The Order of Myths

The Order of Myths is a documentary about Mobile, Alabama's Mardi Gras. Celebrated since 1703, American Mardi Gras was born in Mobile. In 2007, it is still racially segregated.

Filmmaker Margaret Brown, herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city's two carnivals to explore the complex contours of this hallowed tradition and the elusive forces that keep it organized along enduring color lines.

Though the film captures the historical traditions and social codes of the separate black and white Mardi Gras celebrations, The Order of Myths is not a cinematic essay. It is not a polemic on race or a document of good guys versus bad guys. It is not a film of obvious questions and easy answers. It goes much deeper, and by its very nature, is both disturbing and captivating.

With unprecedented access, Brown traces the exotic world of centuries-old traditions and pageantry, and uncovers a centuries-old connection between the white Mardi Gras Queen's slave-trading ancestors and the African-American Queen's heritage, as well as subtle and not-so-subtle interracial social codes that cast a shadow on the proud Mobile traditions the white residents invoke.

It is the coronations of the all-white Mobile Carnival Association (MCA) and the all-black Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association (MAMGA) that provide the central narrative through which we view the festivities. Each organization has its own separate parades, balls and royal court; the MCA and MAMGA Kings and Queens cross the color divide only briefly to visit each other's event.

The Order of Myths ventures behind the merriment of Mardi Gras to reveal a tangled web of historical violence, power dynamics and intertwined and interdependent race relations, and. illuminate the complexity of race in the modern South.

Trailer

Credits

The Order of Myths
Director/Producer: Margaret Brown
Producer: Sara Cross
Executive Producer: Christine Mattsson-McHale
Cinematographer: Michael Simmonds
Editors: Michael Taylor, Geoffrey Richman, Margaret Brown
Running time: 80 min.
Website: www.theorderofmyths.com

About the Filmmaker

MARGARET BROWN is the producer and director of the acclaimed documentary Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt, which was released in the US by Palm Pictures, and received worldwide theatrical distribution in 2005.

Brown recently directed the music video Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe for Okkervil River, and produced Cat Power's Living Proof video, directed by Harmony Korine. Brown produced Six Miles of Eight Feet, which won a Student Academy Award in 2000, and was the cinematographer for Ice Fishing, which received a Special Jury Prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, and for which she received the Nestor Almendros Award for Cinematography from the New York University Graduate Film Program.

Brown earned her BA in creative writing from Brown University and her MFA in film from New York University.