Fingers. Sometimes it can be the smallest things in a movie which stand out to you and in this documentary, which is about the department within The New York Times which is responsible for writing the obituaries, it were the hands of the men and women working there which stood out to me. You’d expect that a journalist, who of course is doing lots of research will also spend lots of time behind a PC and be efficient at it. To my surprise though most of them couldn’t touch type. I would assume having that skill would be beneficial when deadlines are closing in. And although the newspaper has various articles written in advance for celebrities who are already old or are in bad health, there are often unexpected deaths (just think of Michael Jackson, Philip Seymour Hoffman or Prince). These journalists are dealing with death every day, but their perspective is different. They see it as a moment to stop and see what the impact of someone was on others.
Writing an obituary isn’t easy as this film shows. There is enormous pressure to get the article in next day’s newspaper (or even publish it quicker when it needs to be on the website) and a lot of information needs to be gathered. Sometimes this is done by calling family members, but also through other means. Each article also needs a picture and when this documentary shows the archive of the newspaper it is really fascinating. It’s an enormous space filled with filing cabinets, with only on person working there who really seems to have an idea where he is able to find specific information. He admits though that he knows it because he has worked there for ages, but that there still parts he doesn’t.
The documentary mixes imagery of people who have deceased with interviews and scenes in which the journalists are working on their articles, the meetings they are having and reading the end result. It gives you a good idea about a part of the newspaper not everyone likes to think about, but it also shows that it might be a good idea to make touch typing courses mandatory.
