Fickle Fate

The other day I was poking at random through the This American Life archives, as I am wont to do if I spend any length of time doing non-computery things in the room that contains my computer.

Let me first say: I love this radio program. Love. It. It pretty much perfectly encapsulates everything I love about stories and storytelling. If you're not familiar with this gem of the airwaves, here's a little rundown of what it is. Each week, the show follows a theme, and the stories that are told follow that. The stories are mostly true, and mostly told by the person or people involved. They're at once hilarious, sweet, intriguing, and touching. It's hard to explain what makes them so appealing, so I highly recommend you go to the website and listen to some of the shows online for free. (choose the "full episode" option, and it will open a player.)

The point of this post, however, is that I, at random, chose an episode that contained a section about a semi-documentary film that won some awards at Sundance Flm Festival several years ago. The film is called the Beaver Trilogy, and is actually three separate short films that were stuck together. The first is a documentary made in 1979. It's a chance meeting between the film maker and a young man who's an absolutely entertaining character. Without going into too much detail, he's an average kid from the town of Beaver who just happened to be in what might have been the right place at the right time. As the story progresses, the film maker does something that affects the kid, and he later regrets it. It haunts him so much that over the years, to clear his conscience he has to remake the little documentary movie in 1981, with an actor, and add a happy ending-- the ending he wanted for the Beaver kid. But that's not enough. He actually makes the film for a third time in 1985, with yet another actor. These are the stories that are cobbled together. So it's not just the story of the Beaver kid, it's the story of this director trying to clear his conscience, and failing.

As with many This American life shows, I felt compelled to research. The film's not available anywhere. It screened only a few places, it's never been sold on dvd (except for on occasion when the filmmaker personally has sold a copy he's made to someone) and it's no longer available on Youtube to watch. So I have a little mission to find a copy.

Also interestingly, in the process of poking around, I found that the Beaver Kid passed away just recently. RIP, Beaver Kid.