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Spike Spiegel · Feb 16, 2017

Official 'TOWER' Site
Independent Lens: 'TOWER' Site

'TOWER' Full Film <== Available on PBS.org until 3/1/2017.

Youtube Clips
Promo (0:30)
Full Trailer (1:55)

Clip: "Pregnant Freshman Recalls the Moment She Was Shot" (1:34)
Clip: "Officer Martinez Makes It to the Tower" (2:31)
Clip: "Like a Battle Scene" (1:57)

On August 1st, 1966, a sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes. When the gunshots were finally silenced, the toll included 16 dead, three dozen wounded, and a shaken nation left trying to understand. Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation in a dynamic, never-before-seen way, TOWER reveals the action-packed untold stories of the witnesses, heroes and survivors of America's first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.

Right on target: ”Tower" tells the painful tale of the first mass school shooting in America (Salon)

I had the opportunity to watch this last night and was completely spellbound. If you get the chance, I encourage you to watch it.

Zaphrynn · Feb 16, 2017

Really looking forward to seeing this. There's a good segment on Fresh Air where they interview the director and some people involved:

http://www.npr.org/2017/02/08/51400...-a-1966-campus-shooting-that-was-pushed-aside

I had heard about the shooting, but not about how it was essentially hushed up in the community, which is pretty sad on the part of the victims. Glad that it's getting recognition.

Sunster said:
Saw this when it aired last night. Wild. Guns on campus didn't do shit except get in the way and almost kill officers.

Yep, makes sense. Dude had a sniper rifle, was a former Marine, and was in a tower. What are most people gonna accomplish aside from endanger civilians and/or get in the way?

Sunster · Feb 16, 2017

Saw this when it aired last night. Wild. Guns on campus didn't do shit except get in the way and almost kill officers.

SummitAve · Feb 16, 2017

Turned this on randomly and was riveted. Ended up watching the whole thing. It has a style I thought was very effective. I just kept thinking how crazy it was that it went on for so long.

Sunster · Feb 16, 2017

SummitAve said:
Turned this on randomly and was riveted. Ended up watching the whole thing. It has a style I thought was very effective. I just kept thinking how crazy it was that it went on for so long.

It was actually only 90 minutes. I also thought it seemed like hours though.

SummitAve · Feb 16, 2017

Sunster said:
It was actually only 90 minutes. I also thought it seemed like hours though.

That's still a ton of time. It really hit me when the people who had been taking cover were describing the tower bell going off every 15 minutes. I can't even imagine what that was like.

jambo · Feb 16, 2017

Damn geo blocking.

Spike Spiegel · Feb 16, 2017

SummitAve said:
That's still a ton of time. It really hit me when the people who had been taking cover were describing the tower bell going off every 15 minutes. I can't even imagine what that was like.

It's astonishing until you realize this was the era of patrol cops with .38 Specials and cotton undershirts, instead of bulletproof vests and AR-15s in every squad car. This was the first mass shooting of its kind, wasn't it? SWAT wasn't even a thing back then.

A very different world we live in today.

Jambo said:
Damn geo blocking.

It wouldn't be free but you could always rent it from one of the online digital services; it's on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Video, Vudu, etc. I'd say that it's worth paying to see.

jambo · Feb 16, 2017

Spike Spiegel said:
It wouldn't be free but you could always rent it from one of the online digital services; it's on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Video, Vudu, etc. I'd say that it's worth paying to see.

Yeah it's on Google Play, just gotta wait for it to become available.

thebeeks · Feb 16, 2017

This had a really limited run at the Alamo Drafthouse but my schedule never really lined up with one of the showings. Thanks for the heads up, I forgot all about it.

lightskintwin · Feb 16, 2017

Thanks for posting this, I had forgotten about this despite watching most documentaries that air on PBS. Really enjoyed this. I had never heard about this mass shooting. The ending montage of recent mass shootings with Walter Cronkite's reporting of the Tower shooting really put in perspective how we haven't learned from this and it's only gotten worse.

