Divided we fall

Split: A Divided America, is the brainchild of Portland filmmakers Jeff Beard, Kelly Nyks and Peter Hutchison. This independent documentary is a nonpartisan look at partisanship. Produced in the aftermath of the divisive 2004 presidential election, Split takes us on a whirlwind road trip across the “divided states of America.” Equal parts travel diary and Schoolhouse Rock episode, Split would play well on OPB rotation during election years.

Nyks and his team travel between red and blue states to interview people from all walks of life, asking them six questions. Questions touch on such topics as the role of faith in politics, whether the media and campaigns divide us, and the nature of the division between “red” and “blue” states. This far-reaching discussion, and the questions it raises, is rather ambitious for a documentary with a 78-minute running time.

Split is arranged logically, and the questions it poses are answered as exhaustively as possible within this limited timeframe. The film is undoubtedly a success, as it probes partisan politics and its origins more extensively than any other production in the past election cycle.

And the timing of its release is impeccable. The same things that divided America in 2004 divide us in 2008, and the sound bites that Split generates by talking to political luminaries and everyday Americans sound fresh, relevant and familiar.

Sometimes the film falls into the trap of nostalgia. The scholars Split interviews universally attribute Americans’ increasing unwillingness to discuss politics to the demise of “community institutions” and the ascension of television since the 1950s.

Urban sprawl, long commutes and television, if Split is to be believed, have all contributed to an America composed of isolated people who gravitate toward cities full of others like them. Before television, before the suburbs, “people were able to have political discussions, because they were brought together for other reasons,” a college professor opines over black and white footage of ’50s couples bowling.

These observations about the role of “modern” media continue throughout the film. Nixon is referred to as “the last man to have ever thought live on television,” and the impact of this is clear. Campaigns degenerate into sound bites, debates stop being debates and start becoming two monologues. The primary virtue of a candidate’s debate performance is staying “on message.”

This leads into a more detailed discussion in the role of the media as a divisive player, and the different strategies employed by campaigns, culminating in a scholarly lament for those congressmen who were public servants, not merely career politicians in the pockets of interest groups, controlling the media to divide voters along issue lines and “energize the base.”

The narrator of Split seems to long for a return to purely political, philosophical discussions about the role of government, rather than voters deciding on one particular issue. Occasionally, the film takes a break from its interview-heavy format to feature animated depictions of American history.

In one of these, Split condenses the reasons for the Revolutionary War into a five-minute segment, that also introduces Thomas Jefferson’s phrase “the marketplace of ideas,” which is trotted out several times thereafter.

According to the film, the Founding Fathers envisioned a country where citizens would listen to ideas, and then decide among them. At its heart, Split is a reflection on this principle, and a call for Americans to set aside their ideological differences and return to discussing their political disagreements.

While the film’s rich discussion of American history does establish a context for its conversation, the film’s reliance on the “marketplace of ideas” and nostalgia for the ideals of “our founding fathers” cripple some of its power. The film’s thesis is ultimately weak: Our Founding Fathers created the Electoral College to check the power of citizens.

In the end, Split‘s scope and ambition is both its calling card and its Achilles heel. Kelly Nyks raises so many questions over the course of his interviews that he cannot adequately answer all of them.

Although Split has too many inconsistencies and factual misrepresentations to be a complete success as a documentary, it is emotional in ways that resonate with its target audience–the typical American who perceives Republicans as dumb for believing in Christ, or considers Democrats to be pot-smoking, promiscuous hippies.

Split does succeed in “reaching across the aisle.” Although it comes dangerously close to wrapping up as an indictment of corporations and “big money,” the film ultimately steps away from completely Marxist rhetoric and returns to “Joe Six Pack.”

By interviewing average people, as well as “ivory tower” intellectuals, Split makes the questions posed by the intellectual elite more accessible to its viewers, and encourages people to think about themselves and their neighbors as people, not just demographics.

Split*** 1/2Available at www.splitdoc.com for $14.99 or at iTunes.com for $3.99