The Great Flood

Unlike previous features such as Decasia (VL-3/04), here documentarian Bill Morrison's signature montages of distressed found footage are employed to present a haunting portrait of a particular event—1927's Mississippi River flood. Drawing on material assembled from various archives, The Great Flood is divided into a series of chapters—showing sharecroppers at work before the deluge; the communal effort to pile sandbags in order to fend off the waters; a meeting with a gaggle of officials (including Herbert Hoover) who assess damage and discuss governmental action; nearly submerged homes and farms from which people have to be rescued; and the deliberate destruction of levees upriver in an attempt to save New Orleans. A dog trapped on floating debris is just one of many unforgettable images, while a running theme throughout is the callous treatment of blacks, capped at the close by footage of the emigration of many African Americans northward after the flood. Morrison uses the deterioration of the nitrate stock to give many sequences an almost glistening, watery look—a haunting mirror of the recorded disaster—and also leaves the Mississippi at one point to offer a glimpse of pages from the 1927 Sears, Roebuck & Company catalogue, contrasting the relative affluence it represents with the misery on the river. Complementing the visuals is Bill Frisell's evocative score that features echoes of “Old Man River” and jazzy elements. Bundled with a booklet, this documentary boasting true cinematic artistry is recommended. [Note: also newly available is Bill Morrison: Collected Works 1996 to 2013—priced at $49.98—which includes The Great Flood, Decasia, and over a dozen other films.] Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)