Prime Choice: The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306

When and where: 6 p.m. Wednesday, HBO2

In the 1960s, political assassinations shook America to its core, from Malcolm X and the Kennedy brothers to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Historians have repeatedly tried to explain the dastardly acts, but, save for the Abraham Zapruder film, we rarely get an up-close view of the events.

HBO tries to rectify that in King's case. Its latest documentary is The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, which recounts the memories of Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles, one of the last men to visit with King before he was assassinated on the balcony of Memphis' Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.

King was scheduled to have dinner at Kyles' home that night, and the two men visited for an hour in Room 306 before the shooting. Indeed, Kyles also was the only man on the balcony with King when the shot rang out.

At just 30 minutes, The Witness is not a laborious documentary. Much of it is spent recounting the purpose of King's visit to Memphis - he came to support a sanitation workers' strike - and how Kyles came to terms with his presence at the historic death. He talks about King's frame of mind that day - jovial - and the infamous "mountaintop" speech he gave the night before - a speech that seemed to foretell his death.

"Crucifixions have to have witnesses," says Kyles. "You can kill the dreamer but you cannot . . . kill the dream."

While Kyles doesn't offer much insight into why King was shot, he provides plenty of context for the turbulence of the time. Director Adam Pertofsky also interviews other civil rights figures, including Benjamin Hooks.

One final reason to watch The Witness: It's up for an Oscar Sunday in the Best Documentary Short category.

Mike Pearson