Tony Buba Rules! What more can I say?
There has been a lot of discussion this quarter about the role of a presumed authenticity that may or may not be present in works, especially if they are even in an abstract way autobiographical. This concept of authenticity (i.e. a truth) and the sometimes frustrating debates that follow seem to probably become mute when thinking of the work of filmmaker Tony Buba. Buba’s work chronicles among other issues his hometown of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Buba’s work has fluxed over the years, earlier work seems to embrace an unconventional and at times radical working style, while latter works such as Struggles in Steel (1996) and solely fiction based work such as No Pets (1994) became much more conventional at least in terms of formal elements. Although these latter examples of Buba’s work come off as more conventional, there is still a similar authentic sincerity for the subject matter, a genuine investment in portraying accurately blue collar work, labor struggles, and the everyday lives of the working class that is prevalent throughout Buba’s career.
The earliest film by Buba that we saw was J. Roy-New & Used Furniture (1974) this film was done shortly after Buba left graduate school. The film is about the decline of the small businesses while also serving as a portrait of J. Roy a man who has failed in many business ventures but continues to try and open another one. The film is very effective in bringing the viewer to the ground level of Braddock, showing us the people places and goings on of a town that means so much to Buba. Unlike Sweet Sal (1979) and Lightning Over Braddock; a Rustbowl Fantasy (1988) the J. Roy film is much more of a straightforward documentary.
Lightning Over Braddock is an epic adventure that chronicles the life of Tony Buba while including a parallel plot that follows Sal and the ongoing movement by steel workers to stop plant closings throughout the Pittsburgh area. The eighty minute 16mm film was shot over a four year period with as Buba put it “no pre-production at all”. Lightning Over Braddock is an interesting film, it doesn't attempt to be anything more than what it is, a look at a world and man on the fringe getting ready to be pushed over the edge into the unrecognized and obscure. Sweet Sal is different in some ways, this film follows Sal, a man that Buba has known all his life. Sweet Sal like Lightning Over Braddock attempts to show a facet of society that is preparing (whether consciously, or unconsciously, is yet to be decided) to be dealt obsolescence, in this case the obsolete factor is Sal and is unique mannerisms. In Lightning Over Braddock the obsolete is the steel workers and blue-collar towns like Braddock.
Sweet Sal is unique in the way that Buba appears to have no agenda in the portrayal of Sal. Buba lets Sal’s rambling dialogues take over and holds his camera in a way that focuses the attention on who Sal is rather than what that means in context of a greater audience or for society at large. Lightning Over Braddock however, appears to have more of a style that signals a political motive (although theatrical and rather vague).
Like Lightning Over Braddock, Struggles in Steel has a motive outside the confines of strictly filmmaking and documenting in a cinema verte style. Buba made Struggles in Steel in conjunction with Ray Henderson. It is well done film that gives voice to the voiceless steel workers and many of the stories and archival footage that the filmmakers use are very compelling, however this film doesn’t stick out that much from so many other films that have received substantial funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Struggles in Steel employs many conventional documentary techniques and choices, and makes the film less unique, at least compared to the earlier work of Buba’s that was much more daring.
I will take from Tony Buba’s work inspiration and a reminder that great filmmaking is rarely about something great. The everyday work that goes into building communities and maintaining sanity in the face of an overpowering hegemony is worth documenting. I am not going to be finishing Mediaworks, this fact has been getting me down lately, but watching the work of Tony Buba has reminded me as well that the world doesn’t revolve around the work done in institutions confined by the parameters of academia. I am very grateful for everything that I have learned in this program and will take with me a better understanding of how to critically view media in a time of war, increasing oppressive times, and under stifling distractions. Buba has let me rediscover the world on the street level (in some of his work any way).