The sky is so pale it’s almost colorless. When I returned home from Vancouver on Sunday night as I was unpacking I switched on television and started watching the new PBS series Carrier. I missed the first episode, but was still hooked although the music score is often annoying and it’s a pro-military propaganda piece. I strongly believe in supporting the military, especially when they return from service and need medical help. But I worry that often young men and women choose the military to escape poverty and I worry about the toll of the backdoor draft, especially on those assigned to combat units.
But there’s something about watching this documentary with these 5000+ people (average age 19)and all their sacrifices, dreams, anxieties and the all-too real dangers that gets you. No, I’m not saying this right. What you’ll find in Carrier, is stories, riveting, human stories. When I teach fiction classes I talk about how it’s important to write stories about characters who are vulnerable. This series is about vulnerability.
To explain, it’s a 10-part documentary that was filmed about the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz while they were on deployment in the Persian Gulf. More information is at http://www.pbs.org/weta/carrier/ . It was directed by Maro Chermayeff with executive producers that include Mel Gibson. The film crew had a lot of access even after the crew returned from their deployment.
According to the PBS: “Making the film CARRIER required 17 filmmakers to take a six-month journey aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during its deployment to the Gulf in support of the Iraq War. They disembarked from Coronado, California on May 7, 2005 and returned there November 8, 2005 with stops at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Perth, Australia.
The trip proved an evolution for the film crew who spent the early weeks trying to find their place while the 5,000 sailors and Marines around them were too busy to take notice. Eventually, the film crew discerned the ebb and flow of life on a carrier, and began to feel more at home on board. The ship’s crew not only accepted them but also took a vested interest in the project, making suggestions on the best places to film and providing access to missions that helped capture the full experience of the deployment.
Jammed into their own staterooms, the crew that once felt apart now felt kinship as they shared both trepidation and jubilation awaiting the safe return of the carrier’s jet fighters. When the huge emotional surge of seeing home hit in November, the filmmakers knew how the Nimitz crew must feel. But back on land, their own mission of editing and production continued for nearly three more years before the film CARRIER docked at PBS on April 27, 2008.”
You might want to check out the director’s diary where she explained how she keyed in on certain individuals and how these people were often at a crossroads in their lives.
So it’s a floating city and it’s full of all the drama, heartache, accomplishment, and back story. There’s the guy whose carnie-drug addict parents abandoned him when he was three and now he’s on this ship and he’s tough and he’s a dancer and a father and a complex man. There’s the guy whose girlfriend is pregnant and he’s worried that they might not make things work.
Interspersed throughout the series are snapshots and quick bits of dialogue. In one of the last episodes some members of the crew describe what they miss and one man says, “I miss the sound of birds.” And this statement just brought so much home to me. I’d just been out walking on a soft spring night and I was noticing the birds and their chipper sounds and busy spring twittering. Earlier in the day I had been talking with my mother. She’s recovering from pneumonia and spring has finally arrived in northern Wisconsin. Yesterday she was out in the yard for a while, feeling the sun, but not able to do much. But the ice on their lake had gone out and immediately the loons that live there reappeared and are busy building their nests. And all day I’d been wondering how those loons know when the ice is gone and it's time to come home.
Another woman said, “I miss being normal.” And a young man added, “Cooking. Music. Free time. Being able to get into my car and drive.”
According to the film crew, the opinions from the people aboard ship about the war run the gamut. The carrier is an impressive military machine and I love that this documentary is character-driven. The huge sky in all its moods created an evocative backdrop and the planes taking off and landing are simply amazing. But now I wish someone would spend the same amount of energy following the lives of the Iraqi people who are ducking from those bombs dropped by the dashing pilots we’re following in this series. And I wish PBS or a major network would air that reality.
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