Middletown

by Dwight W. Hoover

Inspired by the immensely influential 1937 sociological study Middletown: A Case Study in Cultural Conflicts by Robert and Helen Lynd, Peter Davis's six documentary films about Muncie, Indiana, set out to examine the lives of Munsonians in the early 1980s. The disputes and conflicts accompanying the filming revealed more about American values and customs than the films themselves. While attempting to transform the data from the Middletown studies into a meaningful and interesting visual form, the filmmakers were constantly distracted by the pressures, decisions and perils of government- and corporate-funded documentary filmmaking. Dwight W. Hoover, a Muncie historian and collaborator in the Middletown film project, describes why the films were made and how they changed the lives of everyone involved.