Did you wonder who fired the gun? (2017)

Did you wonder who fired the gun? is a documentary film which premiered in 2017. Here is some basic information about it:

** Writer and director: Travis Wilkerson
** Narrator: Travis Wilkerson
** Run time: 90 minutes

In 1946, Travis Wilkerson’s great-grandfather S. E. Branch shot and killed Bill Spann. Branch was charged with murder, but later the charges were dropped, so he got away with it. Why? Because Branch was a white man, while Spann was a black man, and it happened in Dothan, Alabama, a southern state.

In this film, we follow Travis as he travels to the small town of Dothan, hoping to find the truth about this case. How and why did this happen? Answers are not easy to find. It happened many years ago and most of the people who might be able to help him are no longer alive. Even if can find someone who knows something, they may refuse to talk to him.

While driving in Alabama, Travis visits Abbeville, another small town in Alabama, where Recy Taylor, a young black woman, was raped by six white men in 1944 (only two years before S. E. Branch killed Bill Spann in Dothan). The six young men were identified and later charged with the crime, but they were acquitted by an all-white jury. They got away with it.

While driving on the Alabama Road, Travis tells us about William Moore, a postal worker and a civil rights activist, who was killed while walking along this road in 1963. The singer Phil Ochs (1940-1976) wrote a song about this case. And Travis plays the song for us.

Towards the end of the song, Phil Ochs asks a question: “Did you wonder who had fired the gun?” And now we know where the title of the film is from. It is a line in a song written by Phil Ochs.

What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of three review aggregators:

** 66 per cent = IMDb
** 78 per cent = Meta
** 56 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
** 83 per cent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)

As you can see, the average ratings hover somewhere between three and four stars. When we get to Rotten Tomatoes, you can see that there is a big difference between the general audience and the professional critics. The audience does not care much for this film, while the critics love it.

In this case I have to go with the general audience. Why? I have three reasons to do this. Let me explain:

# 1. The film is very uneven. Some parts are very good, while others are not so good. In addition, there are some parts which seem to be misplaced. They do not belong here. On some occasions, I have to ask myself: What is going on here? Why is this scene in this film?

# 2. The director does not always focus on the main topic, the 1946 murder in Dothan, Alabama. As already explained, there are digressions to other locations and to other cases: to Abbeville in 1944 and to the Alabama Road in 1963. There is even a clip from the 1962 movie How to Kill a Mockingbird.

I have the impression the director realized that if he only focuses on events in Dothan, his film will be too short. He decided to add other cases and other locations in order to make the film longer.

The different scenes are united by one fact: they all take place in the southern states of the US. The connecting topic is racism and violence. This is an important issue. But still it is a curious mix of cases and locations.

# 3. The title is odd. Did I wonder who fired the gun? No, I did not. The gun was fired by S. E. Branch. Travis told me this himself, so there is no need to wonder about it. If I wonder about anything, I wonder why Travis decided to use this title for this film.

As already explained, the title is a line from a song by Phil Ochs. But Phil Ochs sings about the murder of William Moore which happened in 1963, many years after S. E. Branch shot and killed Bill Spann. The title does not really fit the film.

I am sure the director has good intentions, but good intentions cannot guarantee a good result. When we are talking about a film, a book or a work of art, the only thing that really matters in the final result, and in this case the final result is not quite successful.

This is a flawed film about several important cases. I cannot offer more three stars for this product.

PS # 1. The following reviews are available online:

** John DeFore, “Did you wonder who fired the gun? Review,” The Hollywood Reporter, 23 January 2017

** Jay Weissberg, “Locarno Film Review,” Variety, 17 August 2017

PS # 2. For more information about the case of Recy Taylor, see the following book: At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance by Danielle McGuire (2010).

PS # 3. There is a documentary film about the case of Recy Taylor: The Rape of Recy Taylor, which premiered in 2017. It is directed by Nancy Buirski. Run time: 91 minutes.

PS # 4. Travis Wilkerson is the director of several documentary films. One of his first films is An Injury to All (from 2003) about the union organizer Frank Little, who was killed in Butte, Montana, in 1917.

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 Travis Wilkerson (born 1969)

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