Studs Terkel: Listening to America (2009)

In a quick 40-minute blast, one can better understand the monumental influence of Studs Terkel on the journalism profession in the form of Eric Simonson’s STUDS TERKEL: LISTENING TO AMERICA. The documentary, which aired in 2010 on HBO, includes many interviews with Terkel, including interviews conducted when he was 95 and just six months prior to his death at 96 in 2008. It also includes snippets of fascinating interviews conducted by Terkel – both on the radio and on television – that help the viewer to understand his deep skill in the area of talking to people.

“I never invited a guest I didn’t respect,” Terkel said. And when you see that his interviewees were not just landmark author James Baldwin and acting great Marlon Brando, but also housewives and steelworkers, it becomes clear that Terkel had a great deal of respect for the “ordinary man” – so much so that he makes it a point in one interview to share his distaste for the word “ordinary” in such a context. To Terkel, no man or woman’s life is simply that.

LISTENING TO AMERICA briefly traces a history of how Terkel progressed from his early radio days in Chicago to a career as a best-selling author, where he documented in writing the “verbal histories” he conducted via thousands of hours of reels of tape for books like “Hard Times” and “Working.” It also touches on his persecution by McCarthy during the Red Scare, where Terkel admits that he “never met a petition he wouldn’t sign.”

If there’s anything wrong with LISTENING TO AMERICA it’s simply that Terkel is a subject worthy of a longer documentary and deeper exploration. This film serves as a wonderful primer or sampler to one unfamiliar with one of the greatest broadcaster/writers of all-time. With any luck, the impending centennial of Terkel’s birth in 2012 will spark an even richer cinematic document of just what an impact the man had on the stories of the common man in America. Until then, watching this little taste is enough to garner an appreciation.