The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/52234/black-power-mixtape-1967-1975-the/
September 9, 2011
Review by Jason Bailey
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is an appropriately and honestly titled
film--it is not, it should be stressed, a comprehensive documentary of the
Black Power movement, nor does it aim to be. It instead a sort of hybrid of
found footage and audio commentary, a pastiche/montage assembled from available
pieces, going for an overall mood and feel rather than definitive reportage.
The footage that comprises it was shot in the titular years by Swedish
television crews, who were intrigued by the anti-war and civil rights
movements, and made several voyages to the States, their reporters more open
and less jaded than their American counterparts. The footage aired and then
went into their archives, where it was recently discovered by Swedish filmmaker
Goran Olsson.
What he found is, for students of contemporary American history, astonishing.
There is footage of young Stokely Carmichael, charismatic, composed, and
complicated; he's as fierce giving an address in Stockholm as he is soft
interviewing his mother in their Chicago living room. Young black mourners
outside of RFK's New York funeral despair of any real progress in the wake of
yet another assassination. William Kunstler is interviewed in the aftermath of
the debacle at Attica. There are remarkable, off-the-cuff shots of Harlem circa
'73, transposed with the shocking commentary of a white guide on a passing tour
bus. The Swedish cameras ride along with both cops and drug dealers ("Everyone
is selling dope," says one of the latter, "from the government on down"),
providing a vivid portrait of the devastation of the heroin epidemic, given a
face and voice by the devastating interview with a teen prostitute.
But the most intriguing footage captures, just in flashes and snatches, the
fast rise and equally quick fall of the Black Power movement. From Carmichael
we go to the first roar of the Black Panthers; there are extraordinary shots of
Eldridge Cleaver in exile in Algiers, of Huey Newton being bailed out, of Lewis
Farrakhan just before he came to power, of the Angela Davis trial. Davis
herself is heard from twice--then, in a riveting jailhouse interview, and now,
in a reflective voice-only interview.
These audio appearances, which sometimes have the feel of a DVD audio
commentary, feature not only period figures like Davis, Melvin Van Peebles, and
Harry Belafonte, but contemporary musicians and writers like Erykah Badu, Talib
Kewli, Sonia Sanchez, and Robin Kelley. They provide not only current
reflections and recollections, but valuable context--particularly in
understanding how drugs put the brakes on the whole bag. Also among the
commentators is Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots, who also wrote the
original music for the film; it is so authentic to the period that I was
shocked, in the end credits, by how few vintage songs were used.
There is the occasional sense that the film may have been padded a bit to get
to feature length; a lengthy sidebar taking on a TV Guide attack piece claiming
Swedish television to be "un-American" is, at best, only tangentially related.
And the filmmakers don't really seem sure of how to bring the picture to a
close--Erykah Badu's comment that "It's not about black and white, it's about
telling our story," is a valid one, but also highlights the unfortunate fact
that this is a story being told by outsiders, and one that occasionally lacks
in insider's insight. Those complaints aside, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
is a good and valuable film, providing a potent snapshot of that memorable
intersection of Black music, culture, and politics.
.
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