17 Thoughts In Response to Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit

1967 Detroit riots. Photo Credit: Public Domain/http://j.mp/1SPGCl0

It's an axiom of great photographers to focus the lens on a micro view that serves as a mirror of the big picture. For example, a closeup of a mother weeping over her shrapnel-damaged infant son as a means of showing the side effects of carpet bombing and the meaning of that impersonal euphemism, "collateral damage."

This, it would seem, is what Katheryn Bigelow was attempting to do in her 2017 focus on what occurred at the Algiers Motel in the movie Detroit, a purportedly fact-based film set against the backdrop of the Detroit riots of 1967.

My initial title for this review was going to be Detroit Starts Fine But Veers Into Horror for Horror's Sake.

My blog response was initially going to read... Recommended: Read the Reviews and Skip the Film. Or maybe, Recommended: Don't watch this if you're depressed.

I would have skipped it altogether (a public response) but then found myself dwelling on certain aspects of the story and decided to make a list of thoughts about the film, partly in an effort to purge myself of some things that were stirred by watching it.

1. "the city routinely declined to promote black patrolmen, and the police had a reputation for exhibiting 'crude racism' and ignoring the needs of the black community. The police were perceived as unwilling to enforce the law and slow to respond in black communities, and police harassment of African Americans was the norm. Subsequently, African Americans... tended to strongly distrust the police. There had also been several incidents of brutality committed by the police... which worsened the tension between the police and the city's African American citizens."

The above paragraph is taken from a Wikipedia entry not about Detroit, but about riots in a section of Cleveland in the mid-Sixties. It could have been Chicago, L.A., Newark, Louisville, Kanas City, Baltimore or a multitude of other places, including Detroit.

2. The incident at the Algiers Motel in Detroit served not as a microcosm of the problems in Detroit, but of a pervasive issue throughout the nation.

Newark riots. Photo Credit: Tabitha C. Wang, Public Domain

3. My family living in New Jersey at this time. After the Newark riots, a neighbor of mine stated that there were cops in Newark who welcomed the riots. It gave them an opportunity "to shoot a n***** and get away with it." His uncle, a cop, had said this. Being an impressionable teen it depressed me to hear this.

4. Will Poulter played one of the most evil characters I've ever seen in film, but this character was not really a character. Compare Poulter to Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men. Bardem was scary bad, but interesting. Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood was another evil man, but we saw a fully developed character, a human being with motivations, albeit bent.

5. Speaking of motivations, none of the characters appeared to be really developed. The five Motown singers were given a few minutes to let us know they were young folks with dreams. Characters have motivations. Characters must each have a quest, something they want. We only got that from one person in the film, a singer who had talent and a dream.

6. To quote from one of the reviewers, the film became "an over-indulgent orgy of violence" that failed to address the historical context in which the riots arose.

7. There are a lot of films that deal with tension, violence and the like, but the best films give the viewer some relief, places to catch one's breath. Maybe that is the point that Ms. Bigelow was making. "If you think an hour or two of unrelenting torture is bad, well imagine how these kids felt after eight hours of this, and worse." O.K., but I didn't sign up for that. And whatever happened to the maxim, "Less is more"?

There are dozens of films that effectively deal with injustice without putting this whole horror directly in your face. Even Tarantino's violence is interspersed with comic relief.

8. The deeper, long-term causes of the riots barely appear in the film. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "The deeper causes of the riot were high levels of frustration, resentment, and anger that had been created among African Americans by unemployment and underemployment, persistent and extreme poverty, racism and racial segregation, police brutality, and lack of economic and educational opportunities."

9. The crazy guy who fired the fake gun and initiated this whole crazy sequence events was killed right at the start. Why didn't anyone explain what happened? I dunno.

10. O.K., maybe I do sort of understand this. One time, in my hippie youth, I was beaten up by a couple tough guys from outside the neighborhood. The police talked to the assailants first and afterwards hassled me in such a way that I, like the victimized young people in the film, kept my mouth shut. I could tell the police had no interest in my side of the story. I suppose it is possible the young people were too terrified to speak and believed any attempt to say anything would be considered insolence. Power can be intimidating.

11. Getting back to Will Poulter... How do actors feel after playing a role like that? I mean. at the end of each day, where is your head at?

12. In some communities, like Duluth, there have been improvements. Here is an example involving an artist, Carla Hamilton, who was profiled, singled out and interrogated improperly. Her response was to go to Chief Tuskan and turn this into a learning moment for the police by having them hear how they mishandled the situation. The follow up was an art exhibition at the Duluth Art Institute the following winter.

