Annette Kellerman interviews TOWER documentary director Keith Maitland

A while back, I had the opportunity to talk with director Keith Maitland about his documentary TOWER. The powerful film chronicles the day of the infamous shooting spree by Charles Whitman from the top of the University of Texas tower. Though the film focuses more on the stories of bravery that transpired from the first mass shooting on a college campus in the United States, there is definitely much food for thought regarding the number of instances history has tragically repeated itself in the past two decades. Aside from social commentary, the doc employs beautiful rotoscoped animation that hauntingly illustrates personal accounts from that fateful day, creating a powerful and visually captivating film. I hope you enjoy my chat with the director.

Rebecca Elliott: Can you talk about the decision to use animation to literally illustrate the stories in the film?

Keith Maitland: A number of things kind of all added together to make that the path that made the most sense- and the path that I was most excited about.
There was a Texas Monthly article that I read in 2006 that was an oral history of the event, and it really opened my eyes to the story as to how the shooting unfolded. I grew up knowing about the shooting. I went to the University of Texas, and I was always curious about it. But it wasn't until I read this article that I read the perspectives of the people who were there on the ground. At the time I was making a documentary about blind teenagers, and we were using this kind of animation to explore questions of perception, and nd I was enjoying it. As a documentary film maker it's always exciting to be able to kind of do something more manipulable. So I was enjoying the process, and when I read the article- honestly, there are visual moments in the film that were in my head as I read the article. The more I thought about it the more I realized that, this is important subject matter and most important to- in my eyes- high school and college students today. I could make a documentary that interviews a bunch of 70 year olds about what they experienced when they were 20, and that would be enlightening and would communicate a lot to other 70 year olds, 50 year olds, maybe 30 year olds who like documentaries. But I really wanted to talk to the teenagers and young adults who live under the threat of this violence everyday. I really wanted them to see themselves on the screen. So, it was really fast decision making, but I knew that if we did a good job of casting young people and recreating the event in a really visceral and visual way, then young people would insert themselves into the story and see themselves reflected in that. I also knew that the real people who went through it deserved to be honored in more than just a fictitious-seeming approach. So, the transition from 1966 animation to current day was really important to me. It offered some opportunities that I hadn't had a chance to play with as a film maker. As I looked closer, I found that there were 15 minutes of really great archival footage that existed, and it was all black and white. The way it was shot, for the most part, it's shot on long lenses by cameramen who were smart enough to be in positions of safety, but looking at what was out there. We have these really great wide shots and long shot, so I thought as the director what I need to do is to fill in the blank spots with close ups. If I make a black and white palate, I think that we can seamlessly inter cut the transition.

RE: It really worked so well. I am really impressed with the overall effect. Can you talk about the decision to bring it into current day and the recent tragedies that have sadly echoed that day in '66?

KM: Anytime I ever spoke to anybody about wanting to tell this story...I wanted to make this film in 2006, and I didn't start making the film until 2012, so I had 6 years to intermittently dip in to research and talk about it with other film makers and friends and colleagues. As those 6 years went by, a lot of these tragedies unfolded. You just can't get away from it. So, everybody would say, are you gonna compare it to Newtown or Columbine? And I always thought, it's not that I want to compare it to them, but there should be some nod. It probably goes without saying. The cycle continues. And when we found the Walter Cronkite footage from that day...

RE: He perfectly sums it up.

KM: He lays the hammer down! And that was the night of- August 1, 1966. I had NBC news footage from that night with David Brinkley, and he does a very good job of telling the news from that day. But it wasn't any better than the local news with Neal Spelce- one of our character in the movie- did that night. But Walter Cronkite went to the University of Texas, and so I thought that he must have mentioned his personal connection to this place. We called CBS and they had no archive of it. We looked at news archives all across the U.S. and couldn't find it. Finally we found it on YouTube! A guy had recorded it off of TV in the 90's- apparently CBS had an archive at some point- and they replayed major news stories of the 20th century. This guy was kind of a news junkie and recorded it on VHS, and threw it up on YouTube. And like I said, I was hoping that Cronkite said something about this place being important to me and I can't believe this happened. He didn't say that, but what he said instead is the thing that I think many people in our audience are thinking, and it's something you can't imagine any of our newscasters saying today.

