Will Spike's NOLA Doc See DVD?
Filed under: Documentary, DIY/Filmmaking, Home Entertainment
I don't have HBO -- I've got just enough cable to get decent network reception and to enjoy local cable access shows. And yet, having grown up in the New Orleans area, I was dying to see Spike Lee's documentary about post-Katrina New Orleans, When the Levees Broke, which aired on HBO late last month. I've been checking the HBO, Amazon, and Netflix websites to determine when a DVD might be released -- it seemed to me that if ever a day-and-date release was warranted, this would be it. Last week, BoingBoing reported that someone had posted the documentary to YouTube in 26 parts. (The footage has since been removed.) Hollywood Reporter's Risky Biz Blog picked up the story and contacted HBO to find out when the four-hour documentary might be released on DVD. HBO couldn't provide a date because "there are lots of tricky rights and clearance issues with the movie." I don't understand this at all -- When the Levees Broke was shot within the past year, and surely any permissions would have been for DVD as well as for broadcast? Would HBO be short-sighted enough not to see the potential for DVD? I'm not paying for full cable and HBO just to watch a single movie, but I would buy this DVD in a heartbeat if it were available right now.
Risky Biz compares the problem (and the subsequent illegal downloads available on the Web) to the situation with the 1987 civil-rights documentary Eyes on the Prize, which isn't available on DVD because the rights expired and were too expensive to renew. Isn't it time to re-examine the fine points of copyright law and the way documentaries are affected? In the meantime, I suspect that many people will resort to finding internet downloads to watch otherwise-unavailable films like When the Levees Broke.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-18-2006 @ 4:15PM
Nick said...
Who needs levees when you have Clown Time - the greatest access show in history?
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9-19-2006 @ 4:05AM
DeK said...
Hi Jette, I'm one of the bloggers at Ticklebooth.
The post linked by Boing Boing has been updated with new links from Google Video. That will probably be gone soon too, but you know, nothing lasts forever...
Reply
9-18-2006 @ 5:21PM
Matt said...
"Eyes on the Prize" has actually had its rights problems cleared up (thanks in part to the Ford Foundation) and is coming out on DVD very soon:
http://www.pbsvideoinsider.org/
The catch is that it is priced for educational institutions (schools, libraries, et al), not for individuals.
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9-18-2006 @ 5:35PM
Jette Kernion said...
Let's hope "When the Levees Broke" releases on DVD at a cost of less than $375 for the boxed set (the educational-institution price for "Eyes on the Prize").
Reply
9-18-2006 @ 5:48PM
karina said...
In portions of the version shown on HBO, they used parts of the score from "Inside Man", which seemed to me like they either didn't have the rights to the music they really wanted to use, or didn't have time to produce a new score. Maybe one or the other is true, and is causing rights problems ... ?
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