The documentary has all the ingredients for a really compelling and moving movie to be made.

aadiboy · Feb 16, 2017

Is this the guy that had a brain tumor that made him go crazy?

pantsattack · Feb 16, 2017

Wow nice. One of the Filmspotting hosts had this as his number one movie for last year.

DigitalRicket · Feb 16, 2017

aadiboy said:
Is this the guy that had a brain tumor that made him go crazy?

Looks that way. It's easy to brush off people who commit mass murders and crimes like this as crazy but seeing people take the time to study and understand why these actions occur seemingly out of nowhere, or trying to piece together a person's motivations along with their mental makeup, is work that I feel goes without thank you. It's wild to think that the killer wrote in his suicide note that he could not understand why he felt the way he did, just that he had to do go through with his actions.

This part from the physician's write up was especially of note:

The psychiatric reviewers contributing to the Connally report concluded that "the relationship between the brain tumor and [...] Whitman's actions [...] cannot be established with clarity. However, the [...] tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions",[56] while the neurologists and neuropathologists concluded: "The application of existing knowledge of organic brain function does not enable us to explain the actions of Whitman on August first."[57]

Just goes to show how important brain and mental illness research is, especially 50 years after the events in Austin.

Jhoan · Feb 16, 2017

I saw it on the night that it was shown (I watch a ton of PBS these days when it's not a TV show on Prime Time). I love Independent Lens docs. I was sold on the visual style. The rotoscoping animation depicting the event was beautifully well done and enhanced the moment. Combine that with the historical and news footage from that day, the accounts of the survivors today, and you have a compelling documentary. RIP to all the victims.

It's crazy that the shooting was never acknowledged on the campus/the yearbook and was instead left to boil over for decades. Then again, society was much more conservative back in the 60s whereas today, there's time to mourn and talk about shootings even when it's painful. It's incredible how the aftershocks are still felt to this day with no real solution to gun control. Students being allowed to conceal carry on the University of Texas campus is a scary thing.

I H8 Memes · Feb 16, 2017

Strange complaint about a movie, but the framerate for this stream is all over the place. Actually unwatchable.

Eidan · Feb 16, 2017

When I recently visited Austin, I have to admit that it was weird sitting in a cafe that looked down the street where many of the victims of the shooting were gunned down, while the tower lorded overhead. I've been meaning to check this movie out since I first heard it, I'll definitely watch when I get home tonight.

Jhoan · Feb 16, 2017

Craig Staggs previously worked on A Scanner Darkly which I've never seen but I saw a making of the movie. It was mind blowing but it explains why the art style looks familiar as t was animated by hand again. That's even more of a reason for people to check this out.

Phineous_2 · Feb 17, 2017

Was browsing GAF last night and saw this thread. I'm always down for a good doc, so I made a mental note to check it out. Just finished it on the PBS app on Roku. Fantastic movie. Very immersive. The animation seemed to pull me in. The choice to focus on

the victims and heroes of the event instead of the gunman

was brilliant and makes this film very unique.

OP, thank you for this thread or I would not have known about this film.

Biske · Feb 17, 2017

This was an insanely good documentary.

The whole presentation is mind blowing.

firehawk12 · Feb 18, 2017

Animation was such an effective medium for this story. I was surprised, because I was expecting it to feel like a mediated experience because of that fact, but it turned out to feel much more immediate than I would have ever imagined.

Claire Wilson talking about not feeling her baby anymore was just so powerful when you see her as a young woman.

metalslimer · Feb 18, 2017

This was one of the best documentaries I have ever seen.

Mumei · Feb 18, 2017

Thank you for posting this topic. I heard about this movie a few weeks ago and I wasn't sure when I'd get a chance to see it.

Zach · Feb 20, 2017

Just watched it. Really good.

Spike Spiegel · Feb 28, 2017

Reminder to everyone who hasn't watched this yet that tomorrow I believe is the last day to watch 'TOWER' for free on the Independent Lens website; the site says "until 3/1/2017."

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PBS and Independent Lens present 'TOWER', available for free at PBS.org until 3/1/17.

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