Riotsville, U.S.A.

The trailer for this movie focused on the fake towns - they look like movie sets - that were built in the 1960s so that the Army could practice dealing with "race riots."

As it turns out in the movie, there were only two such Riotsvilles, and they play only a very small roll in this movie. That's very unfortunate, imo. I would have liked to know how they were financed - did Congress know about them? - how the soldiers were chosen to stage crowd control in them, etc. In other words, I would have appreciated it if the movie had concentrated on the riotsvilles.

Instead, most of the movie deals with the Civil Rights Movement and white reaction to it in the 1960s. That's interesting, of course, but nothing new. Sometimes it really seemed like filler for a movie that should have been a short rather than a feature-length film.

The narration got a little shrill at times for my tastes. The images and newsreel footage that are the basis of this movie are already powerful, and speak for themselves Since no one opposed to the Civil Rights Movement is going to watch this movie, there's no point in preaching to the already converted.

An ok movie, in short, but not enough new material to warrant its 91 minute run time.

Greetings again from the darkness. A couple of old sayings came to mind while watching this. "The more things change, the more they stay the same." This ties together what we see from the 1960's with what we've seen very recently in the U. S. Next would be, "You made your bed, now sleep in it." This references the manner in which our government reacted to civil unrest in the 1960s has affected our society for the past 50+ years.

Documentarian Sierra Pettingill utilizes only archival footage from TV (newscasts and talk shows) and military footage filmed during the era. The clips are edited in a way to tell the story of how the government responded to increased civil unrest, and how those responses not only made the situation worse, it also set the table for ongoing societal issues for decades to come.

Historical background includes President Lyndon Johnson forming the Kerner Commission (officially The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders), and how the resulting 700 page 1968 report did not provide the conclusions expected by the government. It warned of two societies - one white, one black, separate and unequal. The corresponding action items were deemed too expensive due to the ongoing Vietnam War. Instead an addendum suggested expanded federal funding for police ... that one hit home with politicians.

Much of the footage, as well as the film's title, comes from the model town constructed by the military at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. It's here where training sessions occurred with military personnel cast as rioters and law enforcement learned the approaches to quell the uprising. Unfortunately, most of these approaches involved law enforcement escalation during civil unrest, leaving us wondering which causes the most damage. We even see military leaders observing the drills from the grandstands, applauding and laughing in some parts. It's impossible not to notice that these are all white faces.

Further escalation and federal funding resulted in specialty tanks, and we see the training videos around this weapon. At its core, what we see is a simulated riot in a simulated city. It's easy to view this as training hate and power, rather than learning de-escalation techniques. Director Pettingill also includes clips from PBL (precursor to PBS) talk shows like "Civil Disorder". These shows, and their debates, caused Ford Motor Company to withdraw funding in 1969. The news clips from the 1968 Democrat and Republican conventions provide some insight into the reporting during this era. Especially biting is David Brinkley's response to Strom Thurmond's comments. The film's only weakness comes in the form of narration from Charlene Modeste. The words are simply too flowery or artsy for such subject matter. This is a film that urges you to feel the frustrations. It turns out "Law & Order" can be twisted by those in power.

Releasing in theaters and OnDemand beginning September 16, 2022.

It was disappointing to watch what should have been a worthwhile project. In terms of the footage presented, we see way more outtakes than the actual controversial enactments of the staged "riots" for the benefit of an audience of Generals and Politicians.

The one thing that seemed to be a revelation was that the idea of Snipers was actually one which was fabricated by the police in order to show that they should bring in heavy artillery, but the reality is that the snipers were just police plants shooting wildly, even at each other to invoke a response -- there was only one case of an unknown sniper who attempted to shoot at the police while drunk, and so the sniper missed every target.

But the problem with the documentary is the frequent use of non-essential footage, "padding" the scenes with news commentators prattle, and often playing TV logos and even a commercial or promotional tape in order to add commentary on the alignment of the news media, only to miss the target much like the sniper -- the commercials, as much as they are nostalgic and naive, are wasted material in the otherwise over-long project. Cutting out 30 minutes of this wasted footage would have better served the filmmaker's goal.

Of course, then it would not be considered a contender for a Feature by the Academy, which one senses is the filmmaker's attitude in this presentation -- as evidenced by the use of overly dramatic voice-over consisting of poetic nonsense.

Since the filmmaker sees the found footage as so extraordinary, we are intrigued by the idea that we might then be able to see the actual riot footage of the real events, such as the Democratic National Convention in 1968, but none of this happens, and instead we are given a somewhat watered down version of the event at the Republican National Convention the same year when Richard Nixon was nominated -- and the protest by a small group of black ghetto denizens was a complete and utter failure.

Violent police repression as a first response tactic against protests, still seems to dominate todays American society as much as it did during the sixties.

This eyeopening documentary gives us a surprisingly detailed insight into how authorities reacted to the first mass race riots and civil rights protests during the sixties.

This documentary has got lots of interesting LIVE public television footage about racism and inequality and police brutality and it uses a police training video for how to handle riots as a red line through this entire movie about how the goverment responded to civil rights protests and race riots during the sixties.

In general the government did 2 things to "respond" to the protests and race riots:

1.

The authorities investigated the cause of race riots during the sixties by appointing a commision of conservatives who came to a similar conclusion as the African American people who were protesting, namely that American society was brutally split and full of inequality and racism.

2.

Shocked by this unwelcome outcome of the conservative comission the government only accepted one tiny subconclusion out of the entire comission's report and that was to give the police more weapons to repress riots...

This documentaries' strength lies in the abstract narration and style. Because of that style the total oblivion of goverment officials becomes even more painfully clear for all to see...

I have seen several documentaries about racism and police brutality lately and this is the one that got me thinking the most about the world of total oblivion that politicians are wallowing in...

But this was far below what i expected from a historical perspective. Its the black and white stigmata over and over again, and what really should be delved with, namely how antiriot enforcement where thought to be and how it came to be in the name of riotsville usa drowns in a claustrophobic, cataclysmic psychedelic epileptic triggering lightshows and overfocused still, and a neoneoneoultra composed musical scored( like norwegian composer arne nordheim) makes this a complete rotten mess historywise. Its narrative voice never tells how much was spended or how large this antiriotforce buildup was, and the real riots that couldve made this documentary a real document of history lacks completely.

So if this is how riots have been handled over the years then its time to look somewhere else. As a filmproduct it lacks quality on most bases, and the amount of positive criticism over a ribbed and untelling way to tell a story that has been told here really feels fictitious. The grumpy old man doesnt recommend this one, and will cry out a call to the big documentarymakers to make a series about the real rioting 60's and the real face of the crammed crow.