Jul

“Crime After Crime” is a moving documentary about a woman’s perseverence, and the sausage-making in “justice”

“Crime After Crime,” a feature-length documentary by Yoav Potash, about a troubled young woman, Deborah Peagler, who was convicted of homicide more than 25 years ago. This, after having asked neighborhood gangsters to make her abusive lover stop beating and terrorizing her. While a 2003 California law would only demand six years of her life in prison, her 1983 sentence took more than 25. This is her story.

This suspenseful true story will show at the Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul starting on July 29th.

Ms. Deborah Peagler awaits justice and freedom (courtesy Sundance)

Two lawyers, Nadia Costa and Joshua Safran, stepped up to take her case, pro bono, after a 2003 California law was passed that changed the game for victim/survivors of domestic abuse who are convicted of homicide, and free her. In doing so they found a sympathetic client, and a District Attorney’s office, run by Steve Cooley, that has committed and is committing “Crime After Crime,” as Mr. Safran described their conduct, to save face and keep careers.

When you picture justice, this isn’t it: not “Crime After Crime.” It’s a spectacular story, where the themes and stakes will remind some of you of the activist 1970s movie trend with such titles as 1980′s “Brubaker,” 1979′s “…And Justice for All,” and 1975′s “Dog Day Afternoon,” of the underdog.

Winston Churchill, an extraordinary political icon of the United Kingdom, once said that “Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms…” As it goes with that, so this seems to with justice: she was denied parole at least thrice. At one point Safran describes how the parole and appellate process work in ways, which ignore or preclude the convict’s promise for doing good. Ms. Deagler had been an ideal inmate, had earned a two-year degree, become a mentor to junior inmates and served far more time than 2000s laws demanded. So the case requires Herculean efforts even when the law, precedent and rhetorical are on their side.

Lawyers Josh Safran and Nadia Costa guide Ms. Peagler toward freedom, if not justice (courtesy Berkeley Side)

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office does so many things that clash with the public’s interests or Ms. Peagler’s. It makes you wretch and doubt America’s commitment to justice, or equal justice. Originally she was sentenced via a legal perspective that lumped women, who lash out is desperation at their abusive husbands or lovers, with those women who kill in cold blood.

The stakes, offenses and perversions of justice, and morals in this story make it a crackerjack whodunit. What makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand is that “Crime After Crime” trains its crosshairs, more and more, on the prosecutors misconduct. The DA’s office conceals a pivotal document, uses unreliable and impotent witness testimony and reneges on compassionate agreements.

California's masses support Peagler's cause (courtesy LATimes.com)

“Crime After Crime” boasts as many plot twists and is as fast-paced as a sweeps week episode of “Law & Order.” In some ways this is similar to 1993′s “In the Name of the Father,” even though that drama, which was based on a true story, exonerates justice in the United Kingdom. In both stories, convicts languish in prison for crimes, and with sentences, more heinous than the evidence warranted.

Ms, Peagler’s odyssey is even more trying and dramatic than another documentary, POV’s “Presumed Guilty,” from 2010. That indicts the Mexican version of justice – and a very non-Western. That candid and uncomfortable exposé provides excellent and telling comparison to Ms. Peager’s story.

Alongside being a splendid true crime drama, this documentary pushes us to consider several uncomfortable questions: what is justice? what color is it? why must it not only have a price, but one that makes our noses bleed? Finally, what do we expect from it vs. what America’s founders wanted us to expect from it.

Jul

“Rejoice and Shout” spreads the good news – Gospel’s history

“Rejoice and Shout” is a feature-length documentary, from director Don McGlynn, about the history of Gospel music. It’s described as a rhythmic, ancestral pillar that African-Americans used to sustain themselves and to keep sane during their centuries in slavery. It told the audience that, at least at church, beyond the anglo gaze, “I am Somebody!”

One of the Blind Boys groups (courtesy Magnolia Pictures)

A staple of the documentary genre is cutting between archival and interview footage. This film does that. It tells an interesting, surprising and entertaining story, omitting any dogma that you might expect. It runs down the time-line of the genre and its innovations, some typical, others “unholy.”

