Did You Wonder Who Killed The Gun Analysis

Haunting, hypnotic, and quite unique, Travis Wilkerson’s hard-to-categorize documentary Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? is a domestic horror story that cuts well past the quick. Hard to shake and if you can accept the manner with how the film is presented, Wilkerson’s movie will stick with you for a considerable amount of time.

The title, lifted from lyrics found in Phil Ochs’ 1964 ballad “William Moore”, written in memory of a slain, white, Atalla, Alabama postal worker who stood alone protesting racial segregation, Wilkerson begins laying out the details of a terrible reality within the almost literal branches of his family tree.

His great-grandfather, S.E. Branch, owner of the local Branch’s Grocery, killed Bill Spann, a black customer

Names like Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and Freddie Gray are shown to the music of artists like Ochs, Janelle Monae, and others.

To appreciate Wilkerson’s work, you must subscribe to the film’s unique rhythm and cadence. The scrapbook of still images, sometimes related to the narration, other times absent of context, could mesmerize a viewer as much as frustrate them. One lengthy sequence, near the end of the film, finds Wilkerson sharing a stream of thoughts, while a fixed camera shoots out the front window of a moving car, with a reddish-black hue altering the footage.

Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun? is original, wholly immersive, and at times astonishing in what Wilkerson uncovers. The presentation and layout can also stir some frustration in trying to determine what the movie is attempting to do. Is this a movie made for one person, attempting to rectify some abhorrent truths within his family? Does it speak beyond Wilkerson’s family and make a statement about how racism and racial violence has so permeated and become acceptable in still so many pockets of our