Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 7, 2008 10:08:44 GMT -5
Filmmaker driven to get it right for 'Walls That Bleed’
Tuesday, October 7
(updated 8:01 am)
By Jeri Rowe Jeri Rowe
Staff Columnist
GREENSBORO - For six years, Michael Anthony Williams has relived three deadly days in our city's history from so long ago.
He interviewed 42 people and read at least 50 books. He researched how to interview, how to film, how to raise money, how to find money and how to market a documentary.
When he wasn't waiting tables - and traveling back and forth to work by bus - he parked himself for hours, in front of a microfilm machine, either at the Greensboro Central Library or the archives at N.C. A&T.
There, he'd slip on his headphones, listen to positive hip-hop from the likes of Talib Kweli, and pore over faded newspaper stories to get a better handle on what happened in our city 39 years ago.
During those six years, Williams fell in love, got married and had a son. He spent $7,000 of his own money - even telling his wife they couldn't get a dining room table because he needed the money to pay for his film project.
"Baby,'' he told his wife, Nikki. "I got to pay for food. The crew's gotta eat."
Williams knew he had to remain persistent. He had persuaded Claude Barnes, a participant and now a political science professor at A&T, to give his time, attention and money - $10,000 of it - to help him tell the story.
He only got Barnes on board after going to his house, his office and even catching him in an elevator on campus and saying, "Dr. Barnes, I want to get this story right!"
Williams did. He calls his film, "Walls That Bleed."
It's a 100-minute documentary that details the three deadly days in May 1969 when A&T, his alma mater, became an armed camp and a student from small-town North Carolina became a causality of war.
"Walls That Bleed" will make you think. Williams and his crew of 15 effectively use music, filmed conversations and graphic-novel art to recreate an often forgotten chapter of the country's civil rights movement.
And to think, the problem started with something that sounds so innocent: a high school election.
At Dudley High, school officials nullified an election of a student body president because school officials called the candidate's platform radical because he complained about such things as the school's second-hand books, its no-jeans dress code and the area's depressed business conditions.
That candidate was Barnes.
Dudley High students walked out in protest, and they ended up getting tear-gassed and attacked by police. Students clashed with police and marched to A&T to find help. The confrontation escalated.
Jack Elam, the city's mayor back then, called in the National Guard and 650 men, some in armored carriers, many of them armed. They rolled down East Market Street toward A&T to quell the unrest.
For three days, as bullets flew outside Scott Hall, students slipped under beds and slept in the halls to be safe. Eight people - five police, two students and a member of the National Guard - were injured.
Willie Grimes, a student from Winterville, was shot in the back of the head. He was caught in the crossfire on his way to McDonald's to get a hamburger. His death remains the city's oldest unsolved homicide.
You see all that in the documentary - measured conversations from Elam, Barnes and other participants and observers who paint a warts-and-all picture of our city by the railroad tracks.
And you can see it all this week at the Carousel Cinemas.
It'll remind you of something from filmmaker Ken Burns. Or maybe Spike Lee. But it's about our city, and it's done by Williams, a 2004 grad from A&T, a recipient of a fine arts degree who saw the Willie Grimes monument on campus six years ago and simply wondered why.
"I lived in Scott Hall, and being around all those professors, I had to do it right and not sugar-coat anything," said Williams on Monday before his documentary's first public screening. "That is what I wanted to do for my alma mater. This is me giving back to them."
Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com
What: Walls that Bleed
Where: Carousel Cinemas, 1305 Battleground Ave., Greensboro
When: Tuesday-Saturday - 12:30 p.m., 2:40 p.m., 4:50 p.m., 7 p.m., 9:15 p.m.
Information: 216-1620
Note: There will be a concert featuring music from "Walls that Bleed" at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Center City Park in downtown Greensboro and a panel discussion on the film at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at N.C. A&T's Gibbs Hall in Room 123.
WANT TO CONTRIBUTE?
You can mail a donation in care of Williams' Canvas Studios to P.O. Box 5, Saxapahaw, NC 27340.
