“Concerned about what?”
That was the question an attendee at the Conference on World Affairs posed after hearing about the theme of the ongoing Boulder Weekly special issue series: A Survival Guide for Concerned Citizens.
“Concerned about the planet?” he added. “About the country? About other countries?”
I gave it a thought. I could rattle off the topics covered, the subjects interviewed, the organizations profiled, but even then, the list felt insubstantial.
“Just concerned,” I told him. “Full stop.”
“Full stop?”
I nodded. He smiled.
“I like that,” he said and went on his merry way.
From the tone in his voice, it was obvious. He, too, was concerned. What about, I did not ask.
I do not need to.
The reasons are many and they share no political allegiance. As I write this, I can see my neighbor’s Trump 2024 “Take America Back” flag from my window. Looking at this flag, day in and day out, does not comfort me. The funny thing is, I don’t think it comforts my neighbor, either. Our paths occasionally cross while we are out shoveling snow or checking the mail, and we both put in the effort to ask neighborly questions. These conversations are cordial, but the weariness in his voice is undeniable. I don’t think he’s sleeping any better than I, and his candidate won.
“Everyone has their own picture of what a strong, connected and resilient community looks like,” BW editor Shay Castle wrote in the previous issue’s introduction. I thought of my neighbor the second I read that line. I know his idea of “a resilient community” is different from mine, and I know some see that as the problem — another example of the continued fracturing of our society. But sometimes I wonder: Is that difference also the solution?
There are a lot of solutions out there, but some folks will never buy them. Can hatred coexist with acceptance? Oppressive systems with oppressed individuals? Predators and prey? They might as well; they’re not going anywhere. Maybe that’s our way forward.
For all ideas, a place; for all persons, a space
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part III (1998)
For rent and streaming on multiple platforms.
The 1981 Decline of Western Civilization will play the Dairy Arts Center’s Friday Night Weird, 8 p.m. on April 25.
If I had to recommend just one, Part III is where it’s at, but you really need the first two installments to get there.
Director Penelope Spheeris — who would go on to helm Wayne’s World — masterfully captures three rock ’n’ roll movements in Los Angeles, first in the 1970s as punk, then a decade later as heavy metal and then back again to punk in the ’90s.
The first Decline captures the early hardcore punk scene’s abrasive approach to hatred, homophobia, sexism and substance use, all of which mask the brokenness that follows marginalization. In the Metal Years, that faux-masculine swagger is amplified with hypersexuality, gender fluidity and sweep arpeggios. Then comes Part III, which wraps back around to gutter punks who absorb the aggression of punk and the extravagance of metal. Only this time, Spheeris turns the camera around from the peacocks on stage to those in the audience and strikes gold.
But what comes through loudest — and all three should be played loud — is how broken and distressed individuals can come together to emote communally. It’s not always positive, and it’s certainly far from healthy in these movies, but still, it is like oxygen to these suffocating souls.
This is America: The documentaries of Frederick Wiseman
Titicut Follies (1967)
Ex Libris — The New York Public Library (2017)
City Hall (2020) ... and more
Streaming on Kanopy.
It’s safe to say no filmmaker has done more to document the American system at work than 95-year-old Frederick Wiseman. His breakthrough, 1967’s Titicut Follies, is a harrowing observation of Massachusetts’ Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. Watch it today, and you’ll be a different person tomorrow.
Wiseman followed Follies with more than 40 docs, the vast majority of which focus on institutions (High School, Hospital, Ex Libris), governmental bodies (City Hall, In Jackson Heights, State Legislature), places (At Berkeley, Central Park, Monrovia, Indiana), and on and on. In each, Wiseman’s camera quietly observes without interjection or correction. The movies are long, but they are engaging and will tell you more about how this country functions — or doesn’t — than a whole semester in a classroom.
‘The only way out is through, together.’
The Biggest Little Farm (2019)
For rent and streaming on multiple platforms.
Heroin(e) (2017)
Streaming on Netflix.
For John and Molly Chester, the answer to their imbalanced life was a 200-acre farm north of Los Angeles. Their goal was harmony — pigs and chickens and veggies, all those picture book trappings — but what they got was the Biggest Little Farm and a lesson in nature. That’s not an easy lesson for those who think they can work their way through anything. Coexistence requires patience.
It also requires action. That’s what the three leads in the short documentary Heroin(e) have in spades. Directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon and set in Huntington, West Virginia, the film follows three women (a fire chief, a judge and a woman of faith) as they try to meet the opioid crisis where it lives. Their work is far from easy, and it would be a strain to call this an uplifting watch, but Heroin(e), maybe better than most of the docs on this list, exemplifies another line from Castle’s intro: “The only way out is through, together.”
Easier said than done, but it must be done.