attend the same church.)
- Outgoing Mayor Keith Holliday suggested that the truth-and-reconciliation movement was being driven by fewer than 50 people who could never accept what happened and never move on. Feel free to see the film for yourself and decide whether the images confirm or disprove his assessment. Oh, and he also expressed concern about how this whole thing might affect business recruiting.
One other technical thing that struck me: There was no spoken narration except for a few voiceovers from interview subjects who would pop up onscreen a second or two later, and just a few paragraphs of text at the very beginning and the very end. It was real people saying real things. Sure, you can wonder what Zucker left in and left out, and what questions he asked to prompt the comments he got. I do. But there was no omniscient voice telling you what you were seeing or what to think about. I know squat about filmmaking, but I prefer documentaries that let subjects talk to me over the other kind.
To those I'd asked to interview after the film and didn't: I apologize that we didn't get to connect. I had to leave about 9:15 to make deadline, at which point the Q&A was still going strong.
That's all for tonight.
