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NEWS FLASH:
The premiere of the movie in Kansas City was March 12, 2010 at the Tivoli Cinemas. Joe Winston and Thomas Frank attended and participated in a Q&A session with the audience. I know at least one member of RMC attended. You're invited to write a report of the experience.
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I recommend visiting the following link for the lastest news about the movie, "What's The Matter With Kansas?"
LINK TO MOVIE WEB PAGE.
The movie is supposedly based on the book by the same title. However, the movie states no explicit conclusions or interpretations as was done in the book. Therefore, I believe the movie will be experienced differently by those who have read the book than those who haven't.
The historical references to Kansas radicals were not very clear other than to say that there used to be some and they're buried here. Any irony from the contrast with conditions today is left up to the viewer.
One could get the impression from this movie that Mullinville represents the very heart of Kansas. Frankly, I've lived in Kansas all my life and didn't know that a town by that name existed. Now I do.
I wonder what people in the rest of the country are saying about Kansas after seeing the movie. The people in San Francisco are probably wondering why Rachel would want to move back to this place.
The movie thankfully spared me the embarrassment of an interview with anyone who self identified as being Mennonite (however, I kind of wonder about the folks from Mullinville).
I also read the book. I didn't look to see who produced the docu. It certainly doesn't portray Kansas and Kansans in a way that would be appealing to people on the coasts or big cities of the country -- but then they have ingrained impressions of this part of the country anyway, which the docu just reenforced. No, I don't think the movie was fair to Kansans, but I don't think that was its goal. The film had a political axe to grind. It was trying to bring the book to life, to put flesh on words, so to speak, but I think the docu has a much more muddled message than the book has. In fact, if I hadn't read the book, I'm not sure I would have understood what the theme was supposed to be -- that Kansans (and by extension other parts of the country with lots of economically distressed white folks) vote against their economic interests. Kansans in this film come across mostly as a bunch of uneducated, white, conservative, fundamentalist, chubby, right-to-life, creationist Christians. I'm not sure how many Kansans this describes, but it's not the Kansans I know!
The historical references were vague and incomplete. This could have been a very interesting aspect of the film but wasn't. A trip to the "Radical Cemetery" was confusing. Were these people from the territorial period or from the progressive era? I would have appreciated a far more careful analysis of Kansas's radical history, and even some conversations with Kansas historians who could shed some light on the disconnect between Kansas's past and present that the film was trying to convey. There's just no sense of how we (Kansas) got from past to present.
IMHO, the film is too long and needs both editing and better transitions, but overall it needs a clearer focus on theme. I think it would have been strengthened if it had included more voices on the other side (other than the crackpot libertarian artist in Mullinville). The woman in Dodge or Garden City who was working with undocumented workers, for example, was working out of the liberal Methodist tradition, but I don't think that was clear at all.
And yes, any of Rachel's friends who see this film in the Bay Area will wonder what the heck got her to return to this cultural dungheap. Which it isn't of course! Thanks for letting me see it!
What Diane said.
Whenever I get a documentary film that's longer than 54 minutes -- about the maximum you can have to fill an hour slot on television -- I always look for scenes that could be cut. There was no shortage of fat in this film, in fact, I could probably whack it down to a half hour!
Roger Ebert just named "What's the Matter with Kansas?" as one of his "10 Best Documentaries of 2009."
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