Requiem for Detroit? (2010) (TV)

Director:

Julien Temple

Release Date:

13 March 2010 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A documentary about the decay and industrial collapse of America's fourth largest city. |

Plot Keywords:

Racism | Automobile Industry | Detroit Michigan | Massive Unemployment

Cast

Julien Temple	...	Narrator (voice)
Lowell Boileau	...	Himself - Artist
Paul Thal	...	Himself - Auto Executive
Mike Neeson	...	Himself - Detroit Resident
David Gartman	...	Himself - Sociologist
Grace Lee Boggs	...	Herself - Author and Activist
Logan	...	Himself - Urban Explorer (as Logan X)
John Sinclair	...	Himself - Beat Poet
Tyree Guyton	...	Himself - Artist
Mitch Ryder	...	Himself - Musician
Martha Reeves	...	Herself - Motown Star and Detroit City Councilwoman
Bradley McCallum	...	Himself - Detroit Historian
Patricia Semivan	...	Herself - Former General Motors Employee
Arthur Stank	...	Himself - Former Detroit Police Officer
Tom Wilkinson	...	Himself - General Motors Executive
Peter de Lorenzo	...	Himself - Author of 'The Autoextremist'
Henry Ford II	...	Himself - Founder of the Ford Motor Company (archive footage) (as Henry Ford)

Directed by
Julien Temple

Produced by
Roger Graef	....	executive producer
Cassian Harrison	....	executive producer: BBC
George Hencken	....	producer

Cinematography by
Steve Organ

Film Editing by
Caroline Richards

Production Management
Clare Lucas	....	production manager

Art Department
Oliver Freeman	....	art department
Jonny Halifax	....	illustrator

Sound Department
Eric Golden	....	sound
Dan Johnson	....	dubbing mixer
Sean Poe	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Matt Margrett	....	camera assistant
Mike Neeson	....	camera assistant

Editorial Department
Andrew Daniel	....	colorist
Connan McStay	....	on-line editor

Other crew
Jane Bevan	....	head of production
Fred W. Boegelein	....	archives
Kate Griffiths	....	archivist
Susan Hormuth	....	archives
Margaret Saadi Kramer	....	archives
Eric Kulberg	....	archives
Eric Lorey	....	archives
Bradley McCallum	....	Detroit consultant
Henry McGroggan	....	archives
Russ Russell	....	Detroit consultant
Brian Semivan	....	archives
Logan Siegel	....	Detroit consultant

Thanks
Audry McNary	....	with thanks to
Richard McNary	....	with thanks to

Production Companies

• Films of Record

Distributors

• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (2010) (UK) (TV)
• Yleisradio (YLE) (2010) (Finland) (TV)

Other Companies

• Associated Press (AP) Archives, Associated Press News Television (APNT)  archives (as AP Archives)
• BBC Motion Gallery  archives
• British Pathé  archives
• City of Detroit Police Department  with thanks to
• Detroit Film Office  with thanks to
• F.I.L.M. Archives  archives
• Film Detroit  with thanks to
• Footage Farm  archives
• GM Media Archives  archives
• Getty Images  archives
• Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit  with thanks to
• Highland Park Police Department  with thanks to
• J. Fred McDonald & Associates  archives
• Library of Congress  archives
• US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)  archives (as NARA)
• Universal Media  archives
• Walter P. Reuther Library/Wayne State University  archives

Also Known As:

Runtime:

UK:76 min | Finland:60 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Filming Locations:

Detroit, Michigan, USA

Company:

Films of Record

Movie Connections:

Featured in Grierson 2010: The British Documentary Awards (2010) (TV)

One of the Finest Documentary Films of Our Time

This documentary portrait of a post-industrial future, of which the city of Detroit is the forerunner, is a true work of genius. In contrast to the egotistical, ranting and highly politicised film about Flint, Michigan, made by Michael Moore in 1989 (ROGER & ME), this film contains no political statement at all. It doesn't need to. The collapse of our civilisation as we know it is no longer a mere political issue, nor is it the issue of the personality of an egomaniac like Moore who wants to call attention to himself in his baseball cap. Nowhere does the director Julien Temple intrude upon this film (even though he is the narrator). He stands backs and lets the facts speak. That is the purest form of journalism. But the skill and brilliance of his technique, his editing, his montages, his use of music and startling sound effects, his interviewing methods (he is always edited out), his haunting images, his sense of atmosphere, his unerring awareness of the drama of every moment, his profound sense of historical continuity, are all miraculous. This is what real documentary film-making should be. Alas, the story he has to tell is one of the saddest stories there is: it is the story of the end, but towards the latter part of the film, there is also the solid hope of a new beginning. The images of destruction in Detroit are so shocking, so unbelievable, that we truly do see the End of the World in front of our eyes. Words are inadequate to describe this film, you have to see it. Nothing you have ever heard or imagined can prepare you to see on film the true state of affairs in Detroit today. This is the story that all the newspapers and magazines of the world do not cover, will not cover, dare not cover. Just think of any city you know, and imagine it abandoned and ruined, and you have the Detroit of today and your favourite city sometime tomorrow. Gigantic buildings, five star hotels, huge department stores ('the seventh floor was so lovely, it sold the most expensive women's clothing and luxury furs'), the mammoth headquarters buildings of some of the world's largest corporations, are all either ruined with trees growing out of them or are already demolished. 50,000 homes have now been demolished in Detroit. Tens of thousands more are burnt out and abandoned, with collapsing ceilings and rotting structures covered in vines. In this film, we revisit the original factories of Henry Ford, now totally ruinous. We see vintage film of his production lines, we see the 1950s ads of gas-guzzlers with fins and the fantasy visions of an eternal and blissful future, we see footage of the 1967 racial riots, we see Michigan Governor George Romney (father of Mitt) telling us everything is going to be just fine. But nowhere does the commentary rub it in. For those of us who know that Henry Ford was an overt and passionate supporter of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler before the War, this all makes sad sense. We then see how he saved his collapsing car empire by turning it into 'the arsenal of America', by producing the tanks to kill the very Nazis he had supported. Nobody needs to tell us the message on the sound track, or to interpret anything, for we can see it clearly enough. It is all there, the whole message. So now they are growing vegetables where highways used to be, that is, when the roaming crack cocaine gangs do not murder them. There are heartbreaking interviews with prison inmates who have more to say about their city than and vacuous comments by what remains of 'the city fathers'. We truly get the inside story, or should I say the many inside stories. It is amazing how Julien Temple found all these highly articulate ordinary people whose tales are so spellbinding, and whose simple wisdom is so awe-inspiring. Today Detroit, tomorrow the world. Just watch it. Don't even think about not watching it.