Katrina documentary tonight on HBO

By Exile on Ericsson St. ( August 21, 2006 at 1:40 am) · Filed under News

I don’t know why I haven’t heard more about this before, but Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina — titled “When the Levees Broke” — premieres tonight on HBO. The documentary consists of four parts. Acts I and II premiere Monday, August 21 at 9pm (ET/PT), followed by Acts III and IV on Tuesday, August 22 at 9pm. All four acts will be seen Tuesday, Aug. 29 (8:00 p.m.-midnight), the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The Washington Post writes

It is the anger that cuts deepest — a righteous, laser-focused anger born of betrayal, laced with sadness, a rumbling anger that pumps like blood through the veins of Spike Lee’s masterly Katrina documentary,

I don’t have HBO, so I hope one of you is TiVoing this!

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One Response to “Katrina documentary tonight on HBO”

  1. bythepeople says:
    August 21, 2006 at 8:11 am

    It was the main article in the USA Weekend in yesterday’s paper. Money quotes:

    Brinkley: Chertoff basically kept telling the president, “Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control. Everybody’s exaggerating what’s going on.” Then he went to Atlanta for a conference on avian flu while we had the biggest disaster in American history at his doorstep. And then he became arrogant, cold-hearted, callous.
    …
    Brinkley: I was struck by the degradation of FEMA. After it was placed in the Department of Homeland Security, it became the bottom basket of the organization.

    Lee: The bald-headed stepchild! But one of the things that came across is that this event was a revelation to a lot of people that there are poor people in America. America has done a great job of hiding its poor. If you don’t want to see them, then you don’t have to. And so a lot of people were shocked.
    …
    I hadn’t planned on writing a book; I thought I’d do oral histories from the survivors. But once I learned that, in emergency situations, you have 72 hours to rescue people and to get them food, shelter and medication, and if you don’t, they start dying unnecessarily, and once I understood how the federal government shirked its responsibility in maintaining those Lego levees, I decided to write a book.
    …
    It’s going to take strong federal leadership to save New Orleans. The Bush administration’s general policy has been to provide patchwork funding for repairs. It’s not committed to the future. But if you don’t save the great port city on the Mississippi –

    Lee: — The American people see there’s value there. We need the oil and gas.

    Brinkley: But more than an essential strategic port, there’s the art and architecture and cuisine. It’s our great ambassador city to the world.

    Lee: And for all those people scattered everywhere, it’s still home.

    Brinkley: If we can’t save New Orleans, it tells us a lot about ourselves.

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