When Peter McDowell was growing up in Champaign, the life of his older brother Jimmy, a Vietnam War veteran, and his untimely death in 1972 at age 24 were a mystery. The brothers were nearly 19 years apart in age. McDowell said he doesn’t remember his brother, only a sadness in his family that he didn’t understand.
During the past 10 years, McDowell – an arts management consultant, fundraiser and publicist – has researched his brother’s life and searched for answers about his death. He made a documentary film, “Jimmy in Saigon,” that premiered this year, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Jimmy’s death.
The film, which has received awards at film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, will be screened at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies’ AsiaLENS Film Series. “Jimmy in Saigon” will be shown Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 16 at 1 p.m. at Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana. A discussion with McDowell will follow both screenings. Admission is free.
McDowell and his brother both graduated from University Laboratory High School in Urbana, and McDowell graduated from the U. of I. in 1989. Jimmy attended the University of Chicago, then served in Vietnam and returned there shortly after his military service ended, living in Vietnam as a civilian until his death.
“I wanted to get to know him as a person. I was equally interested in his life and his death,” McDowell said.
He said he read 200 letters from Jimmy that his mother, Ellen McDowell, had saved; contacted Jimmy’s friends from his childhood, high school and college; and traveled twice to Vietnam to interview people who knew Jimmy and to retrace his steps there.
“I wanted to see those places, even though a lot of those places had changed so much. I wanted to see how I reacted to this country he loved so much. I found that I almost instantly really loved the country, as well,” McDowell said.
The films in the AsiaLENS Film Series this semester are about journeys, said Jason Finkelman, the curator of the film series and the director of Global Arts Performance Initiatives for Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
“I felt like the film is such an incredibly well-done story about family and place and identity, and it unravels this mystery. It also opens up avenues of discussion about the journey the filmmaker made to Vietnam – in learning more about his brother’s journey, what did he learn about the people, the culture and the land?” Finkelman said.
McDowell, who is a gay man, said he wonders what kind of relationship he and his brother might have had if Jimmy had lived.
“Growing up as a gay kid in a large family can be a lonely thing. You don’t have anyone as a role model. I would have liked to have talked to him about these things,” he said.
McDowell said his mother is the star of the film in many ways.
“She is the matriarch of our family and very beloved in the community. She wanted to help me tell my story, but she was also revealing things that she had kept secret for her whole life because of propriety,” he said.
McDowell said his goal for the film was to create a cinematic work that people would want to watch. The healing effect it has had for his family is a side effect.
“A lot of the film is about being honest and real, and what kind of healing that might bring to a grieving family,” he said. The film also raises questions about sexual identity and acceptance.
“A lot of people think homophobia is over and everyone is OK with gay people now. They’ll learn that homophobia was alive and well in the 1970s and 1980s, and even though the story was a long time ago, some of these issues still exist,” McDowell said.
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