Koch
Directed by Neil Barsky
Opened February 1, 2013
zeitgeistfilms.com
How to Survive a Plague
Directed by David France
In theaters and on demand; on DVD February 26, 2013
The Central Park Five
Directed by Ken Burns, David McMahon, and Sarah Burns
In theaters and on demand; on DVD April 23, 2013
sundanceselects.com
Neil Barsky’s new documentary
about the cantankerous former New York mayor (who perhaps not so ironically
died the morning the film opened last Friday), Koch—pronounced “kotch,”
not “coke,” unlike some crazy right-wing billionaires we know—is an indelible
portrait of the man’s long career of public service.
While sympathetic to its chatty
subject, it’s not a mere hagiography: Barsky brings up the corruption scandal
that nearly sank his administration, his excruciatingly slow response to the
burgeoning AIDS crisis in the early ‘80s and, the long-held rumor that he was a
closeted homosexual. The intensely private Koch—as part of a lively interview
that takes up a large chunk of the movie—barks, “It’s none of your fucking
business!” in response.
Koch paints a vivid picture of New York City from the time Koch got
into politics though his dozen years as mayor to his later years as commentator
and lionized city icon. Koch first won the mayoral election in 1977, and
through the choice archival footage married to interviews with friends and foes
alike, we see how he remade his beloved city in his image: a no-nonsense,
prickly, pugnacious survivor. When he lost the 1989 Democratic primary to David
Dinkins, his standard line was “the people have spoken—let them suffer” in
response to those who said they missed him.
There’s touching—and now
prescient—footage of Koch visiting his own tombstone in a non-Jewish cemetery
in Washington Heights in northern Manhattan. He wrote the epitaph himself: he
wants to be remembered as serving his country in WWII, in Congress and as mayor
of the greatest city in the world. As cinematic epitaphs go, Koch is satisfying.
A devastating piece of cinematic
advocacy that rarely becomes strident, How to Survive a Plague powerfully
documents how AIDS activists not only helped get the reality of the deadly epidemic
into the sights of an inattentive government—both in large cities and in
Washington—but also enabled themselves to live on despite the death sentence
the disease gave them.
Director David France extensively—and
adroitly—intercuts vintage footage with new interviews with the most valuable
players in the fight by ACT UP (the most prominent AIDS victims’ group) over so
many years of fighting both the disease and the government. France also analyzes
the intergroup conflicts that arose and caused splintering at the worst
possible time: the politics of this crisis goes beyond Presidents Reagan and
Bush doing nothing because the victims were not constituents.
But, as
the movie shows in a series of highly emotional interviews, there is a happy
ending so far for many of those suffering from AIDS, as new drug combinations are
successfully counteracting the disease. But hovering over everything are
regret, sadness and rage that nothing was done early enough to save so many
others’ lives.
To anyone living in New York City
in 1989—I had moved there a few months earlier—The Central Park Five will
dredge up unpleasant memories of the infamous “Central Park jogger” case, in
which a group of rampaging teenagers nearly killed an innocent woman after beating
and gang raping her.
A city-wide lynch-mob mentality had
spread from the police to the media to the public—I was immediately convinced
of their guilt, as were most other New Yorkers—so no one was surprised by their
guilty verdicts. Of course, it turned out that the five teens weren’t guilty—a
serial rapist-killer finally confessed to the crime years later, with his DNA positively
linked to the victim—and they were belatedly exonerated after four had served
out their terms and one was still doing time.
This collaboration of acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns, his daughter Sara Burns and her husband David McMahon looks closely
at the evidence (or lack of it) that led to trumped-up charges and convictions
in what was, after all, a high-profile case that would have been an municipal embarrassment
if no one was caught and punished. More than two decades later, the five men—four
were interviewed on camera, the other one only heard, not seen—are awaiting the
outcome of their lawsuits against the city for misconduct by the police
department (who coerced false confessions) and prosecutors (who ignored
evidence exonerating them) over a miscarriage of justice.
The film makes clear that the five
accused teens were certainly not angels—there was a lot of thuggish behavior in
the park that night by dozens of kids, and they just happened to get caught. And
even though their confessions contradicted one another, that didn’t stop them
for being found guilty: bungled chronology and contrary physical evidence didn’t
matter.
Too bad that no one from the police
or prosecution agreed to be interviewed: the film at times seems one-sided for
that reason. But its critique of complicit media and political leadership
remains disturbing all these years later.
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