Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy

The Kartemquin production company “was an early trend-setter in the genre of socially engaged... documentary narrative films,” according to this perceptive analysis. Aufderheide (Documentary Film), a communications professor at American University, discusses how former college classmates Gordon Quinn and Jerry Temaner founded the company in 1966 to tell stories “with and about working people and members of movements for social justice.” Aufderheide is more interested in the issues undergirding Kartemquin’s films than what went on behind the scenes, explaining that 1974’s Trick Bag aimed to push back against “stereotypes about white, working-class bigotry,” that 1983’s The Last Pullman Car offered a snapshot of a labor movement in decline, and that 1994’s Hoop Dreams sought to highlight the persistence of poverty beneath the gloss of neoliberalism. Historical background on the political developments documented in Kartemquin’s films sheds light on the New Left’s waning after the 1960s, and Aufderheide offers edifying insight into Kartemquin’s intellectual underpinnings. For instance, she explains that Quinn and Temaner were influenced by philosopher John Dewey’s belief that democracy depends on civilians uniting to address shared problems, and that their films might provide focal points around which such groups could organize. Documentary buffs will want to seek this out. Photos. (Sept.)