Tower is a 2016 documentary directed by Keith Maitland about the 1966 Texas Tower shooter. It fuses the look of rotoscoped animation with old archival footage as well as newer footage, creating a unique portrayal of the horrific event.
The shooters name was left out of the narrative of Tower, being referred to as terms like ‘The Sniper’, leaving the focus of the narration on the survivors and their fears and hurt. This is further displayed through the narratives portrayal of the violence. It’s never glorified or overly focused on, instead Maitland chooses to focus on the effects the violence has had on the survivors.
The Tower’s narrative is self contained, allowing for the story to progress solely by the victims interviewed. By not having an interviewer shown and instead being told through close shots, the documentary presents itself more like a personal conversation. This sits in with the mood of the overall documentary, being more focused on the emotive side of things then just the factual.
Colours and patterns are used in the Tower to portray emotions, specifically happiness. One of the main victims the Tower focussed on, Claire Wilson, recounts her lost love Tom. During the sequence, as she talks about her partner, bright vibrant colours fill the scene. A few scenes appear to pay homage to the art style of Alphonse Mucha, a Czech artist during the Art Noveau art movement. This use of colour and extravagant patterning during the happier scenes juxtaposes the greyscale emptier lifelike scenes that play throughout most of the documentary.
Maitland uses both rotoscoped animation and old footage to tell the story. Rotoscoped animation is used not only to tell the story of the victims where there is no footage, but it’s also largely used when the victims are talking to the camera. This is not only to portray the victims as they were during these events, but it also makes the events feel less like a retelling but more like the viewer is there experiencing it at the time. This artistic choice creates a feeling of unease as you realise how young most of these people were at the time of the tragedy. Towards the end of the documentary, Maitland flicks between the rotoscoped animation of the victims and modern live action footage. The difference in footage quality from the archival footage and the extreme close-ups really reinforce how each of them are still affected by this event to this day, as most of the modern footage was shot with extreme close ups, not only creating the personal connection between the viewer and the victim, but also allowing the viewer to feel the victim’s emotions.
In scenes like where Claire is shown laying on the ground and the camera angles change, the forms jitter around, which leads me to believe that the rotoscoped figures were composited into their scenes, as opposed to everything being rotoscoped in the one shot. Maitland also makes use of a lot of camera movements, which brings a bit more visual interest to the animated scenes.
The Tower actually really surprised me, it was gorgeously heartbreaking to watch. As a documentary, it managed to be informative, while still keeping its core focus on those effected by the event.
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