Jazz, film, and improvised culture.
Burn: Detroit in Flames
has just over a sixth of Los Angeles’ population but nearly three times as many
fires. On average, thirty buildings
ignite every day. For a city of seven
hundred thousand-some people with dwindling resources that is a whole lot of
alarms. This is the situation faced by a veteran of the Los Angeles Fire
Department, who returns to his native Detroit, hoping to whip the beleaguered organization
into shape. However, the city’s extreme
dysfunction might be insurmountable. At
least that is the impression viewers often glean from Tom Putnam & Brenna
Sanchez’s Burn (trailer here), which opens tomorrow
in New York.
numbers are staggering. When newly
appointed Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin assumes his new position
there are 800,000 abandoned structures in Detroit—and Engine Company 50 has
more than their fair share. Such ghost
buildings are particularly susceptible to accidental combustion, also
attracting bored firebugs like a magnet.
Facing budget cuts, Austin sets a controversial new policy: if
responding firefighters determine an abandoned structure is empty and not a
threat to other occupied buildings, they should let it burn.
three primary POV figures, the filmmakers show the audience boots-on-the-ground
firefighting from the inside out, as well as the bureaucracy that makes
everything harder. Two are exactly the
sort of sympathetic individuals one would expect. Dave Parnell is a veteran field engine
operator on the brink of retirement. A
rarity amongst his colleagues, he actually lives in the neighborhood they
serve. Former firefighter Brendan “Doogie”
Milewski is also a strong rooting interest, struggling to come to grips with
his lower paralysis after a roof collapsed upon him.
question though, the film’s greatest surprises come from its third focal
character, Commissioner Austin. Although
his my-way-or-the-highway style initially alienates firefighters (and most likely
audience members), he evolves in interesting ways during his time on the
job. He can clearly walk the walk as
well as talk the talk and many of his beefs, such as the engine that was
destroyed when its driver parked it in front of an approaching train, are hard
Burn gives one the uneasy feeling
that we are seeing the future, given the degree to which the depressionary
economic policies that devastated Detroit largely emerged victorious at the polls
yesterday. On the other hand, it also
shows how far filmmaking technology has evolved. It used to be nearly impossible to replicate
the vividness of a large scale conflagration on-screen. Yet, Putnam & Sanchez fully capture the bright
yellows and oranges of the lapping flames.
It is a sobering warning how far a once prosperous city can fall. While another recent documentary about the
Motor City largely misses the obvious lessons, it would be an intriguing
companion film to Florent Tillon’s eerie and ruminative Detroit Wild City.
is indeed a fair amount of Backdraft action
in Burn, with an equal or greater
amount of time devoted to the consequences of sending out ill-equipped,
overworked companies, day after day. Yet, the scenes of the commissioner struggling
to lead a skeptical department are arguably Putnam & Sanchez’s biggest
scoop. It is also worth noting the filmmakers have pledged to give a portion of
the proceeds to executive producer Denis Leary’s Leary Firefighters Foundation.
New Yorkers have a special place in their hearts
for firemen, particularly after 9-11, so Burn
is likely to strike a chord locally.
Recommended for fire department boosters and fans of History Channel “extreme
jobs” reality programming, Burn opens
tomorrow (11/9) in New York at the Quad Cinema.
Labels: Detroit, Documentary