Detroit

How this film uses it

Barry Ackroyd shot with Alexa Mini cameras, and added grain to blend with archival footage, in a handheld documentary style close to The Hurt Locker. The camera stays close to the actors and moves with them. You are inside the rooms, close enough that there is no safe distance.

Where to see it

The Algiers annex interrogation: Krauss lines up everyone against the wall, and the handheld camera stays in the room as he beats and terrorizes them.

How this film uses it

The film opens with animation built on Jacob Lawrence paintings. The art gives the decades of history before the riot a few quick, powerful images. It shows what the story rests on before the first live scene begins.

Where to see it

The Jacob Lawrence prologue: Paintings summarize the history leading up to the 1967 riot.

How this film uses it

Krauss gets bolder in each stage. He shoots a looter against orders and keeps his job. At the Algiers he shoots Carl as he runs, plants a knife next to the body and moves on to beatings and mock executions. You never know how far he will go.

Where to see it

The mock executions: Krauss orders suspects taken one by one into different rooms to be mock-executed so the others will confess.

How this film uses it

The trial is a performance too. The survivors' testimony is picked apart by the defense, and the judge finds the officers' statements inadmissible because they were not advised of their rights. The rules of court decide the outcome before the truth does.

Where to see it

The trial two years later: The defense attorney attacks the survivors' testimony, and the judge excludes the officers' statements.