One more movie before bed: Tower, a nonfiction film about the 1966 UT clock tower shooting—an event that also inspired Harry Chapin’s “Sniper”—that I missed out on seeing at Film Forum back in 2016 (I’ve been kicking myself ever since).
Part documentary and part narrative collage, Tower combines archive footage, interviews, and stylized rotoscope animation to paint a vivid portrait of those terrifying ninety-six minutes from the perspective of the victims and survivors (the gunman, Charles Whitman, is barely even mentioned, a refreshing departure from the formula this kind of story usually follows). The result is a wholly unique and captivatingly beautiful cinematic experience that celebrates acts of everyday heroism in the face of incomprehensible horror; I’m glad that Kanopy gave me the opportunity to finally enjoy it.
[Originally written April 1, 2018.]