Tuesday, October 7
(updated 8:01 am)
By Jeri Rowe Jeri Rowe
Staff Columnist
GREENSBORO - For six years, Michael Anthony Williams has relived three deadly days in our city's history from so long ago.
He interviewed 42 people and read at least 50 books. He researched how to interview, how to film, how to raise money, how to find money and how to market a documentary.
When he wasn't waiting tables - and traveling back and forth to work by bus - he parked himself for hours, in front of a microfilm machine, either at the Greensboro Central Library or the archives at N.C. A&T.
There, he'd slip on his headphones, listen to positive hip-hop from the likes of Talib Kweli, and pore over faded newspaper stories to get a better handle on what happened in our city 39 years ago.
During those six years, Williams fell in love, got married and had a son. He spent $7,000 of his own money - even telling his wife they couldn't get a dining room table because he needed the money to pay for his film project.
"Baby,'' he told his wife, Nikki. "I got to pay for food. The crew's gotta eat."
Williams knew he had to remain persistent. He had persuaded Claude Barnes, a participant and now a political science professor at A&T, to give his time, attention and money - $10,000 of it - to help him tell the story.
He only got Barnes on board after going to his house, his office and even catching him in an elevator on campus and saying, "Dr. Barnes, I want to get this story right!"
Williams did. He calls his film, "Walls That Bleed."
It's a 100-minute documentary that details the three deadly days in May 1969 when A&T, his alma mater, became an armed camp and a student from small-town North Carolina became a causality of war.
"Walls That Bleed" will make you think. Williams and his crew of 15 effectively use music, filmed conversations and graphic-novel art to recreate an often forgotten chapter of the country's civil rights movement.
And to think, the problem started with something that sounds so innocent: a high school election.
At Dudley High, school officials nullified an election of a student body president because school officials called the candidate's platform radical because he complained about such things as the school's second-hand books, its no-jeans dress code and the area's depressed business conditions.
That candidate was Barnes.
Dudley High students walked out in protest, and they ended up getting tear-gassed and attacked by police. Students clashed with police and marched to A&T to find help. The confrontation escalated.
Jack Elam, the city's mayor back then, called in the National Guard and 650 men, some in armored carriers, many of them armed. They rolled down East Market Street toward A&T to quell the unrest.
For three days, as bullets flew outside Scott Hall, students slipped under beds and slept in the halls to be safe. Eight people - five police, two students and a member of the National Guard - were injured.
Willie Grimes, a student from Winterville, was shot in the back of the head. He was caught in the crossfire on his way to McDonald's to get a hamburger. His death remains the city's oldest unsolved homicide.
You see all that in the documentary - measured conversations from Elam, Barnes and other participants and observers who paint a warts-and-all picture of our city by the railroad tracks.
And you can see it all this week at the Carousel Cinemas.
It'll remind you of something from filmmaker Ken Burns. Or maybe Spike Lee. But it's about our city, and it's done by Williams, a 2004 grad from A&T, a recipient of a fine arts degree who saw the Willie Grimes monument on campus six years ago and simply wondered why.
"I lived in Scott Hall, and being around all those professors, I had to do it right and not sugar-coat anything," said Williams on Monday before his documentary's first public screening. "That is what I wanted to do for my alma mater. This is me giving back to them."
Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com
What: Walls that Bleed
Where: Carousel Cinemas, 1305 Battleground Ave., Greensboro
When: Tuesday-Saturday - 12:30 p.m., 2:40 p.m., 4:50 p.m., 7 p.m., 9:15 p.m.
Information: 216-1620
Note: There will be a concert featuring music from "Walls that Bleed" at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Center City Park in downtown Greensboro and a panel discussion on the film at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at N.C. A&T's Gibbs Hall in Room 123.
WANT TO CONTRIBUTE?
You can mail a donation in care of Williams' Canvas Studios to P.O. Box 5, Saxapahaw, NC 27340.
