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| Brother's Keeper | 
| Directors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky
Actors: Connie Chung, Roscoe Ward, Delbert Ward, John Teeple (ii), Lyman Ward (ii)
Studio: New Video Group
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $11.60
You Save: $13.35 (54%)
New (32) from $11.60
Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 16457
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Running Time: 105 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 9542
ISBN: 0767055381
UPC: 767685954232
EAN: 9780767055383
ASIN: B00008DDJ6
Theatrical Release Date: September 9, 1992
Release Date: July 29, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW AND FACTORY SEALED
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Amazon.com essential video
One of the best films of 1992, this acclaimed documentary focuses on the alleged murder in June 1990 of 64-year-old Bill Ward by his brother Delbert, 59, a simple dairy farmer whose defense became a rallying cause for the citizens of Munnsville, a tiny farming community in central New York. Known by all of Munnsville as harmless hermits, the Ward brothers (also including Lyman and Roscoe) live an 18th-century lifestyle in their tiny, grimy shack, sleeping in the same bed through cold winters and tending daily to their hayfields and livestock. Semiliterate and stunted by minimal exposure to the outside world, the Wards are disheveled children in the bodies of aging men; and when Delbert is charged with suffocating his ailing brother Bill, he's a prime target for legal manipulation and a media circus that's immediately drawn to his case. Filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky spent nearly a year with the Wards and the Munnsville citizens who rallied to Delbert's defense, and their efforts prove that reality is often more compelling than even the richest fictional drama. As a slice-of-life study of eccentricity, country-folk stereotypes, small-town wisdom, and the power of the media, Brother's Keeper is funny, fascinating, and full of compassionate humanity. It's also a riveting courtroom mystery with characters that no casting director could improve upon, tracking the course of justice while leaving the viewer to mull over the truth behind Delbert Ward's alleged crime. --Jeff Shannon
Description
On the morning of June 6, 1990, the village of Munnsville (pop. 499) was just another forgotten corner of rural America. But in the days and months that followed, this New York farming community would become the center of one of the most celebrated and bi
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 An American tragedy. April 1, 2008
Brother's Keeper (Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, 1992)
The saga of the Ward Boys remains, fifteen years later, one of the outright weirdest murder cases in American history. The Ward Boys were four brothers wholived outside Munnsville, NY, a bucolic upstate town. Their lives were turned upside down when William, the oldest brother, died. His brother Adelbert was arrested for his murder. Not out of the ordinary, you say? It becomes so when you realize that Adelbert, the youngest of the bunch, was fifty-nine when he stood trial.
Berlinger and Sinofsky seem to side with the prosecution's original thesis, that the killing was an act of euthanasia. Bill Ward was, evidently, suffering from a terminal disease, and had gotten to the point where life was nothing but pain. Thus, the original question the movie asks is whether euthanasia ought to be a crime. That is a worthwhile subject for a documentary in itself (and has been the subject of more than a few), but things get a whole lot weirder when the prosecution changes its angle of attack and starts labeling the murder as a deviant sex crime. No, I won't spoil the fun for you; watch the film and you can see the prosecution spell out this ludicrous idea in their own words. Berlinger and Sinofsky spent months in Munnsville, interviewing everyone they could get their hands on and more, and we get an interesting picture of the town and the Ward Boys themselves (who seem to have no real idea of what's going on; the best-educated of them is semi-literate, and all seem to suffer various levels of hearing difficulty). It may be hard for people to grasp how, in the nineteen-nineties, four brothers could possibly live in such squalor, and without most of the modern conveniences (for example, their shack has no running water); as shocking as the murder trial is, the day-to-day existence of the Ward Boys is even more so.
Here we are a decade and a half later, and Lyman, the last of the Wards, died in August of 2007. Thus, it is almost certain that we will never know what happened on the night of Bill Ward's death. Ultimately, however, it's a question that doesn't need answered; this started out as a document of a murder trial, but became a story about four brothers, three of whom stand against an adversity they cannot fathom. It is fine cinema from first minute to last, and well worth watching. ****
 Amazing March 30, 2008
It has been a long time since a film has moved me to tears. This one did. This story of three simple brothers that may or may not be victims of the justice system moved me. As the documentary progressed, I felt myself becoming personally involved with the people. I think this documentary changed the way I look at people.
Meet "The Boys" March 16, 2008
You're not likely to quickly forget the story of the Ward brothers of Munnsville, New York. This documentary chronicles their reaction to the death of one of their brothers (Bill) and the subsequent trial of another brother (Delbert) for his murder. This documentary doesn't provide an open-and-shut case of murder in a rural community, and it actually raises more questions than it answers (such as, how did the brothers come to be elderly, alone and living in total squalor?) but that's really what makes this film exceptional. You have to think through issues of morality, human frailty, compassion and justice on your own. And despite all that, you STILL might not come to a conclusion about this story, but that's OK. I'm not sure it needs one. Just enjoy it for what it is: an amazing document of the lives of three brothers who find themselves in the midst of tragic and extraordinary circumstances.
Deliverance in Upstate New York? March 9, 2008
I was alerted to "Brother's Keeper" by its' listing in a book roughly titled "The NY Times Best 1000 Movies". I generally enjoy documentaries but they seem to lack the necessary outlet to reach a wider audience. Outside of the works of Michael Moore and Al Gore, I don't see people lining up at theaters to watch the latest documentaries. That's one of the reasons I keep an eye on the IFC schedule. "Brother's Keeper" is a film worth seeing.
The movie tells the story of a family of four brothers who farm in upstate New York. These brothers are right out of "Deliverance" and, if there's any confusion about that, the omnipresent Appalachian Country Music reminds us that we've seen these people somewhere before. One of the brother's complains of a pain and is found dead in the bed he shares with one of his brothers. The brother initially confessed to having smothered his brother but later recants after thinking it over. He essentially is saying that the investigators lead him along and he just followed and tried to be helpful. A trial (certainly the Trial of the Century for this hamlet) begins with a lot of media coverage. This film crew was obviously part of the media that saw a unique story and we can be thankful for this in-depth and inside look at the brothers, the community, the legal forces, the crime and its' trial. It certainly seemed to me that the film company was there fairly early in the sequence of the events. The verdict is something I didn't know ahead of time so I won't share that with you. I liked the way the movie comes to a cloture.
What I didn't like was the way these brothers were profiled. They were shown as more than just developmentally retarded folks, they were portrayed somewhat as though they were all the results of a fourth successive generation of incest. While no specific allegations as such were made, the soundtrack sounds like something out of "Deliverence" without the dueling banjos. I realize that their mental capacity was a major issue but I really felt that the director way going out of his way to portray these brothers in a stereo-typical manner that seemed to degrade the achievements of the overall content of the film. That aside, this movie is definitely worth watching, if you can find it.
A Keeper December 23, 2007
I was first introduced to this film at a friend's home. He is a cameraman, film maker, documentary buff. He showed the film outdoors on a big screen using an LCD player. Guests were invited to bring lawn chairs and help themselves to the popcorn machine and wine. Since we were outdoors (in Tahoe), the sound traveled. About half way through the movie, I looked behind me and there was a cop standing there. Someone had called the police and complained about the noise of the film. Us viewers were completely silent, in awe of the film. When the cop arrived, rather than shutting us down, he stood there and watched the film too! It wasn't until we noticed him that he asked us to turn it down a notch. Since that night, I ordered the film on-line and watched it one morning with a friend of mine who is a lawyer. He had the remote handy and repeatedly paused the film so we could have discussions about it - from the cinematography to the court rulings. I loved this entertaining film.
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