The Ties That Bind

Put some Onkel Fish on and realized that continuing to write might be fun.

Did anyone catch that Jessica Lynch made-for-TV movie last night? I didn't see it all but my roommate had it on and I didn't feel like moving. As the credits rolled, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Joel Ransom was the cinematographer. For those of you asking who Joel Ransom is, he shot many an episode of The X-Files. So it would at least look pretty. Well, after the scene where Ms. Lynch is captured I left the room having lost interest in the story. But I will say the battle scene was shot and edited really well. It had that Black Hawk Down look which, in turn, had that Saving Private Ryan look. You know - very crisp with a little motion blur. It seems like all shoot 'em up scenes are shot this way nowadays. If I remember correctly, Kaminski modified the shutters on his cameras to 45° in order to achieve the effect. Like I said below, he's a genius.

I also watched a documentary on HBO about that hostage-taking incident in that Moscow theater last year. While not as interesting as something by Errol Morris stylistically, it was pretty interesting nonetheless. I was fascinated by the thoughts of the hostages and their conversations with the Chechen women who had bombs strapped around their waists. It seemed that these women didn't want to die anymore than the hostages despite their leaders' rhetoric. And those 2 goofballs who wandered into the theater. Some guy and a young woman - both were shot. I wish the program had said more about them - who they were, why they would have done such a thing, etc. but, alas, it did not.

A few days ago, I caught another good documentary on Black Starz. It was entitled Last of the Mississippi Jukes. The movie first gave a brief history of the juke joint and then gives a brief profile of Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero in Clarksdale, MS, a modern juke joint. The rest of the film was dedicated to the Subway Lounge, a joint stuck in the basement of a dilapidated hotel in Jackson.

The owner, musicians, and patrons were interviewed and gave their stories of the importance of the Subway in the community. The lounge is in the old Summers Hotel which was the first black-owned hotel in the city. Many black musicians and members of the Civil Rights movement stayed there so the building has great historical significance.

As a profile of the place and of a bit of Southern culture, it was interesting. That the place served an important function in its community was beyond doubt. But why was it important? Why is the preservation of a hotel where the first Freedom Riders stayed important? What is significant about a hole-in-the-wall bar that larger, corporate venues lack? There were so many "larger" issues that I wanted to know more about. Why do human beings preserve their pasts? How does the community of the Subway Lounge compare to the community of the various casinos in the area that also offer live music? To what part of the human psyche does a place like the Subway speak?

I accept that such questions were out of the purview of the film. Still, the questions remain. So, when it was finished, I went onto the Internet and watched another documentary about the Wooten family called Sweet Is the Day. The Wooten family have been shape note singing for generations and the film demonstrated the role of singing in the family - how it serves as a unifying force. Now, maybe I'm being a dork here, but I'm still curious as to how music can serve that function whether it be in a family or in a community. What's really going on in these situations? Are families/communities without such ties worse than those who do?