← Back to Reviews
in
Brother’s Keeper, 1992
This documentary follows the murder trial of Delbert Ward, an older man who has been accused of killing his brother. The film focuses on the lives of the brothers, the events of the trial, and the community response to the whole affair.
A fascinating look at the social politics around major events in small communities, brushing up at times against its own exploitative desires.
There are three major strands to this documentary: the lives of the Ward brothers, the progression of the trial and questions about the propriety of the investigation, and the reaction of the community.
The most exploitative element of the film is definitely the view into the lives of the Ward brothers. There are constant references from other interview subjects to the brothers living in a different time. The brothers run a small farm, raising poultry, pigs, and cattle. They live in a small house, sharing bedrooms and beds. Their property is a sprawl of derelict vehicles and scrubby farm cats. Maybe this says more about me than it does about the Ward brothers, but I wasn’t all that shocked by what I saw. The film keeps trying to raise the stakes here, such as by including an overlong sequence of the brothers killing and butchering a pig. But the secluded, low-tech living is not atypical of what you get in very rural areas, and this was a place where I felt the film leaning toward an audience that doesn’t know what people are like past the suburbs.
The trial itself is just a hair short of a farce. All of the Ward brothers are hard of hearing, and several of the witnesses are the same. The prosecutor frequently shouts his questions over and over, followed by the judge shouting the question. The Ward brothers are also illiterate, and so can only respond with a shrug when presented with documents to read. A medical examiner takes the stand, spelling out his very long name for the record without being asked, and then talks to the jury as if he’s lecturing a group of ten year olds. What does swirl around the whole thing is a controversial confession signed by Delbert that he smothered his brother. The defense asserts that Delbert, due to being illiterate, was tricked into signing the confession without understanding what it said or the implications of such a signature.
But it’s the response of the community that is the most interesting. Having not cared one bit about the Ward brothers before, the town suddenly mobilizes around them, holding basically town meetings in a local diner. Different townspeople have different theories, some of them incredibly outlandish. The dead brother, William, had a variety of medical and mental health issues. When a cow is disoriented, you sometimes plug its nose to make it move. Thus, reasons one person, Delbert must have been trying to help his brother by treating him like a cow. It seems as if the people are more united by a cause than by actual concern for Delbert or for the truth about William’s death.
Fundamentally, the film somewhat dances around the idea that Delbert did kill William, but that it would not be justice to lock him up for that crime. Further, there seems to be a sensibility that all of the brothers were implicitly involved with the decision to commit what might be thought of as a mercy killing. Just left to hang out there in the breeze is the bizarre detail that semen was found on William’s body, with the salacious suggestion that the brothers were having sex when Delbert killed him. (One interview subject explaining why no one should care if the brothers were/are all having sex with one another is an exemplar of “that’s their business” rural thinking that I miss from the Iowa of the early 2000s).
A wild ride that ends up somewhat tarnished by the film’s insistence on seeing the brothers more as an exhibition than as real people.
Brother’s Keeper, 1992
This documentary follows the murder trial of Delbert Ward, an older man who has been accused of killing his brother. The film focuses on the lives of the brothers, the events of the trial, and the community response to the whole affair.
A fascinating look at the social politics around major events in small communities, brushing up at times against its own exploitative desires.
There are three major strands to this documentary: the lives of the Ward brothers, the progression of the trial and questions about the propriety of the investigation, and the reaction of the community.
The most exploitative element of the film is definitely the view into the lives of the Ward brothers. There are constant references from other interview subjects to the brothers living in a different time. The brothers run a small farm, raising poultry, pigs, and cattle. They live in a small house, sharing bedrooms and beds. Their property is a sprawl of derelict vehicles and scrubby farm cats. Maybe this says more about me than it does about the Ward brothers, but I wasn’t all that shocked by what I saw. The film keeps trying to raise the stakes here, such as by including an overlong sequence of the brothers killing and butchering a pig. But the secluded, low-tech living is not atypical of what you get in very rural areas, and this was a place where I felt the film leaning toward an audience that doesn’t know what people are like past the suburbs.
The trial itself is just a hair short of a farce. All of the Ward brothers are hard of hearing, and several of the witnesses are the same. The prosecutor frequently shouts his questions over and over, followed by the judge shouting the question. The Ward brothers are also illiterate, and so can only respond with a shrug when presented with documents to read. A medical examiner takes the stand, spelling out his very long name for the record without being asked, and then talks to the jury as if he’s lecturing a group of ten year olds. What does swirl around the whole thing is a controversial confession signed by Delbert that he smothered his brother. The defense asserts that Delbert, due to being illiterate, was tricked into signing the confession without understanding what it said or the implications of such a signature.
But it’s the response of the community that is the most interesting. Having not cared one bit about the Ward brothers before, the town suddenly mobilizes around them, holding basically town meetings in a local diner. Different townspeople have different theories, some of them incredibly outlandish. The dead brother, William, had a variety of medical and mental health issues. When a cow is disoriented, you sometimes plug its nose to make it move. Thus, reasons one person, Delbert must have been trying to help his brother by treating him like a cow. It seems as if the people are more united by a cause than by actual concern for Delbert or for the truth about William’s death.
Fundamentally, the film somewhat dances around the idea that Delbert did kill William, but that it would not be justice to lock him up for that crime. Further, there seems to be a sensibility that all of the brothers were implicitly involved with the decision to commit what might be thought of as a mercy killing. Just left to hang out there in the breeze is the bizarre detail that semen was found on William’s body, with the salacious suggestion that the brothers were having sex when Delbert killed him. (One interview subject explaining why no one should care if the brothers were/are all having sex with one another is an exemplar of “that’s their business” rural thinking that I miss from the Iowa of the early 2000s).
A wild ride that ends up somewhat tarnished by the film’s insistence on seeing the brothers more as an exhibition than as real people.