June 21, 2012
By Mickey Friedman
I’m bringing it home. That’s what Bob calls finishing the song or the gig.
I’ve been doing what I said I wouldn’t ever do again. Making a film. When my friend Beth began her film about Bob Dorough, she wanted me to come down and shoot Bob singing in a small New York jazz club.
Bob Dorough - Blue Note Records
I couldn’t do it. I was burnt to the core. Making my film, “World On Fire,” the story of John F., one young soldier’s Iraq War, had sent me on an exhausting journey. His war was real, physical, three-dimensional. My war was internal. The willing suspension of disbelief times ten. The only way I could do justice to John was to do my all to understand.
I listened day and night to radio reports; spent hours looking at photographs. Iraq must have been the most photographed war ever fought: most soldiers had small video cameras. If they weren’t making videos they were blogging. The Defense Department couldn’t crack down on these soldiers fast enough.
