- One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, director Spike Lee presents a four-hour, four-part chronicle recounting, through words and images, one of our country’s most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the
One year after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, director Spike Lee presents a four-hour, four-part chronicle recounting, through words and images, one of our country?s most profound natural disasters. In addition to revisiting the hours leading up to the arrival of Katrina, a Category 5 hurricane before it hit the coast of Louisiana, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts tells the personal stories of those who lived to tell about it, at the same time exploring the underbelly of a nation where the divide along race and class lines has never been more pronounced.Director Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke is the definitive document of the unmitigated disaster that was, and is, Hurricane Katrina. It’s also a contemporary manifestation of an ancient tradition: an oral history, told by the people who lived it, with no narration and only the occasional use of archival cable and broadcast news footage in addition to Lee’s own film. And a grim tale it is, an “American tragedy” subtitled “a Requiem in Four Acts,” each of them about an hour long (“Act V,” appearing on the third of the set’s three discs, is a lengthy epilogue with new material not included in the original HBO broadcast) and focusing almost exclusively on New Orleans, as opposed to the Gulf Coast region in general.
Act I sets the scene; as the hurricane nears the Crescent City, some residents leave town, while others stay behind, figuring they’ll just ride the storm out (Mayor Ray Nagin’s “mandatory evacuation” order rings fairly hollow, as there’s no public transportation provided for the many who don’t own vehicles and thus couldn’t get out even if they wanted to). The real problems begin after Katrina makes landfall on August 29, 2005. Displaced New Orleaneans crowd into the Superdome, soon to become a living hell for those stuck there; the incredibly poorly engineered levees break, flooding some 80 percent of the city; and people start dying by the hundreds, victims of drowning, lack of food, water, and medicine, and other causes. And so it goes. Act II finds the survivors struggling to keep it together while the federal, state, and local assistance they’ve been promised fails to show up; Act III traces the dispersal of these so-called “refugees” (as one man puts it, “Refugees? You mean they took away our citizenship, too?”) all over the country, not knowing where their families, friends, and neighbors are, or even if they’re still alive; and Act IV deals with the slow rebuilding of the city while insurance companies refuse to pay claims and money keeps going toward the Iraq war effort instead.
Several themes predominate here. One, of course, is the appalling performance of authorities on nearly every level, who ignored specific warnings about the levees and then professed ignorance after the fact; Lee doesn’t have to go out of his way to make George W. Bush, FEMA chief Michael Brown, and other members of the Bush administration (not to mention his own mother) look bad, as they do an excellent job of that themselves. Another is the shameful ineptitude of the response; it’s hard not to be disgusted when it’s pointed out more than once that while we were able to provide supplies and assistance to Indonesians within two days of the 2004 tsunami, American citizens were virtually ignored for five days or more. Most of all, When the Levees Broke (which includes optional commentary by Lee for all four acts) leaves us feeling the sheer rage of the poor and dispossessed of New Orleans, where the population is 70 percent African-American. Confronted with the ignorance, arrogance, and callousness of the people whose job it was to protect them, they can point to just one cause: racism. –Sam Graham
Buy “When the Levees Broke – A Requiem In Four Acts “ For Only $13.99
May 7, 2008
#1
I really enjoyed this documentary, from a sociological point of view. This documentary showed the brute savageness of anarchy. These residents of New orleans are pure animalistic savages 10,000 years behind the rest of civilization. To watch their lives unfold in this tragedy is an experiment I found fascinating.
I laughed and was entertained for hours. Recommended!!!!
May 7, 2008
#2
Spike Lee essentially blames the US Government for the careless acts of those who did not abide to an evacuation order.
May 7, 2008
#3
I am very appreciative for the timely delivery and excellent quality of this product. The product arrived in excellent condition and has been functioning very well. Thank you.
