Gibtown: Selected Films from the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival (May, 2001)

Film Reviews | Regular Feature like Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch; there are further episodes here that suggest the story is not entirely complete. That said, this is a programme that, in a little over three hours, sweeps across 150 years of the American landscape with progression, precision, and no little passion. Especially in the first instalment , writer, producer, and director Elizabeth Deane conjures up a past that is sparked to life by evocative photography and incisive historical commentary. In the second episode, Adrianna Bosch expertly utilises archival footage and the words of family members themselves to build on the memory of a dynasty finally facing up to its past. Both programmes are massively enhanced by the often haunting music of Michael Bacon and the authoritative narration of David Ogden Stiers. The two parts remind us that documentary television has come a long way in the last few years. Yet for all the technology and recreation that is possible, it is instructive to note how lingering shots and ever more involving close-ups of old photographs stay in the mind more often than newsreel or video footage, and that is a major difference that is apparent in The Rockefellers. As Ken Burns' series of documentaries have taught us, and most especially The Civil War, documentary TV works best by putting an image before our eyes and letting imagination do the rest. For the most part, this programme achieves that feat remarkably well, especially in its depictions of the early oil fields to which Rockefeller brought his influence and control, and in touching personal photographs of family members. It displays how power and wealth dominated generations ofAmerican development, how one family came to invest so readily in the American Dream, and how a nation forged on progress and renewal could itself impinge on those who thought they were its creators. But The Rockefellers is also a story of class relations, of social regeneration and of the corruption of the human soul that comes with the responsibility of wealth. These are difficult questions that the documentary doesn't always face up to. But then again the documentary's makers might argue that the central tenet of the story is precisely that of concealment and emotions misrepresented or misunderstood. At the height of his power and notoriety, John D., Sr. was hounded by McClure's magazine editor, Ida Tarbell. Her execrative expose ofthe ruthless and bullying business ethic that was Standard Oil virtually destroyed its, and Rockefeller's, credibility. Yet he was reported to have been most upset in her series of articles not by the revelations of malpractice but by the final character assessment that ridiculed and molested him for his premature baldness and withered look. There was no accounting for feelings, the programme appears to be saying, and for the financial hardship and evangelical fanaticism that made up the family traits over generations and which diluted any public shows on benevolence. The Rockefellers brings these traits to life: the excessive zeal for money, the battle to prove the family's social worth and philanthropic commitments, and the desire to hold together tradition and heritage in the face of modernism and change. In the process these two programmes taken together truly cast light on a nation coming of age as much as they consolidate the fascinating story of a privileged, patriarchal unit. Ian Scott University of Manchester mfbstis@fsl.art.man.ac.uk Gibtown Selected Films from the DoubleTake Documentary Film Festival (May, 2001) Where do the nomadic carnival workers settle in each year after months of spreading circus thrills from town to town? For those who run the carnival out of Gibsonton, Florida, home is "Gibtown," a rural repository for roller coaster rides, rare animals , and the rows of trailers that house them during the offseason . As one "carnie" puts it, "Gibtown is not a real place. It's a state of mind." Filmmaker Melissa Shachat has set out to capture this state of mind in her first feature, Gibtown (2000), distributed by Decoy Films. This documentary's main goal is to record the final glimpses of a dying history, the performance art of traveling show people. It pays particular attention to...