They are ‘a life force of this culture in this city,’ says writer and filmmaker Jason Berry, who comes to Somerville and Vineyard Haven this week
New Orleans funeral parades — with their jubilant brass bands, “second-line” dancers, and colorful costumes — “are caravans of memory,” native New Orleanian Jason Berry writes in his book “City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300.” The 2018 book uses funerary traditions as a lens on that history going back to the city’s founding — through the civil rights era, and the ravages of Hurricane Katrina — to nearly the present day.
His new documentary film, based on the book, mixes new and archival footage, reenactments, interviews with musicians, journalists, scholars, and other people from the community. It captures the jubilation and grief, beauty and despair of a great, troubled city — and, always, the music.
