Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Broadman, Richard / All Films

Children of Labor

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Featured at the 1977 New York Film Festival, Children of Labor is the story of how Finnish immigrants came into contact — and conflict — with industrial America. Three generations of Finnish-Americans recount how they coped with harsh realities by creating their own institutions: churches, temperance halls, socialist halls, and cooperatives.

The film focuses on the people, their organizations, and the challenges posed by both McCarthy-era political repression and present-day Home Useism. At the same time, Children of Labor deals with questions that reverberate in the lives of most Americans, especially the sons and daughters of immigrants.

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The Collective

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

The Collective
Buy Now: $320.00

In 1970, thousands of young people thought of themselves as agents of change. They wanted to restore America's democratic vision; they wanted to end the war in Vietnam. This is the story of one collective — their successes and failures, and what they do and think fifteen years later.

"Released in 1985 but filmed early in the first Reagan administration, The Collective: Fifteen Years Later has special poignance–and renewed relevence today with the Occupy Movement–as a portrayal of unabashed political activism... Reflecting on both the excitement and the disappointment of their political engagement, informants are, by turns, candid, rueful, and idealistic; they're unsparing in acknowledging their own mistakes both in analyzing and in organizing against a structure of oppression centering on, but extending beyond, militarism and neocolonialism." – Chris Wellin, "Documentary Film, Teaching, and the Accumulation of Sociological Insight: The Work of Richard Broadman", Teaching Sociology (2013)

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Down the Project

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:05:00 GMT

Down the Project
Buy Now: $320.00

Sixty years ago, the "projects" were considered to be the most desirable housing stock for low-to-low-middle-income Americans. Today, this same housing has become stigmatized, beset by financial and social problems, and may be phased out.

This film, made in the 1980s, remains the classic portrait of a government program besieged on all sides. In two 30-minute sections, the film presents a concise social history of a housing movement and its opponents, then examines the social dilemmas of the developments these forces produced. Spokespeople include residents, public housing advocates from the 1930s, developers, administrators and politicians.

Down The Project: The Crisis of Public Housing presents the story of two projects that housed working families, both white and black, in the 1940s. In later years, crippled by lower budgets and the needs of poorer populations, they came to be regarded as eyesores, as danger zones. How did these changes occur? How did public housing begin? Which forces lobbied for it and against it? How do the people living in this housing see it?

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Love Stories

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 06:41:00 GMT

Love Stories
Buy Now: $320.00

In our grandparents' time, most women and men committed themselves to each other for better or worse. Today, many men and women struggle to redefine relationships in a society where more women are in the workforce, where divorce is common, and where the marriage commitment is rapidly changing. How did this happen? What opportunities and barriers has it created in women's and men's lives?

Love Stories: Women, Men, & Romance provides both a history of changing attitudes and expectations and a portrait of today's conflicted society — in which the old and new values clash, fueling debates over the lifestyle, sex roles, and birth control.

A feature-length film in 3 sections for easy classroom use — Love Stories can be shown to students in sections: Part I, "Women," documents the growth of feminist values as experienced by 8 women of different ages and from different parts of our society; Part II, "Men," shows male reaction to a changing world; Part III, "Romance," portrays a new dynamic of male/female relations.

Women vs. Men: Quotes from Love Stories:

“She really loved him — there was no such thing as divorce, whether your husband abused you or not you stayed with him. That's what my mother used to say: 'I got married, and he's your father and you respect him.' There was no such thing as telling him off.” — Josephine (71 years)

“The male-female relationship hasn't changed. A man is a man, the dominant personality.” — Spider

“I had this boyfriend from high school — we really thought we'd get married — we broke up my sophomore year and that's when the dream shattered. He wanted different things for my life than I wanted for my life — it was very painful. But I felt that I was going to have endless opportunities — that I could do anything.” — Linda (38 years)

“I felt that I was the teacher, and that if there was any education to be given, she would get it from me. That was a mistake, a real mistake — finding a woman today that sees things eye to eye 50 percent of the time is tough enough. If you can't beat them, join them, because I think it's the only way that males and females are going to reach some understanding today.” — Ernest

