When the Levees Broke - A Requiem In Four Acts (Documentary)
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Actor: Sam Pollard, Spike LeeBrand: LEE,SPIKE
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 256 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: HBO Home Video
DVD Reviews of When the Levees Broke - A Requiem In Four Acts (Documentary)
DVD Review: Engineering Perspective
Summary: 5 Stars
All seniors in the engineering departments at Oregon State University watched part of this film tonight. This was followed by a presentation from professors and experts about the failings of the government and the Army Corps of Engineers. It was driven home that, as the next generation of engineers, it is our duty to do our jobs with public safety and ethics in mind. There will have to be compromises due to budgets, politics, etc, but in the end, we have to decide how much we are willing to compromise.
When a lawyer fails, he can argue about it. When a doctor fails, he can bury his mistakes. When an engineer fails, it is on display for the world to see. After watching part of this film, i am purchasing the DVD.
DVD Review: Required viewing
Summary: 5 Stars
This should be required viewing for every citizen of this U. S. of A. I cried through most it. I was angry through most of it. Most of all my heart went out to all those citizens of the Gulf Coast and especially New Orleans for their suffering. May this never, ever happen again. Thank you Spike Lee for this comprehensive look at the largest natural disaster to ever hit the United States. DVD Review: Should be required viewing for all Government classes
Summary: 5 Stars
Diary From The Dome: Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina
Spike Lee put his heart in to this film (well I guess he always does) but this epic film gives a glimpse of what we endured during Katrina. I thank him and salute him for keeping this issue alive and showing the true anger we had towards our lack of government response. I still want to know why the airport, train station, and bus station all closed 2 days before the storm hit and a day before the mandatory evacuation.
The pain that these folks feel in the film will endure; so I hope no ever says, "Just get over it."
DVD Review: Spike Lee does it again
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent documentry. I didn't feel like I had gotten the full scoop during the actual tragedy, but Spike, as usual, puts the event into perspective. An the seller delivered it right away.DVD Review: Fine account
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read almost every review, and I'm disappointed to think that so many thought this was in any way racist. Certainly, there were racial situations, and the accompanying anger by those involved, but this riveting and emotional account must be taken objectively. First, this is not about Katrina as much as the breaking of the levees, as the title suggests. The warnings were out there, and those who chose to ignore those warnings were only unfortunate victims. Many had no mobility to go anywhere but the Superdome; it's also made clear that the horrors of the Superdome were more the result of backed up toilets than evil behavior, as reported on the news by angry victims. Indeed, people with infirmities died; put in corners, while the living waited for help that never came. No little kids were raped or murdered. Mr. Lee blamed all the right people: the government at large, lazy FEMA attention, the governor. It also clearly stated the heroism and frustration of the local police and fire-fighters, and the essential efforts of the National Guard. I was disappointed that not enough was said about people stuck in retirement homes and hospitals, the saddest of the ordeal. It also showed Mayor Nagin as a hero, as opposed to the confused pseudo-leader that he is. The recovery of New Orleans after the levee breach is slow, I think due to ambivalent bureaucratic red-tape. Mississippi was hit harder than Louisana by Katrina, and they've almost completely rebuilt. I have a good friend who evacuated her home, and came back to a lot of damage; she went to work as a relief worker, but those who applied for aid were mostly lying about their situations (saying they owned a home, when they only rented, etc.). Lies like that can hold up a recovery effort. Fraud on that level closed the agency for which she worked. I only mention that because her accounts of the ordeal had compelled me to buy this 3-disc DVD set. It's definitely worth watching. I am a white male from Milwaukee, and in my job I helped a few Katrina survivors get housing up here. Calling Spike Lee a racist is as silly as saying that Katrina was orchestrated by the Government to hurt Black people. I've heard both comments; both are absurd. Mr. Lee has presented a clear, horrific expos? of things that might have been better, had the government responded properly. Our aid to Sri Lanka after the tsunami was quicker and more complete. "When the Levees Broke" should give the viewer an insight to the first-hand situation, and the emotions that result can be of futility, hopelessness or anger, but it definitely creates an emotion. (One reviewer said he laughed; I'm SO sorry for that person). I also appreciated the involvement of Sean Penn; his interviews were among the most insightful. Not for the weak of heart, and definitely not for the closed-minded ignorant.
Description of When the Levees Broke - A Requiem In Four Acts (Documentary)
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
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