Two films made by Spike Lee during and after Hurricane Katrina get to the heart of why the city’s people are key to its survival
WHEN BARACK Obama visited Joplin, a town in Missouri which has been left devastated by a recent tornado, he told local people that the US government would be with them “every step of the way” as they began to rebuild the town and their lives.
“We’re going to be here long after the cameras leave,” he promised, alluding to the huge media attention the disaster had received.
Inevitably, the news crews and their cameras will move on from covering this tragedy to reporting on the next one. But sometimes, the cameras return because there’s another story to be told, which only becomes apparent with time.
After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, film-maker Spike Lee and his crew went to the city to talk to politicians, journalists, activists, engineers, musicians, actors and other residents about their experiences when the waters began to rise.
The hundreds of interviews and hours of footage which Lee gathered during his time in the city became the award-winning When the Levees Brokedocumentary. It was an angry, impassioned and articulate film about a city and its people who had been abandoned long before Katrina crashed through the levees.
That, though, wasn’t the end of Lee’s interest in New Orleans. Last year, he returned to the Crescent City to find out what had happened since he shot When the Levees Broke and to see if the management of the city has improved in any way. Lee and his crew also looked at the 2010 oil spill on the nearby Gulf of Mexico and its impact on local residents.
What Lee has produced in the new If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Risedocumentary is a thought-provoking piece of work. On the surface, New Orleans has survived everything that Katrina threw at it. Many residents who fled the city have returned, the tourists are back carousing and spending dollars in the French Quarter and, to top it all, the New Orleans Saints football team won the superbowl last year, providing a huge morale boost for the city.
But those broad brushstrokes are just one side of the story. New Orleans is a city with deep, ingrained problems which existed long before the events of 2005 put it in the media spotlight. Katrina simply exacerbated the breakdown in public housing, health, policing and engineering. Five years later, those issues remain and, if anything, are probably worse than ever.
Time and time again, as Lee pokes the fabric of the city, he reminds the viewer that it’s the people who are holding New Orleans together. The city may be on the constant brink of failure, but the people’s faith in what it could be remains strong and fervent.
Some of the most striking scenes come when we catch up with people who featured in When the Levees Broke. You hear about their trials, tribulations and triumphs, especially when they return to their old homes. There are also strong interviews with people such as Michael D Brown from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the body much criticised for making a hash of the post-disaster relief plan, who talks with hindsight about what happened in 2005.
What his brace of New Orleans’ documentaries shows is that Lee has become a master at finding the right characters to tease out and narrate complex, intricate stories. Be they politicians, activists or ordinary citizens, Lee’s narrators quickly get to the nub of the issues and provide real, unadorned talking points.
The real star of the show, though, is the city itself. It’s obvious that New Orleans, where the struggle to survive is an accepted part of the daily grind, has got under Lee’s skin during his many visits to the south.
It may be a city which is rough, tough and always on the edge, but it’s still a place which Lee believes has incredible heart and soul.
Let’s hope he returns again and again to highlight those qualities.
If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise
is out on DVD
