A TEXAS MURDER IN BLACK AND WHITE
Whitney Dow & Marco Williams, USA, 2002
BBC TWO: Wednesday 17 March 2004 12.10-1.20am (Tuesday night)
In 1998 in Jasper, Texas a black man was chained to a pick-up truck and dragged to his death by three white men. Two film crews, one black, one white, set out to document the aftermath of the murder.
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Commissioner's
Comment Nick Fraser
Storyville Series Editor
The killing of James Byrd Jr was particularly horrifying - as the police discovered, the man was dragged, semi-conscious, behind a pick-up for the best part of a mile and a half. Marco Williams and Whitney Dow have adopted a novel method of telling the story of bringing the murderers to justice.
In the United States people have been intrigued and often critical of the filmmakers' use of segregated crews - but anyone watching the film will see it is entirely natural. The blacks talk much more fully to the black crew and so do the whites.
Despite the gruesome context of the trials, in which a white man was condemned for the first time in Texas for killing a black since 1854, the message of the film is fair from despairing. It turns out that blacks and whites don't especially like each other in Jasper. But they are more than willing to collaborate and build some sort of community.
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