Tower - 2016
Directed by Keith Maitland
Based on an article by Pamela Colloff
In November 1966, a young woman named Claire Wilson, suffering from a gunshot wound, was released from hospital after a lengthy stay. She had been in intensive care for seven weeks, and about as long on a ward afterwards. She'd had to learn to walk again. She had lost her baby after being eight months pregnant. She'd lost her partner - killed. In January, she returned to university for the first time since she'd been shot. Nobody talked to her about what had happened - despite the fact that many had shared her ordeal. There were no meetings. Nobody asked how she was, or declared that they felt for her. When it did happen to be mentioned, it was called "the accident." These were different times.
On August 1st, 1966, a nondescript young man took various rifles and ammunition to the top of the Main Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin and opened fire, killing 16 and wounding 31. Keith Maitland's 2016 documentary
Tower sets a great standard for telling a story about something absolutely tragic and horrifying, for the purpose of healing and coming to terms with these events. It's a film that helps to restore a bit of faith in humanity, for this is a movie about the victims and how they feel, felt and acted - not a gunman and what he did. It's a shared experience that makes you want to embrace the people who have had their lives unalterably changed forever - focusing on words and actions about the best of us.
The documentary is based on an article in the Texas Monthly by Pamela Colloff called "96 Minutes" which was published 40 years after the events at Texas University. This article combined the recollection of dozens of witnesses, survivors, newspeople and other people who tried to help the best they could under the sniper's deadly fire. Many of the recollections had never been shared before, and it proved to be a real impetus to put together this film. Unlike the article, the film eschews mentioning the gunman or talking about who he was. It focuses mainly on the events as they were happening, and people's psychological reactions in the moment, and also how the events affected their wellbeing. Many of the people interviewed and quoted in the film were also quoted in Pamela Colloff's article.
Tower is constructed in an interesting manner. Reenactions from that day have been filmed and then animated in Rotoscoping - a process where frames of motion picture photography are replicated, originally by manual tracing but now by computer software. Rotoscoped footage is easily transferred onto different backgrounds. It allows for a lot of freedom. This animation has a dream-like quality, but I'd hesitate to call it 'stylish' in a film such as this. It's not style that's sought after, but a kind of transference of time and place. Actors and actresses can depict real characters, but remain anonymous enough to have their footage more easily assimilate with footage of the real people at later stages of their lives. A transference of eras is more easily accomplished, as backgrounds can easily be created or copied from other sources. It also very much looks like imagination. If someone is recalling events from the distant past, a rotoscoped set of images is something like what you'd imagine the recollection to be like. After all, we hardly fill in every small detail when we remember.
At times, reality (brutal reality) assumes control when real footage is shown. Puffs of gun smoke drift from the deadly tower. News anchors interrupt people's daily lives to report on the unimaginable. This is all very well sewn together by editor and frequent Keith Maitland collaborator Austin Reedy. In the background, either the real people or actors using the real people's words narrate various different stories from survivors. Aleck Hernandez, a kid delivering papers on his paper route. Allen Crum, who raced over to Aleck to help him and eventually ended up inside the tower, helping the police put an end to the shooting. Brenda Bell, watching on from her class window and walking amongst pools of blood afterwards - she'd go on to write about what happened. Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez, who would reach the top of the tower and confront and kill the gunman. John Fox, who would put himself in harms way while rescuing Claire and helping carry her to safety. Neal Spelce, a newscaster who would learn of the unfolding drama and drive off to the scene, reporting what was happening as it happened. This all adds together to give a real sense of what happened that day - the scale and impact of events on a personal level.
The era is brought to mind from the radios of the re-enactments as we hear Monday Monday performed by The Mamas and the Papas, Waterloo by Stonewall Jackson and Daydream by The Lovin' Spoonful. It creates an atmosphere of happiness and normality that is smashed by events. Then, late, there's Debussy's Clair De Lune in the documentary's most striking use of music, which prompts all kinds of emotions from the the listener, from sadness to painful reminiscence, to an almost calm acceptance of humanity's enduring beauty in the face of our most ugly of crimes. We learn about Claire's forgiveness towards the sniper that took away her boyfriend and baby. We learn about John's guilt for not coming to Claire's rescue earlier. We get to live the experience of a young woman called Rita Starpattern, who joined Claire on the hot concrete in full view of the gunman, just to keep her going and make sure she wasn't alone. Rita could immediately feel an empathy that we share by learning about what Claire went through on that day.
Tower, overall, is an excellent documentary that tells a fascinating narrative tale and also explores emotion, memory and coming to terms with past traumas. It takes the momentum of our desire to look at tragedy, and uses that momentum to show us what is really important about looking back at those tragedies. It takes what we've learned about the need to talk about past traumas to help heal them, and uses it to inform average people who have never experienced the enormity of what happened during this event. What could have been sheer exploitation becomes something really worthwhile - and in doing this it takes all of the power that gunman wanted for himself and gives it back to those he stole that power from. Released 50 years after the events it talks about, it finally brings some comfort to Claire - once completely alone amongst the very people she'd actually shared this event with, and brings that same comfort to all of those other people living their lives in the shadow of the tower at the University of Texas.