Tower (2016) Documentary Review!!

Synopsis – Animation, testimony, and archival footage combine to relate the events of August 1, 1966 when a gunman opened fire from the University of Texas clock tower, killing 16 people.

My Take – This documentary received huge ovations and overwhelming support in its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin besides winning the grand jury award for best documentary. And while watching this film I realized something, considering the stakes at the world is today, this Keith Maitland directed documentary is an important film for all of us, no matter what country, religion, sex or race we belong to, mainly as the number of mass shootings occurring around the world, it does raise questions on the gun usage laws of countries like America where people with certain people with psychological conditions are allowed to arm themselves in the name of protection especially in Southern states. Here, director Maitland has pieced together a recounting of the horrifying 90 minutes of a sweltering summer day — August 1, 1966 — when a lone sniper, Charles Whitman, essentially took the University of Texas at Austin campus hostage from the top of the campus clock tower, killing 16 people and wounding more than 40, hereby terrifying a country and beginning a cycle of violence and halting “national conversations” about gun control that has now spanning 50 years. Keith Maitland‘s documentary recreates the scene of the tragedy with a combination of archival footage, testimonials and scarce video, audio, photos and news media coverage of the event at his disposal, Maitland mostly turns to animation to fill the gaps and relate what actually happened as completely as possible. The finished product is as close to a moment by moment account of the shooting — from the perspective of those who lived through it and were closest to the action — as possible. Made to mark the upcoming 50th anniversary of the one of the earliest and one of the worst mass school shootings in American history, I am sure there are still many folks in Austin who remember that day. The filmmaker made the brilliant choice to combine original news coverage with animation so as to recreate the tragic events nearly perfectly (without having to actually film people shooting on the UT- Austin campus). They use actor’s voice to recreate the events which are based on interviews with many of the original participants (victims, police, and witnesses) and very little is said about the gun man.

In a time when mass shootings have become a standard scroll on the nightly news, this was a new kind of crime, it only seems fitting that the film uses a new form of craft to tell it. And trust me when I say that this film is a cinematic marvel that recreates a tragedy with a simple beauty without falling into the tropes of documentary filmmaking. The film dives right into action by taking on the particular sunny day of 1966 on the sweltering campus of the University of Texas at Austin. As the summer courses were just beginning, the college town surrounding the buildings was bustling with excited youth and students. It was just after noon. From nowhere, people recall hearing “pops” and suddenly the air was filled with targeted bullets, first striking down a pregnant woman and her boyfriend in the stone plaza outside the central clock tower. Soon after, a boy on his bike was shot several blocks away and chaos ensued. A local news director hopped in his car and broadcast the scene from a portable radio and his voice was heard all over the country. From the clock tower, the rumors that a sniper was preying on those below with no regard and no sense, all everyone had to do was steer clear. The campus setting falls in and out of focus as witnesses and victims grasp the scope of the moment. The pattern repeats with each successive shot (the gunfire arrives in an unnervingly regular rhythm), accompanied by archival shots of smoke pluming out from the campus tower. Then it switches to Claire talking about just before things started happening. The actress playing Claire is rotoscoped, which is an animation technique that looks both real and animated at the same time, because it’s like tracing over the actual images. It’s a good technique for this type of documentary, because at once it distances you from the actor, yet brings you closer to the person the actor is portraying, and of the age they were when the events took place. Claire Wilson is the anchor of the story, having been the first one known shot, and also having been 8 months pregnant at the time. She lay out on the concrete of the Mall in front of the tower for over an hour in the August heat, her dead fiancé beside her, helped only by Rita Starpattern, who ran out to help despite the continued sniping. The decision in this film to stylistically recreate the actions of the heroes and heroines is the best single design choice I have ever seen in a documentary. This film, while still being a compelling true story, would lose lots of its tension and dehumanize many of its victims without the animated sections. The film emotionally moved me, both through its depressing moments and its moments of heroics. Never before has a documentary connected with me on such an emotional level before. The film is designed to be a documentary (although I would argue it doesn’t fall into that specific genre for a variety of reasons) with talking heads of students and police officers explaining what happened. We know they are actors, and their accounts strike us as surprisingly modern in expression and tone. The rotoscoped faces keep the past at a safe distance, and it’s almost easy for the audience to distance themselves from the horror that actually happened here. There are beautiful moments that are beyond words – like when a red-headed woman (Rita Starpattern) rushed to the aid of this pregnant woman even though she remained completely vulnerable to the shooter. They begin a conversation to keep their minds off the terror and carnage. Another moment when a couple of students act heroically in order to save victims from the slow death that awaited them.

They run out in the face of danger and carry victims to safety. This was a time that separated the heroes amongst us, and there were unbelievably brave people that were caught in the midst of it all. By focusing on the victims and those who had no choice but to be involved that day, director Maitland makes little mention of the shooter. We hear the words of Clare Wilson, the first shooting victim who was 8 months pregnant at the time. We also hear the words of Allen Crum, the University Co-op manager, whose heroic actions helped put an end to the tragic events of the day. Of course, police officers Ray Martinez and Houston McCoy are credited with ascending 27 floors and taking down the bad guy, and it’s mesmerizing to hear their recollections of that day. It was also fascinating to hear the replays of the on-site reporting from Neal Spelce of KTBC radio as he made his way around campus – reporting live to the nation. We also learned many details about how the police responded, how citizen vigilantes jumped in to help with their deer rifles (it is Texas after all), and how some acted so valiantly in the face of horror, while others understandably went ducking for cover. There is also the extremely moving mass assembly of quiet support as the ordeal finally ended. Most filmmakers would shy away from a subject like this. There’s not much to work with, it could feel too exploitative of people’s trauma and live action reenactments of what happened would come across as inauthentic if not comical. But the rotoscoping effect, and Maitland‘s choice to animate his subjects as they looked in 1966, casting actors to play them in animated reenactments and to read their testimonials with younger voices, addresses all these concerns. It’s as if Maitland dips part of the documentary in fiction just so that it can all come together more cohesively. Instead of cutting frequently between the real and the reenacted, he blends to the two. This also turns the documentary into a captivating, pulse-pounding retelling of events, almost as if it were a feature film. For those unfamiliar with story, it’s all the more engrossing and kind of jaw-dropping when you consider that it all actually happened. Adults young and old today have no shortage of mass shootings to draw from in their minds, but few lasted 90 terrifying minutes like the UT-Austin tower shooting. That makes it all the more important to create the vivid account we get here. Alternating currents of grief and resignation ripple throughout the documentary’s final segment, which catches up with the survivors of the tragedy in the present day and offers a pro forma montage of subsequent massacres defined by their settings: Newtown, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora etc, sending us into a tense, emotional rendering of a moment we’ve become too familiar with. The film barely names the Austin shooter, and is careful not to get into subsequent debates about his mental and physical health, mainly as this film was never about him, but about the survivors. On the whole, ‘Tower’ is an immersive, emotional and tastefully done documentary which is bound to leave you speechless.