Posted: Tue.,
Jan. 27, 2004, 10:24pm PT
(Docu)
A Nancy Dickenson presentation in
association with Counterpoint Films. Produced by Paola di Florio, Nancy
Dickenson. Co-producers, Alice Rubin, Lorraine Gallard. Directed, written
by Paola di Florio.
With: Mary Liuzzo, Tony Liuzzo,
Sally Liuzzo, Penny Liuzzo, Sue Liuzzo, Rose Mary Liuzzo, Sander Vanocur,
JL Chesnut, John Lewis, Gloria Steinem, Eric Jacobs, Joanne Bland, Alice
West, Gary May, Spider Martin, James Turner, Phyllis Chesler, Mary
Stanton, Warren Hanson, Nicholas Katzenbach, Leroy Moton, Judge William
Webster, Murray Fromson.
Narrator-Stockard Channing.
By
SCOTT FOUNDAS
Paola di Florio's provocative and haunting
"Home of the Brave" explores the life and legacy of slain demonstrator
Viola Liuzzo -- the only white woman killed during the U.S. civil rights
movement. Transfiguring material ordinarily the province of TV shows like
"Dateline NBC" or "American Justice," di Florio emerges with a serenely
powerful, handcrafted film that navigates into a place Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. once called "the tangled discords of our nation." Sure to be the
topic of much discussion, pic looks to become a must-have festival docu,
followed by specialized theatrical release and cable bookings.
A 39-year-old wife of a Detroit Teamster official and
mother of five, Liuzzo, like many white Americans, had her eyes opened to
the full intensity of the troubles in the South on Bloody Sunday -- March
7, 1965 -- when some 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by police on
Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. Two weeks later, Liuzzo was headed South to
participate in King's four-day march on Montgomery. Her skills as a nurse
and ambulance driver would be needed. This was something the strong-willed
Liuzzo felt she had to do, and her family knew objections would be futile.
A week later, Liuzzo was dead, fatally wounded in a
drive-by shooting as she was transporting a black man, Leroy Moton, in her
vehicle. Her assailants were a carload of KKK members, including an
undercover FBI informant, Gary Thomas Rowe.
Though Rowe would subsequently identify the other
suspects and testify against them in court, an all-white state jury
acquitted the men of murder. Afterward, a federal court convicted them of
civil rights violations. Some 10 years later, new evidence emerged
suggesting that Rowe himself, then immune from prosecution as the result
of a deal made with the government, may in fact have been the trigger man.
Docu presents a mesmerizing true-life murder mystery, as
di Florio offers compelling evidence, collected by the Liuzzos over the
past three decades, which suggests the official story surrounding their
mother's death may have been just that -- a fiction. Why, for example, was
Rowe also suspected of participation in the infamous firebombing of
Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church? Why was the FBI's file on
Liuzzo's case three times the size of its file on the KKK at the height of
the civil rights movement? And, perhaps most disconcerting, why is there
documentation in that file to suggest J. Edgar Hoover was personally
responsible for engineering a smear campaign against Liuzzo's moral
character?
Such matters may never be satisfactorily answered, and
many filmmakers might have been content to let the story rest. Di Florio,
however, digs deeper into the psyches of those left behind, building her
film, like Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans."
As di Florio finds, the gruesome instant of Liuzzo's
murder is one in which Liuzzo's children are forever trapped. For middle
daughter Mary, this means the retracing of her mother's footsteps that
provides "Home of the Brave" with its basic structure. For son Tony, the
notion of constitutional freedom for all has taken a more troubling
permutation; he is now a high-ranking member of the Michigan Militia,
distrustful of authorities and carrying a firearm wherever he goes.
Eldest son Tommy, meanwhile, has completely disappeared
into the backwoods of Alabama, not far from where his mother took her
fateful last ride. Though he promises to meet with Mary for the first time
in 20 years for a scene in the film, he fails to show up; only a small rag
doll, designed to resemble a black person bound and hanging from a tree,
suggests he was there.
Throughout, di Florio keeps things moving at a
breathless clip, conveying information in precise, succinct bits and never
seeming to dwell too long on any one aspect of her complex tale. Musical
selections on soundtrack are particularly well chosen, including the
lovely Steve Vaus rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" from which pic
takes its title.
Camera (color, DV), Joan Churchill;
editor, Thomas G. Miller; music, Karen Childs, David Powell; music
supervisor, Powell; sound, di Florio; associate producers, Linda Balaban,
Juliane Crump. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (competing),
Jan. 20, 2004. Running time: 73 MIN. |