This would not have happened 50 years ago. The dialogue with Chief Tuscan led to a broader dialogue, ultimately with the community.

13. Improvement does not mean that race issues have disappeared. There is much work yet to be done.

14. The animated re-telling of the story of how blacks migrated North for jobs in the rust belt and the "white flight" that occurred in the inner cities after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that permitted blacks to leave the ghettos, this was well done and got my hopes up for the film. Handled with a light touch, yet informative. The scenes that followed raised more questions than they answered.

15. There are many ways to tell a story. I can imagine that many people watching on DVDs quit watching before it reaches any kind of conclusion. I think here of 12 Angry Men, which deals with an injustice without hanging it in front of your face.

16. One reviewer at imdb.com  wrote, "Too bad the writing didn't create a more coherent picture of the time period. Statistics of unemployment, arrests of African Americans, a rising black prison population, would have helped create the setting in which the riots occurred." Well, that is the kind of material you can bring to the fore in a documentary.

17. The next comment from the reviews falls into the same category, info that could be better shared in a documentary. "The film fails to show how the riots were a watershed moment in the history of Detroit, how everything afterward became worse economically for the city and where that left the city today. Near the end of the film, Detroit goes from civil rights drama to procedural drama and completely loses its way. Certainly, presenting what happened to the three white officers charged with murder was worthwhile, but that could have been done in a paragraph as an epilogue."

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The history of race in America is depressing to think about, but it cannot be ignored.

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Meantime, life goes on all around you. Make a difference.

Another Chance To Die: Prohibition-Era Detroit Comes to Life

Writing involves decisions. In memoir writing, how much do I leave in and what should be left out. In fiction, how far do we develop the scene and how much detail causes the story to drag. In converting a story to film, how much is essential and how much can be extracted without losing the main aim of the story itself. There are always decisions to make and always limitations. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

This morning I am trying to decide whether to turn my interview with author Claudia Oltean into one blog post or two. Ms. Oltean is author of the book Another Chance to Die, historical crime fiction based in Prohibition-era Detroit and the first of several volumes in her upcoming Man in the Middle Series, which itself seems to be hitting all the right notes to become a new series in this third Golden Age of Television.

The story's appeal is in part due to its being something readers are familiar with (Prohibition-era crime a la Chicago, Eliot Ness and Al Capone)) combined with something we're totally unfamiliar with (1920s Detroit). The title of the first book effectively echoes McCartney's Band on the Run and a pair of Bond titles -- You Only Live Twice and Die Another Day.

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The author with her grandparents.

Claudia Oltean's grandfather was a crime reporter for The Detroit News during Prohibition. He was one of the original investigative reporters. Abe Bernstein, leader of The Purples, a murderous, top criminal gang, was his CI -- how that came about is a long story. Conversely, he was, conversely deputized by the Wayne County (Detroit) Sheriff's Office and the Michigan State Police. He carried both a badge and a gun, not your garden variety reporter. This larger than life figure knew everybody who was anybody.

The Purples were rivals and associates of Al Capone and Capone appears as a character in the book. Ms. Oltean had the great fortune of inheriting her grandfather's reporters notes as well as his physical articles in scrapbooks dating back to 1920.

Detroit and SE Michigan were known to be where 75% of all smuggled booze came in, due to its immediate proximity to Windsor and Canada, thereby acquiring the nickname the Windsor Funnel. The stories in her grandfather's materials and the vast amount of research she herself did are mind-blowing. When I inquired about the project, Ms. Oltean explained, "I used all this as a springboard to write a fictionalized account as a novel. The book is complete and I am working on some more revisions, the bane of a writer's life, as I'm sure you know."

If you'd like more background, you may visit her website at oltean.com. Her grandfather's obit is there, along with some of her background as a writer, and the first chapter of the novel.

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It appears that I've made up my mind. I am posting this bit of backstory today, and look forward to sharing our interview tomorrow. What follows is the storyline. Looks like a perfect follow up for anyone having grown up a fan of the Untouchables.