May 7, 2008
#4
I have to say, I expected more from Spike Lee’s, When the Levees Broke. Unfortunately, this piece focused more on racial injustice than the failed emergency response of the aftermath. As are most issues related to the treatment of African Americans in this country; especially when it involves the south, this piece was heavily immersed in racial finger pointing. While I can give Lee a thumbs up for much of the footage, I’m disheartened that he failed to properly address the economic attitude of the out of step and disenfranchised African American community of New Orleans. Moreover, that no one has grasped the notion that experience rules all is remarkable. While it’s true that the gross lack of coordination on several levels; state, local and federal to name a few, added to the tragedy of Katrina, to place the blame solely at the doorstep of the federal government was completely unfair. FEMA is not a rescue organization: “FEMA works in partnership with other organizations that are part of the nation’s emergency management system. These partners include state and local emergency management agencies, 27 federal agencies and the American Red Cross.” And that list includes the local Police department, the local Fire Department, the city planners, the emergency medical professionals and so on. At the end of one of the tapes Mayor Nagen points out the differences between himself and Mayor Rudy Guiliani & Katrina and 9/11. He points out that 9/11 was essentially a contained event; in effect, quarantining the emergency site. And that’s true! But what he failed to mention was how quickly New York City’s first responders coordinated and implemented their efforts in total contrast to the inept response of the New Orleans first responders. It doesn’t matter whether you like Mayor Guiliani or not, fact is, he was downtown with his first responders. For the sake of balance, an in-depth analysis of Mayor Guiliani’s contributions reveal several shortcomings. Many people believe he complicated matters; nevertheless, the effort on behalf of his responders seemed measured, methodical, coordinated, rehearsed and above all, professional. Something else that’s rarely mentioned is the level of assistance the victims provided one another. It’s now evident that in New Orleans that was not the case because crime soared during the Katrina aftermath. People (including first responders) were stealing TV’s and DVD’s, clothes and everything else and to what end? Electricity wasn’t restored for months. If not anything else, it was a poor showing for some of the city’s citizens. I think you would’ve been hard pressed to find the cops stealing during the 9/11 crisis. Keep in mind; this is not condemnation of those who stepped up with integrity. Another critical question that needs to be addressed is why Spike Lee failed to take the opportunity to address the phenomenon of BLACK on BLACK crime if racial intolerance was such an issue? I suspect our nation would’ve witnessed the exact same scenario in any and/or all of the nation’s major cities. It’s well known that most of America’s major metropolitan area’s are African American strongholds, Detroit, D.C., Baltimore, Atlanta, Miami and several other cities have similar demographics; which eliminates the idea that racism was the specific cause of delayed government service. It doesn’t change the existence of racism in America, but it does effectively eliminate race as the dominate theme in this case.
Although I am a Spike Lee fan here are some points I think he failed to address:
1. Why didn’t the Mayor set up shop at ground zero and use the media’s cameras to communicate directly with FEMA and the White House? Provocative maybe, but given the circumstances, effective!
2. What happen to the city’s first responders?
3. How come this piece didn’t address the extremely high level of BLACK ON BLACK crime committed during the aftermath?
4. How could they respond without military assistance?
5. How come we didn’t hear more about the intense animosity between the Mayor and the Governor?
6. How come the piece didn’t delve deeper into the `why’s and why nots’ of modern building strategies of civic protection not investigated like that of other nations, i.e. the Netherlands, Japan and China?
7. How come the decision making City Council members weren’t identified, questioned and held to task on camera?
8. Why didn’t we see or hear about the shortcomings of the insurance agencies? They completely abandoned the entire Gulf coast. Some participants are on record as having paid into their policies for more than 50 years. Shame on the insurance agencies.
9. Why didn’t the Coast Guard and other successful agencies receive more attention?
10. What are the ensuing plans for keeping this from ever happening again? Who’s involved? How much does it cost? And are other cities following suit?
In the end, New Orleans has become famous for what some call their unique way of life (corruption tolerance). From the very beginning, politicians have been famously corrupt in that city. And from the beginning the citizens have celebrated and supported renegade behavior. And while racism continues to divide our nations path forward, if the citizens of New Orleans (and many other metropolitan areas in the U.S) continue to fail personally and professionally regardless of race, then broken levees are the least of our concerns.
This reveiw is an amended version of an earlier review!
May 7, 2008
#5
I was born and raised in New Orleans. Though I haven’t lived there for over thirty-five years, I maintain close family and personal ties there.
My sister lost her home and her life possessions to Katrina. So did two uncles, four aunts, two cousins and their children, and various in-laws and relatives of in-laws. They were all white and middle-class. So much for Spike Lee’s poverty and racism thesis.
My sister and a number of relatives lived in the Lakeview section of New Orleans, which is over 95% white and which Katrina thoroughly inundated. Spike Lee interviewed only one family from Lakeview and they were black. My other relatives lived in St. Bernard Parish, largely populated by whites, on the outskirts of New Orleans. Flash floods there attributed to storm surges up MR GO (Mississippi-River Gulf Outlet) left uncountable scenes of houses swept off there foundations and vehicles overturned or embedded/covered in the remains of unidentifiable debris. Spike Lee showed none of this, but he lingered over similar scenes in the iconic Lower 9th Ward to demonstrate the white man’s perfidy toward his black brethren, especially by drawing parallels between levees dynamited by white business cliques in the 1927 flood and rumors of explosions heard along the Industrial Canal next to the Lower 9th Ward during the height of Katrina. Instead, he did not once mention that the black political power structure the city has enjoyed for more than thirty years barely lifted a finger to alleviate the awful plight of the poor black population of New Orleans. The mayor, Ray Nagan, and his cronies got a free pass and the white political establishment received all the blame.
The black majority of New Orleans suffered mightily from Katrina, but so did its white minority, who in Mr Lee’s estimation had it too good for too long and didn’t warrant sympathy.