THE HOUSE I LIVE IN

"If you're a casual drug user, you're an accomplice to murder"--Nancy Reagan

Today I saw Eugene Jarecki's documentary THE HOUSE I LIVE IN at the Bloor. (The title comes from a Paul Robeson song performed over the closing credits, in which the "house" is the US.) It's about the War on Drugs and all its human casualties, including some in the family of a maid who worked for Jarecki's family.

Jarecki's made some fine documentaries before, like CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (about a child-abuse witch hunt--the clown brother was the most interesting character) and WHY WE FIGHT (about the military-industrial complex), and this is another good one.  It made me feel both sad and angry.  There's intelligent commentary by people like David Simon, creator of THE WIRE, an HBO series about drug cops in Baltimore.  As I know from reading WHAT A YEAR!, the questions now being raised about the War on Drugs were also being raised about Prohibition back in 1929.

I also saw a DVD (for the second time) of a PBS documentary about the country-music pioneers the Carter Family.  What haunting melancholy music they made!