ANOTHER CHANCE TO DIE 
by Claudia N. Oltean

Storyline

In the Prohibition-fueled Roaring 20’s, Detroit is a major hub for bootlegging and racketeering. The gangs are at war and so are the newspapers, spilling ink instead of blood. Allen Nieber, a young, tall, charismatic Detroit News crime reporter works both the cops and crooks to land front-page stories. Popular at every precinct and speakeasy in town, he’s enjoying grand adventure, female attentions and printed glory. Just as his conscience begins to niggle him about the integrity of his singular methods, his News colleague and best friend is killed. It happens on a late night rum run across the Detroit River. Nieber and his buddy are passengers in the super-charged motorboat of the notorious Purple Gang when a rival gang seems to come out of nowhere, automatic rifles on point. A chaotic shootout breaks out, with kills on both sides, including Nieber’s closest friend. As he himself had engineered this outing as part of a quid pro quo with the Purples, Nieber is wracked by grief and guilt. He also must face a hostile, suspicious chief of detectives and the displeasure of his bosses. His high-flying position and solid reputation are in jeopardy. So is his relationship with the one woman he thinks he can love. Trying to stay ahead of an official police investigation, Nieber works to unravel the confused circumstances of that tragic night. A murky picture emerges and it’s not pretty. He feels like a fool and questions what kind of man he is. Determined to somehow make things right, he strikes a deal with the chief of detectives. In a bold new direction, Nieber will continue to cover all the sensational Prohibition stories while secretly collaborating with law enforcement. Their mission will be to foul the ever more vicious and lethal operations of Detroit’s gangs, including the formidable Purples.

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When all is said and done, it seems that to not read this book would be criminal.

An Inexpensive Car That Gets 50 MPG

“Question the unquestionable.” ~ Ratan Tata

One of my biggest complaints with the direction the U.S. auto industry has gone these past many decades is that they just don’t seem focused on one thing that really matters to a lot of people: reduced cost. Not only are the cars expensive, but they are enormously expensive to fix. Poor people can’t even afford the insurance, let alone the car payments.

The new initiatives to produce vehicles which have a lesser environmental impact (environmental cost) still don't address this consumer need. It appears to be a basic assumption that people ought to be willing to shell out more for greener vehicles, as if the two goals are mutually exclusive.

It frustrates me to hear about a proposed battery powered car that requires a $6,000 replacement battery at 60,000 miles. This is just too outrageous. Of course when the executives who make auto manufacturing decision get multi-million dollar bonuses, it’s no small wonder they are out of touch with what the average Wal-Mart employee can afford.

That is why Ratan Tata’s dream was such a breath of fresh air. If you think poor Americans have a hard time being able to afford a car, think about what poor Chinese or Indians or Egyptians can afford. So it was that Ratan Tata in 2003 declared he would build a car for the masses. For this 2008 achievement, Time magazine made Tata one the Top 100 men of the year.

Ratan Tata’s dream, a small car for the teeming millions, has been unveiled. Tata Motors wheeled out the world's cheapest car, priced at 100,000 rupees (2,500 dollars).

A two cylinder 623 cc, 33 horsepower rear mounted, all aluminum, multi-point fuel injection petrol engine can power the car to top speeds of 105 kilometres per hour (65 miles per hour).

The snub-nosed car keeps in the tradition of the Fiat 500, Nissan Micra and the Smart with 3.1 metres (10.23 feet) long, 1.5 metres wide and 1.6 metres high. Tata Nano can seat four to five people and still give you a fuel efficiency of somewhere close to 20 kilometres per litre, or 50 miles per gallon.

Tata Nano Exceeds Indian regulatory requirements on pollution and can meet strict Euro IV emission standards. In terms of overall pollutants, Tata says the car is better than two-wheelers manufactured in India currently.

Tata Nano also exceeds current regulatory requirements with a strong passenger compartment, crumple zones, intrusion resistant doors, seat belts, strong seats and anchorage. Story source here

This latter requirement, that the car be safe in addition to low cost/high mpg, is the real feature, since it really is possible to improve miles per gallon by removing the car's body altogether. Not very practical. As E.F. Schumacher noted, small really can be beautiful.

According to one mechanic I recently spoke with, Detroit automakers have dug in their heels against foreign imports like the Nano and China's Chery, a $5,000 car which also gets 50 miles to the gallon. He said politics has been the barrier to inexpensive cars in America. We've been pushed by power brokers, not possibility thinkers, into the position we're in.

The cover story of this month's Wired magazine details changes that are needed in Detroit in order for the next generation of automobiles to get traction. The top down "control" mindset stifles competition and creative solutions for many of the problems automakers have made for themselves. You can read Charles C. Mann’s piece, “Beyond Detroit: On the Road to Recovery, Let the Little Guys Drive,” here.

Much more can be said, but for now there's plenty here to chew on.