AIFF2018: Alaska Related Docs - Lowell Thomas and Five Important Alaskans

We went to the museum yesterday and saw Voice of America:  Lowell Thomas and the Rise of Broadcast News and then Magnetic North Series - Alaska Humanities Forum portraits of Alaskans.


Maybe I'm stretching it a bit about the Lowell Thomas movie - most of it was about his life and about the beginnings of broadcast journalism, with just a bit taking place in Alaska.  However, his son, Lowell Thomas Jr.,  settled in Alaska and was our Lt. Governor for a while and his his daughter (Sr's granddaughter) was in the audience and spoke after the film.

This film documents not just Lowell's life, but also the beginnings of broadcast news.  We see him first in his round the world travels - including 'discovering' T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and trekking three weeks (was it four) into Lhasa to record - for the first time ever - the Dalai Lama and Lhasa just before the Chinese invaded Tibet.

We heard from Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather about how Lowell set the mold for broadcast news - neutral, fact based, and with a story.  NPR broadcaster David Folkenflik was also featured.  Lowell Thomas is a name that seems I've always known, but I didn't know the details.

The screen writer and biographer Mitchell Stephens was there to answers questions afterward.  At one point an audience member seemed to be nostalgic for the 'good old days' of broadcast news where 'both sides' were fairly represented.  Stephens jumped in to point out there were problems then too, that we saw and heard a limited amount of news compared to today. [UPDATE SUNDAY:  I'm sitting here with Rick Moulton, the director at the Awards ceremony and he clarified it was Mitchell, not Rick, who talked after the film.  So I fixed it.]


Later, the Humanities Forum presented their Magnetic North Series.  With funding from the Rasmuson Foundation, they are capturing on film key figures in Alaska's history.  They've got five 30 minute films done already - on Roy Madsen, Nathan Jackson, Arliss Sturgulewski, Jacob Anagi Adams, Sr., and Clem Tillion.  The Bill Sheffield movie isn't yet completed.
The film makers - Marla Williams and Kyle (the photographer - I can't find his last name) were there to talk about the films.
Actually, for last night's film they had picked a theme - which they asked the audience to guess afterward - and edited parts of the five films with the intent of focusing on their chosen theme.  The audience picked themes somewhat related to theirs - resilience - but didn't use that word.

I was interested in how the film makers were going to deal with issues in the Sheffield film about his impeachment, the Alaska Railroad depot at the airport, the significant problems with the port when he headed it.  This is more about personalities than investigative journalism, Marla told me afterward.  But, she pointed out that all the subjects talked about their flaws.  My concern was that these films will probably be the main film sources of information on these people.  Marla said these were not intended to be tributes, but more portraits (I think that's my word not hers.)  The Humanities Forum wants to make these widely available and I'm concerned they do seem more like tributes and they will become 'the truth' about these people.  While I suspect with Sturgulewski and Tillion 'the truth' will be reasonable close to who these people are.  With Sheffield, there's a lot of baggage that I suspect will not be raised enough for people unfamiliar with him to be alerted to the serious problems.  I know I'm asking a lot, but, again, I suspect these movies will be the main source for Alaska students to know these people.

And you could accuse me of leaving out things - like that the director of the Alaska Humanities Forum was there as well - but this blog will not be distributed in the same way, and did not use nearly as much time and resources to produce.

These film are intended to be available online eventually.  You can check back at the Alaska Humanities Forum website.