Johnstown Flood
This film is only available on DVD, so please make the effort if this subject at all interests you. I was not familiar with this incredibly devastating flood of May 31, 1889, but the painstaking labors of Mike and Mark Bussler have truly brought this story to life. Considerately not taking any foreknowledge of the event for granted, Mark Bussler compiles photographs, etchings and other drawings, and live-action re-enactments to bring the story home. At first, the film is exclusively panning and scanning photos, illuminated only by Richard Dreyfuss’ narration. The copy is very good, written by Richard Buckert, treading the line between cold facts and poetic description. It is museum quality writing. Soon, however, the film picks up the pace, and starts mixing its media more effectively. In a film of this nature, the story is king, and so if something looks a little too modern or if the budgetary limits are a little too obvious, we must smile and forgive them, because the key elements, the research and the building of the tale is very well done indeed.
Indeed, when no graphical representation of an event, existed, director and art director (and editor and producer) Mark Bussler draw them himself in the pen and ink style of the day. As executive producr Michael Bussler can proudly boast, the most interesting and attractive element of this film is that it “is based entirely on 19th Century accounts. That way the story tells exactly what the people who lived it ecxperienced.” As with all serious tragedies, there are as many stories are there are witnesses, but what is remarkable is how the many transcripts being shared with us through this documentary are so much in accordance with one another. And unlike a lot of the maudlin performance art chest thumping after September 11, those Victorian authors really had a turn of phrase to their writing that instantly gave this painful event an epic quality. In 112 years, when they do a “tell the real story” documentary about 9/11, will it be this genteel?
Not unlike some of the better documentaries about the Titanic, even when human error is a large contributor to the ultimate tragedy, these filmmakers tone down the posthumous finger-pointing and just grimly state the facts: that much of the terrible losses could have been avoided, that it was not Nature alone smiting the peaceful residents of the Conemaugh River valley. However, at the end of that terrible day, Nature took her due and then some. At the very end of the film are some statistics which would have been interesting interspersed earlier in the narration, but one stated that within 6 months of this calamity, something like a dozen books had been written about the event.
On occasion, I found myself having to rewind a little to replay some segment; occasionally the prose disguises the information. It is a credit that I cared to get every tidbit, but somewhere in those few occasions, some pacing was lost. At only 64 minutes, not much shorter than the time it took for the actual event to take place, Johnstown Flood is a solid piece of research, and a well-stocked trove of imagery and vivid recollection of a terrible event. Were I to change any aspect of the film, I would actually have reduced or even omitted the re-enactments with dialogue; they worked best with voice over, rather than with the actors addressing the camera. I stepped away from the film with a newfound reverence for a corner of this country I had never considered, and I appreciate the daunting task that resulted in its presentation.
MPAA Rating Not rated
Release date 8/26/03 DVD
Time in minutes 64
Director Mark Bussler
Studio Inecom Entertainment Company
