Spike Lee’s ‘When the Levees Broke’

>Archive - PWW Print Edition Archive - 2006 Editions - Sept. 2, 2006


 

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the most poignant interviews in Spike Lee’s Hurricane Katrina documentary “When the Levees Broke” is given by a man who lost his mother in the aftermath of the storm, the filmmaker said.

In the interview, Herbert Freeman recalls his mother’s death at the New Orleans Convention Center and the moment he had to leave her body there as he and other evacuees were taken out of the city.

“Before he got on a bus, he had a piece of paper, wrote his name, his cell number and her name and placed the paper between her fingers,” Lee said in an interview aired on ABC’s “This Week.”

“How could this happen, in the — supposedly — the wealthiest, mightiest country in the world? Really, that’s the question,” Lee said.

The four-hour film, divided into four acts, examines the government’s response to Katrina. The first two parts debuted Aug. 21 on HBO and the remaining acts were continued the next day. It was shown again in its entirety on Aug. 29 and Sept. 1 and will air again on Sept. 7, 10, 11, 16 and 28. It will also be available from HBO’s on-demand service until Sept. 27.