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When the Leeves Broke

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When the Leeves Broke
Cruz 1
Carolina Cruz
Professor Gwaltney
English 1102
March 14, 2013
When the Levees Broke: A Rhetorical Analysis

It is nearly impossible to imagine that one day you can be safe in your home and with all of your belongings and the next day a hurricane leaves you with nothing. Unfortunately, the 484,000 people who lived in New Orleans had to experience those unimaginable thoughts first hand in 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina. “An entire city was nearly wiped off the face of the earth” (Kellogg) and at least 1,833 people were killed during and after the storm. There are many theories and conspiracies of what happened with the levees and what could have been done better in order to help the residents of New Orleans. Director Spike Lee felt very strongly about the issue and decided to make a documentary in order to give the people of New Orleans justice. By directing When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee gives the audience his personal view on the entire situation dealing with Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. With his use of video editing and choice of certain interviews, Lee gave not only emotional credibility to his movie but also a logical point of view.
The main argument of the documentary was to explain the series of events that occurred during and following the storm, while also getting the inside point of views of some of the Hurricane Katrina victims. Another argument Spike Lee was trying to make Cruz 2 was that there was a lot more to the disaster than just the storm. I do believe that Lee did a good job in getting his point across in his documentary but I do not believe it was a very strong argument. The argument is not very convincing because not everyone’s view was included in the film. It seems that Spike Lee was very biased while making the documentary and had no problem with expressing it in his film. Though I do somewhat agree with Lee’s point of view, I do not believe that it was a very well rounded argument. In his documentary, Lee


Cited: Chisholm, Kenneth. "Plot Summary for "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts"" IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 8 Mar. 2013. Holden, Stephen. "‘When the Levees Broke’: Spike Lee’s Tales From a Broken City." Www.nytimes.com. The New York Times, 21 Aug. 2006. Web. 2013. Jacobs, Jay S. "PopEntertainment.com: Spike Lee Interview about 'When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. '" PopEntertainment.com: Spike Lee Interview about 'When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. ' N.p., 18 Dec. 2006. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. Onesto, Li. "Spike Lee 's When the Levees Broke: Bitter Truth About the Crimes in New Orleans." Spike Lee 's When the Levees Broke: Bitter Truth About the Crimes in New Orleans. Revolution Newspaper, 27 Aug. 2006. Web. 7 Mar. 2013.
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