The scene that was most influential for me was towards the
end of Act 2, in When the Levees Broke. It was the montage, that seemed to last forever, of the dead bodies floating
in the water. The close-up shots of the inflated bodies just lying there in the
floodwaters. I think the film was able to get an emotional response out of me,
because this shot really helped to solidify the fact that there were so many
people that died, and really shine light on the true horror of Hurricane
Katrina.
This scene really elicits feelings of sympathy and
compassion for, not just humans, but for fellow Americans. Spike Lee brings up
the point of foreign wars, and while we are elsewhere in the world instilling
the power of democracy in other countries, we can’t even properly handle deadly
situations at home.
The scene makes me question our government’s ability to
handle other drastic situations that may occur. Being from California, I hear a
lot about “the big one”, referring to the large earthquake that scientists
predict will occur at some point in my lifetime, and seeing our governments
response to Katrina makes me wonder how well they will be able to react to
other potentially catastrophic natural disasters.
I think Lee is commenting on a racial ideology; due to the
racial make-up of the parishes that were affected the worst, our government
failed to initiate, with haste, any sort of response or aid program. It took
almost a week after the hurricane, before things started to start rolling, and
people started to receive food, water, and medical assistance.
Hi, Alex. I think that the montage of the dead and bloated bodies left on the sides of the road, in the ditches and in the still-flooded areas was difficult to watch, too. It did seem to be a rather lengthy montage, and I felt that it was made lengthy by Lee in order to make a point about how little attention and care both the local and federal government paid to caring for these disadvantaged people in their time of need. I wonder about how many lives could have been saved if the local and federal agencies had simply had transportation for people to shelters that had some rudimentary necessities such as food, water, insulin, inhalers, hypertension meds and oxygen. I wish that we could say with any degree of certainty that our government learned their lessons by this disaster. I am not certain that they did. I do credit Lee for placing in the film that the Coast Guard was one of the earliest agencies to decide to step in and they realized quickly that their rule book needed to be thrown out in order to help make a difference. At least one agency was willing to cut through the red tape and just do what needed to be done.
ReplyDelete