“Suitable for high school classes and college courses in cultural anthropology, anthropology of gender, anthropology of kinship, and American studies, as well as for general audiences.” — Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database

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Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:49:00 GMT

Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston
Buy Now: $320.00

The story of what happened to Mission Hill is the story of many of America's older ethnic neighborhoods. Seventy years ago, Mission Hill was an Irish neighborhood of homes and small stores in which people lived near their schools, their church, and their shopping area. But between 1940 and 1980 it changed: thousands of units of public housing were built and decayed there. Nearby hospitals expanded, displacing people from their homes. Developers and speculators bought and sold property and built twenty-story apartment houses. A new, poor population and an affluent professional population arrived to compete for parts of the old neighborhood.

Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston is the story of urban renewal, racial conflict, and the struggle of a neighborhood to survive these changing times. Spokespeople include real estate developers, community activists, workers, and residents.

Today this film, completed in 1978, remains unique in presenting one neighborhood's social history set against the larger forces that reshaped a major American city. A must for courses in urban studies, race relations, and social problems. Widely used.

“...a skillfully wrought and moving film... Seen through the tumultuous story of one Irish Catholic city parish, told by the people who lived it, set in the grit of ethnic and class antagonisms, it opens a wide window for any course on American history, religion and society, or urban studies.”
— Harvey Cox, Harvard Divinity School and author of The Secular City

“This quite extraordinary film shows how ordinary neighborhood people, mostly Irish and blacks, were pitted against powerful real estate interests and Harvard University.”
— John O'Connor, The New York Times

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Water and the Dream of the Engineers

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:26:00 GMT

Water and the Dream of the Engineers
Buy Now: $320.00

From the cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century to the climbing cancer rate of our time; from the colossal scale of New York City's aqueduct and water tunnels to the water wars of the West; from the dangers of chemical contamination to the water politics of Polanski's film Chinatown, Water and the Dream of the Engineers explores both the engineers' dreams for, and public fears about, the world we have inherited.

This is a fascinating documentary where rich social history frames a spirited debate between David Brower (former Sierra Club President), biologist Barry Commoner, and Able Wolman (dean of American Sanitary Engineering). The film's wider context is provided by the frustrations and concerns of those who maintain and use our water systems in the present day. The film is an educational odyssey about engineering, environmentalism, and the troubled relations between these two traditions. Most importantly, Water and the Dream of the Engineers reveals that conflicts over technology and the environment are, at root, debates about power and the promise of democracy.

A feature-length film in 4 sections for easy classroom use — Water can be shown to students in sections, with the aid of its companion study guide. Part Ia, "Water for All," documents the history of modern water and sewer systems; Part Ib, "Water Wars: California," explores the social conflicts of water systems in one part of the U.S.; Part IIa, "Upstream-Downstream: New Orleans," places one system's struggle with chemical pollution in the context of history; Part IIb, "The Sludge Dumpers," shows how the modern use of old sewer systems poses a threat to our water environment.

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Brownsville Black and White

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

Brownsville Black and White
Buy Now: $320.00

This poignant and powerful documentary explores the complex history of interracial cooperation, urban change, and social conflict in Brownsville, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, from the 1930s to the 2000s. A case study of the tragedy of urban American race relations, the film recounts the transformation of Brownsville from a poor but racially harmonious area made up largely of Jews and blacks to a community made up almost entirely of people of color.

In the 1940s Brownsville was famous for its grass-roots integration. But it later achieved notoriety for one of the most divisive and bitter black-white confrontations in American history, the 1968 Ocean Hill Brownsville School War, in which the African-American (and Hispanic) community battled the predominantly white and Jewish Teachers Union.

Brownsville Black and White examines some of the most troubling and perplexing issues facing America and its cities and raises a multitude of discussable questions. The film will provoke reflection, analysis, and debate in a variety of courses in sociology and social issues, American history and American studies, African American studies, urban studies, race relations, cultural anthropology, Jewish Studies, and education.

"BROWNSVILLE, the last work of renowned populist filmmaker, Richard Broadman (1947-2000), features poignant personal testimony, painstakingly researched archival images and striking contemporary footage. The humane guiding spirit of its director makes it a rare treat." – Jewish Film Institute

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