Don't slap me for saying pseudo-neutral, because I completely buy Glass' journalistic credentials. If there was any doubt on this front, you can read the "Ira Glass Biography" included in the Bonus Features section of this DVD, along with some photos from the show. The "pseudo" comment comes from Glass not being afraid to step out of the silent documentary seat. He regularly comments on what the people in his stories appear to be doing, or might be thinking, as opposed to just describing the action on screen or letting the camera do all the work. One example from a segment titled "Growth Spurt" involves the casting call for a movie made in a senior retirement community. These seniors are anything but retired, all of them working toward accomplishments in the arts and living together in a lovely, purpose-built facility, appropriately founded as a "colony" for senior artists. During the casting call, Glass interrupts the people he's filming because he can't believe they cast as one of the actors a man that barely speaks at all, much less in intelligible English. Glass even says in his narration that he feels compelled to speak up and say something, which from a pure documentary standpoint feels a bit out of place. In a television world filled with fake reality shows, it's refreshing to see the person behind the camera pierce the veil and ask the question we all are thinking, to try and inject some reality into the reality...
This American Life: Season One doesn't really feel like a documentary, but its characters aren't spectacular enough to come across as worthy subjects of a biography feature. What's left is the natural curiosity some people possess, that urge to know what makes another person tick. The element of This American Life that makes it most worth watching is its incredibly honest depiction of people. A segment titled "The Camera Man" starts with footage from a man trying to document his broken family, casting his drunk, slovenly stepfather as the main character. The unfiltered emotion that comes through in this footage and the story that unfolds through Glass' narration is unparalleled. We watch dramas and romances to move us, but they only work when we have a connection to the characters. Glass' talent is to take people that in a certain light would seem daft, monstrous, abrasive, pitiful, or just boring, and make them endearing or at least fascinating. He doesn't do this by shaving off their bumps or covering up their bruises; in many cases he calls attention to their flaws, but still makes you feel that they are worth watching. It's possible to dislike Ira Glass and This American Life for coming off at times too calculated, as if Glass is trying too hard to be quirky. The perfect example is the narration over the credits where an audio clip from each segment becomes the punch line to a little joke. The first time it is amusing, but after that it feels like an in-joke you aren't in on...
Six segments are contained in this collection of This American Life: Season One. Some segments are really just one or two stories, while others contain three or four short pieces. Fans of the radio show that have not caught this will be blown away, as if This American Life suddenly went from black-and-white to color. Glass would probably disagree and say that the show on television just provides him with opportunities for expression that aren't possible on the radio. That's the right perspective, but as a fan of both, it is hard not to think of This American Life: Season One as Ira Glass 2.0... Guess that's just, This. Person's. Opinion.
