I've only been to Florida twice in my entire life: once for a good friend's wedding, and once to visit my brother. My lasting impressions of the state are that it is extremely flat (I grew up in Kentucky, so I'm used to lots of hills) and it's humidity rivals that of a sauna. For most of us, different images of Florida come to mind: oranges, Disney World, pink flamingos, retirement homes, and stylish crime investigators zipping through the swanky areas of Miami in Hummers.
Georg Koszulinski's goal is to show a history of Florida from a different perspective than we've read about in books or were taught in the classroom. Beginning in prehistoric times, he describes...
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The film is well organized, moving through the state's history is a mostly chronological manner, deviating only once or twice when the topic splits from the timeline. The director uses a combination of stock and archival footage, photographs, paintings, and his own 8mm footage. The title of the documentary refers to the "Invisible Histories" of Florida. This is the idea that there are oftentimes two kinds of history: visible history is what is typically known to most of the public, taught in schools, etc.; invisible history is the stuff that you don't hear about as much, or what isn't generally taught in schools. This piece examines the often overlooked areas of Florida's history.
It is clear that Koszulinski really did his homework. His bibliography lists over 45 sources that were cited or referenced in this piece. However, I would really liked to have seen/heard interviews with scholars, experts, and/or authors about some of the events referred to in the film. There were only two interviews shown: one was an interview from back in the 1950's with a Seminole historian, and the second was an interview with a man who saw firsthand the aftermath of the Great Hurricane of 1935. While the second interview was fascinating, I thought it very odd that the only interview with an actual historian was over 50 years old. Florida has several outstanding universities which doubtless have scholars who could've contributed helpful (and more updated) information. And if cost was an issue, the interviews could've been taped over the phone, then edited together with pertinent pictures of the topic. While compiling information from different text sources is not a bad thing, the project currently feels more like a video term paper. The inclusion of a few current interviews (done specifically for this project) would help it tremendously.
The biggest problem I had with the project was in several instances, I felt it stepped beyond the bounds of documentary and into the realm of the director's personal opinions. Don't get me wrong, I understand and accept the fact that it is almost impossible to have a documentary that is completely free of bias. However, when I watch a documentary, I want to have information and facts presented to me so that I can learn; I don't want someone's opinion pushed on me. An example is when the film is outlining the connection between Walt Disney and Nazi Germany; that particular section is introduced with the title "Timeline of Terror". The only things this timeline shows is that Disney met with a former Nazi propaganda filmmaker after she came to the US, that Disney's Snow White was the only American film permitted in Germany at the time, and that he worked for the FBI as a Secret Agent in Charge who reported to (and I quote) "the cross-dressing director of the bureau, J. Edgar Hoover." Where is the "terror" in that? Walt Disney was not remotely involved in any "terror" related activities (at least, none were presented in the documentary). Not only that, but the little snipe about Hoover being a "cross-dresser" has absolutely NO relevance to the material.
