"Certainly the desire to experience aspects of the world outside one's daily experience is an essential one, but representing an unfamiliar or foreign realm comes with logistical and representational challenges tied to ethnography, ethics, and power that are overlooked far too often." -Broderick Fox
God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise is the followup to the Emmy award winning documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts by director Spike Lee. In the clip above, HBO has a brief conversation with Lee on his thoughts about his follow up work on the people of New Orleans living through the impact of Hurricane Katrina. In the short clip you are able to get a sense of Lee as the filmmaker, his investment in the project, and his connection to the people of New Orleans. It can be argued that because Lee is black, grew up in Brooklyn, went to an HBCU and most of his catalog features work that traces the narrative of the black community that he is much more close to the subject than most filmmakers of his stature would be. On the other hand it can be argued that he is too far removed from the people of New Orleans and their struggles. He has achieved success that affords him the benefits to not have to face such emotional and finacially turmoil. Yet, Lee decides that the voices of the people are important to him, important to the Unites States and that they needed to be heard. I am left wondering, what is the measurement for "safely" making work about people? How does one know when they are welcomed to observe and represent a people visually? Also, how much of the "subject" matter when making these decisions? How does Lee's documentaries work differently from others on the subject of Katrina?