RE: He lays it down.

KM: He lays it down, and I agree with him. This problem is a society problem. Yes, the individuals that go through with it have their problems, and it's wrong, it's bad, but it's beyond an individual issue. It's something that we as Americans, as humans need to take a good look at. I don't have the answers as to what that look should be, but it was thrilling to me to be able to include that Cronkite footage and to juxtapose it against footage from Columbine, Newtown, Norway. Umpqua- I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but it's a community college that had a shooting I think just in January. There was a shooting in Pittsburgh two days ago and we just turned in the film five days ago, and there was a moment where I thought...we're gonna put this week's news into the film. As it turned out, I realized that we didn't need to do that because everybody knows. Everyone is connecting the dots on their own.

RE: Did it take any persuasion to get people to rehash their stories? Was there anyone who didn't care to revisit that?

KM: As a documentary film maker, I try to be sensitive to my subjects. When I reach out to people to ask them to be involved in anything I shoot, I want them to want to share their story. And this story being as complicated and dark as it is, I was really prepared to be turned away at every turn, and that really didn't happen very much. I'll be honest, there were two or three people that I emailed or called who said, I really don't want to talk about that. One person said that their mother is still alive and that it put her through so much misery fifty years ago that I don't want to do that to her again. I totally understand. But the people who ended up in the film, by and large were happy to engage- happy isn't the right word- they were interested in engaging with this dark history mainly because they hadn't really had a chance to do that very much.

RE: So it was actually a cathartic experience in many cases?

KM: Absolutely. And Claire says that in the film, and she said it to me over and over again. Nobody wanted to talk about it. Friends and family didn't know how to broach the subject. The university certainly didn't. So there were times in her life where she would wake up and wonder, did this even happen to me? But then she would look at herself in the mirror, and if she lifts her shirt she has some really traumatic scars that are proof that this did happen. In the process of making the film I spent dozens of hours in person and on the phone with each of these characters, getting to know how they felt then, how they feel now, how the people around them felt. So much of that couldn't be included in the film, but it's been so enlightening to me in my life and the lives of the crew.

RE: Were the stories you chose to focus on based on who cooperated with you or did you have any idea based on your research about which specific stories you wanted to feature?

KM: Claire's story was in the article I optioned, and it's what grabbed me. The idea of this pregnant woman who lost her unborn child and lost her boyfriend- who was not the father of her child, but was a man who loved her and accepted her at a time when an unwed mother was a much more complicated situation. I was intrigued by that on paper. And then when I met Claire- if you get a chance to meet Claire, she's a very special person. She's so warm and inviting. I think the most important element of this process to me is to have good relationships with the people I point the camera at. Claire is in particular someone I know I'll continue to have a relationship with for the rest of my life.

RE: Did you decide early on to focus more on the survivors and victims instead of the Whitman?

KM: Pretty much, yeah. I talked to the writer of the article, Pam Colloff, and I told her I wanted to make this film. She's a friend of mine, so it wasn't that hard to get her to come have lunch and talk about it. She asked how long is it going to take you to make this movie? I told her that my last film took a couple year, so I think it should take about four years. She said that she spent six months on this story and that it took her to some really dark places and if I was going to spend four years I really needed to make sure that I wanted to go to those dark places. So, I did my research, I thought about it, and the more I looked into the sniper story the more I realized there was nothing there for me to relate to. I need to be able to relate to the characters on screen. I can see myself in Claire. I can see myself in Officers Martinez and McCoy and the reporters certainly I can relate to. I didn't want to relate to the sniper and I didn't want to ask audiences to do that because there was so much unexplored within the lives of the survivors.

RE: Well, I think that about wraps it up. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today about your film. I really appreciate it.

KM: You're welcome, and thank you.

Thus ends my interview with TOWER director Keith Maitland. The powerful documentary won the Audience Award at this year's SXSW Film Festival and is now in limited theatrical release in cinemas around the U.S. The film will also air later this year as a part of Independent Lens on PBS, so there will be ample opportunity to check out this important and visually stunning documentary.

Rebecca Elliott

aka Annette Kellerman