Witness to an execution, View to a bridge

For this week’s diary entry, I listened to two radio documentaries: Witness to an Execution and View from a Bridge. Witness tells the story of the execution process, through various accounts of people involved the voices we hear range from those of prison guards to doctors. The documentary brilliantly captures the emotions and trauma involved with performing and witnessing an execution, and this makes one question the humane feasibility of it. View from a Bridge is a narrative report by John Huckenbury, in which he talks two a number of handicapped people as they walk along the Brooklyn Bridge. One is in a wheelchair and she takes part in marathons, and the other is a blind photographer. The aim of this documentary was what the narrator calls “reaching out and into the world in other ways.”

Each documentary falls within what Bill Nichols (2001) calls a “documentary mode.” Witness to an Execution falls in the ‘expository’ mode. Nichols terms this mode a “direct address”; that is, a discussion of social issues assembled into an argumentative frame. View from a Bridge falls in the ‘poetic’ mode. Nichols describes this approach as “resembling fragments of the world”; a transformation of historical material into a more abstract, lyrical form. 

I really enjoyed David Isay’s Witness to an Execution. It has a great opening gambit, with rapid explanations of who you are going to listen to throughout the documentary. The ’spine’ of the documentary is clear from the start, and this, according to Michael Rabiger, an expert on documentaries, is indeed crucial to identify. Here the spine is the process of execution, and it is articulated by means of a very clever ‘life in the day of’ approach. The interview strategy is also inventive, as the structure of voices throughout is in a cohesion in which each one picks up on where the other left off. By this I mean that David Isay has allowed the voices to structure the documentary themselves, without too much narrative interference. The ‘Texas instrumental music’ is apt at times as it is quiet, peaceful and adds to the sensitivity of the voices without overpowering them.

This was a good example of the expository mode, as it was a factual approach for the accounts of the voices, but at the same time it was done in a storytelling way. That is, there was a formality to it and it was readerly in its approach, but at the same time, the subjective emotions of the voices shone through.

I was intermittent in my liking for John Huckenbury’s ‘View from a Bridge’. At times I enjoyed the personal accounts of the disabled people, and at times I felt like Huckenbury was doing the documentary for himself, rather an engaged audience. It gives a very real and personal account; as he is walking along the bridge while he records, the noises of the cars going by, and the bumps the wheelchair goes over are very vivid in allowing the audience to feel that they are there with them. There is also a good fluency of mixing when there is a fading in and out for the narration. This fitted in well with the poetic mode. As I said earlier, it is ‘resembling fragments of the world’; capturing moments of interaction to illustrate the lives of lesser heard voices. It is not just a factual account, but also deals with emotions, making use of metaphors as if it was literature. This abstract, poetic form allows the listener to identify  an argument/conclusion at the end, i.e. that handicapped people have a strength and beauty that normal people don’t have; they can still live normal lives despite their struggles.

It is clear then that both documentaries fit quite comfortably into their respective modes. I also believe that Witness to an Execution was more successful in delivering an argumentative frame, which compels the audience to question the viability of the death sentence. Because of this, it was also more enjoyable to listen to.