StoryCorps: Animated Shorts

The StoryCorps oral history project—for whom author Studs Terkel served as inspiration and guiding light—has archived more than 40,000 audio interviews with Americans for the Library of Congress. This compilation features 10 selections gleaned from a recording booth in New York City and visualized via traditional hand-drawn line-art animation by brothers Tim and Mike Rauch. One of the speakers/cartoon figures is, in fact, Terkel, who offers a sort of statement-of-principles recitation. Other pieces—many touching on 9/11 reminiscences—include a dialogue between a mother and her son with Asperger's about their lives together; the blues of a middle-aged man who lost his sweetheart when the WTC complex fell; a WWII veteran who suffers belated but intense guilt over the young German soldier he shot and killed long ago; two Asian-Americans who extract scraps of personal history from their steely grandmother ("No more questions!"); a retired Bloomingdale's house detective; and an old married couple who look back on their lives as the husband faces terminal cancer (this segment—"Danny & Annie"—brought thousands of condolences from radio listeners after Danny's death was announced on NPR). This is a wonderful and poignant anthology about the human condition that limits itself only in two ways—first by being NYC-focused (the packaging suggests a national scope), and second by being too short—you just don't want it to end. DVD extras include lengthy interviews with the Rauch brothers and StoryCorps founder Dave Isay. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (C. Cassady)