On Wednesday, 19 March 2014, the Film & Media Studies Visiting Filmmakers Series brought the award-winning Let the Fire Burn and director Jason Osder to the Johnson Center Cinema. The event brought together George Mason University faculty and students, as well as some community members who remembered the history recounted by the documentary.
That history came to an ugly climax on 13 May 1985, when a longtime feud between the Philadelphia police department and MOVE, the controversial black liberation group led by John Africa, erupted. Police attempted to evacuate MOVE's West Philadelphia row house for several hours, eventually dropping military-grade explosives onto the roof. The consequences of that decision -- explosions and a fire that quickly spread to other homes on Osage Avenue -- were recorded by local TV cameras and narrated by reporters in real time. As neighbors were horrified to see the effects on their property (61 houses were destroyed), the worst was revealed days later: 11 people, including five children, died that day. As the film reveals in footage of the Philadelphia Special Commission assembled to investigate the catastrophe, someone in charge -- perhaps several people -- had made the call to "let the fire burn."
The found footage documentary, which premieres on PBS on 12 May, uses only archival news coverage and interviews in order to remember this terrible day, events leading up to it, and also hearings held by the Philadelphia Special Investigative Committee (MOVE Commission), appointed by Mayor Wilson Goode. These hearings showcase testimony by Fire Commissioner William Richmond, and Police Commissioner Greg Sambor, as well as police officers and MOVE survivors. Perhaps the most riveting and poignant testimony comes from 13-year-old Birdie Africa/Michael Ward, the only child to survive the attack, a videotaped interview used throughout Let the Fire Burn to underscore the officials' recklessness. The hearings led to no criminal charges, even as Philadelphia became known as "The City that Bombed Itself."
Birdie's story haunted Jason Osder, himself a child living in Philadelphia at the time of the bombing. As the discussion following the screening revealed, he spent nearly 10 years working on the film. Now an assistant professor in George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, he was named by Filmmaker Magazine as one of the "25 New Faces of 2013." He tells the magazine that he didn't think he'd be a documentary filmmaker when he began studying documentary at the University of Florida (where he received his MAMC in 2001): "I didn’t do it out of a love of documentary, I did it out of a desire for knowledge.”
His continuing desire was clear during the discussion, led by Jessica Scarlata, associate professor in English and Film & Media Studies at George Mason University. She asked him where he might situate the film's subject in context with other films exposing forgotten or repressed histories, and also to speak about his choices in shaping the film, as a story and also as a kind of recovery project, helping viewers to remember history. He recalled that although he filmed several interviews with individuals involved with the MOVE organization and the Philadelphia police, he and his editor, Nels Bangerter, decided to leave that footage out of the finished film. He described their conversations as a series of dares and what had started as a seemingly impossible idea eventually became the structural foundation of the film. By telling the story in this manner, Osder said he was trying to represent events from the past "in the present tense."
Other audience members sought more information about the MOVE organization, events that served as precursors to the 1985 tragedy, and what happened after the attack. Osder noted the intersections between journalism and documentary, as both journalists and documentarians might pursue investigations. But where reporters might provide facts (or seeming facts, at least), documentary makers can dig deeper, uncover hidden histories, and also, more provocatively, leave some questions unanswered. And then he encouraged his listeners to investigate on their own, as we might all be responsible for bringing multiple truths to light.
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GMU FAMS Visiting Filmmakers Series: Let the Fire Burn and Jason Osder at GMU was co-sponsored by African & African American Studies, Communication, Criminology, Law, & Society, Cultural Studies, English, Film & Video Studies, History & Art History, the Honors College, Office of Diversity, Inclusion, & Multicultural Education, University Life, and Women & Gender Studies.
Let the Fire Burn and Jason Osder is the latest event in the Film and Media Studies’ Visiting Filmmakers Series. Past films and filmmakers in the series include The New Black with Yoruba Richen, Poster Girl with Sara Nesson and Sgt. Robyn Murray, and Better This World with Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega.
April 10, 2014