From the exhibit "Elegy to Connie." Courtesy of fort gondo compound for the arts
In a strange way, it seems the Kirkwood City Hall shooting of 2008 never happened. To those it affected directly, that seems facile, but to those of us more removed from the tragedy there’s a sense that life has moved on, and yesterday is largely confined to the bin of history.
Not so for artist Sarah Paulsen. The acclaimed animator was friends with Connie Karr, a mayoral candidate and longtime political comer in Kirkwood who was one of the victims of gunman Cookie Thornton. Paulsen’s desire to process the events of that day—as well as the racially charged debates that preceded it—form the basis for her one-hour film, Elegy to Connie.
Fort gondo compound for the arts will screen the film at a free event this Saturday, March 8.
The first thing you notice about the film is the intense level of work it must have required. This is stop-motion animation, and truly, it never stops. 2D collage work, 3D clay tableaux, drawings and more are constantly in motion and constantly morphing into new scenes. (Think of the pacing and shaky madness of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” video.)
Paulsen confirms that she started interviewing Karr’s friends and political allies four years ago, and started the animating three years ago. It’s been a long road.
In Elegy to Connie, the murdered councilperson’s fellow community workers describe the racial divisions within Kirkwood, played out in the clash between the historically black Meacham Park community and Kirkwood at large. They describe Karr’s tireless efforts to make the city’s workings more fair and transparent, and the many stumbling blocks she encountered. And then, the film begins to explore the crumbling, rat-in-a-maze psyche of Cookie Thornton, who murdered five people and critically injured the Kirkwood mayor on February 7, 2008, just over six years ago.
The commentary is brought to life with primitively drawn figures, clay men, architectural drawings, fabric swatches, plant leaves, medical supplies, photos—an endless procession of various and sundry art materials in continual motion, as if every corner of a school art-supply closet and every technique of rendering has been put to use. There is sly humor and sweetness and of course, the shadow of the climactic murders growing shorter and shorter until finally Paulsen takes us through that day. She is neither morbid nor sensational, and always humane.
“It [the film] came out of the desire to talk about the event, about somebody who was lost in it, and how that impacted the community, and what happened to the community afterward,” Paulsen said. “Mass shootings keep happening across the U.S. and I had questions about why, and about some of the things impacting Cookie. … How do people make sense of it, and what emotions linger on afterward? And this was a way to tell Cookie’s story and Connie’s story.”
As a documentary, the film is far from objective. (In fact, as a gushing tribute to Karr, it’s a bit of a hagiography.) As a narrative, it illustrates the comments of the interviewees so literally as to occasionally approach the pedantic. As a highly unusual animated recollection of a mass killing and the ripples around it, it’s remarkable. As a tribute, it’s super-sweet and poignant. As a labor-intensive work of animation, it’s stunning.
Something that the artist did not put into the film, she said, is one very personal connection to the subjects.
“I had insight [into the murders] in that Cookie had been doing things for a long time at these [Kirkwood City Council] meetings, and there were indications that something was going on with him,” she said. “About a year before the shooting, my mom, who knew Cookie, had talked to me about him, and said he was having problems and maybe I should talk to him, because I had done this other movie, another stop-motion animation in ‘06 about undocumented Mexican teens in St. Louis. I think my mom thought as an artist I had something to offer him, to help tell his story, maybe. What if I had followed through with that?”
Paulsen is to be commended for the film she did make, a courageous look at a very dark and not-so-distant moment in area history.
Why did Cookie shoot Connie, who would seem to have been a more likely ally than an enemy, as far as people in the Council chamber on that day went?
One of the film’s revelations is that just before she was killed, Connie supposedly told a friend that, “the first thing I’ll do as mayor is to solve the Cookie Thornton problem.”
Elegy to Connie screens Saturday, March 8 at 8 p.m. The 2- and 3D materials used in the film are currently on display at the gallery as well. On Sunday, March 9, Paulsen leads a stop-animation workshop. Both events will be held at fort gondo compound for the arts, 3151 Cherokee, fortgondo.com.