It shows at the Edina Cinema for a week starting on July 8. This documentary provides a who’s who of the indelible and most potent Gospel artists, also dredging up memories of folks who time might have forgotten. “Rejoice and Shout” makes clear that as long as the music is understood as honoring God, then it should please Him and in-turn his followers.

It tells about Gospel music’s pivotal personalities, trends and game-changing innovations, it tells about clashing sensibilities of faith and styles of music. At the heart of some innovations is a question: isn’t it unholy marry rap with gospel, or blues with gospel, or any popular music with that pious one?

Mavis Staples (courtesy Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

This story tells us how Thomas A. Dorsey, while ultimately revered, caught hell for having mixed the blues with Gospel, making what some considered heretical. (Ray Charles had similar clashes when he took those chances.) It tells us how Rosetta Tharpe, who may be less known than Mavis Staples, inspired the latter to take up the guitar; before Ms. Tharpe did it, Ms. Staples hadn’t known that it was possible. And without the Dixie Hummingbirds, The Temptations might not’ve been.

Many documentaries are more creative, with editing, location and other choices, and take chances with their storytelling. “Rejoice and Shout” is a strong, competent film.

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Jan

What do “10,000 Black Men Named George” have to do with Martin L King?

There’s a film about a pivotal labor activist, and with a peculiar title, that tells a sad story within its title, “10,000 Black Men Named George.” Thousands of “nameless” African American men worked as porters on the railroads. The man was Asa Philip Randolph, although his first name is rarely spelled out.

This is Martin Luther King’s weekend. His birthday is on Jan. 15th, while we await Monday to celebrate his profound legacy. Next to the most publicized personalities of January and Black History Month – Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes and William E. B. Du Bois – Mr. Randolph might be the least known.

It’s remarkable that the most palatable icon, Martin L. King, has not yet had a biopic made about him. In 1992 Spike Lee gave us “Malcolm X.” Ten years later, Julie Dash gave us “The Rosa Parks Story” with Angela Bassett for cable. And then, also in 2002, Robert Townsend, brought Showtime TV and us A. Philip Randolph (portrayed by André Braugher) and the porters’ story of toiling to improve Sleeping Car Porters’ work lives. “10,000 Black Men” potently sheds light on a little known portion of American labor relations, at the crossroad of African-American history.

The film’s first scene shows how their work might go, illustrating a common sort of clash with a client: when a porter sees a woman steal and stow Pullman towels into her luggage, he diplomatically reminds her not to do that. He tells her that the porters are charged for items, that end up missing. “Stunned,” she insists on telling his boss, the conductor, of this daring, uppity offense. When the conductor arrives, the porter stands there and take the situation.

While Rev. King deserves our reverence, he’s one of a small cadre of comet-bright icons – out of the 100s and 1,000s who deserve as much recognition. It’s an irony that so many activists in that list, above, had no films made in their names, save for Justice Marshall with CBS’ “Separate But Equal” in 1991. One worthy question is “why so few the movies have been made about even that set of almost 10?”

Pullman Porter Helping Woman (courtesy Creative Commons)

“10,000 Black Men” is a delight to watch, sneaking history lessons into a great story. The under-recognized André Braugher’s portrayal of Randolph is key. Late in the film there are pivotal scenes that highlight loyalty and betrayal. One climactic scene has a kindly elder porter, zealous about the movement, found out as a Judas, a double-agent. And then we see the hardship that Mrs. Randolph, an entrepreneur, endures when protests against on her husband force her to shutter her salon.

According to an excerpt of “Marching Together,” from google books, “the porter [union] election results forced the Pullman Company to recognize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as the porters’ and maids’ legitimate representative. More than two years passed before contract negotiations were completed,” 12 years to the day after they began their struggle.

In the 1920s and 1930s the porters were paid such meager respect that the patrons and Pullman Company didn’t care what the porters’ mothers had named them. It was easier to call “them” George, after George Pullman, the company’s founder. According to Rising from the Rails, a website that honors the porters, “They were hired…because they epitomized Pullman’s vision of safe, reliable, and invisible servants.”

Taking a way-back look at a movie reminds us of films that could be memorable and give us something, if we take the time for them. While some movies are “always” on cable TV, these aren’t.

Oct

“Night Catches Us,” a bold, refreshing drama, has debut at Twin Cities Film Festival

Night Catches Us is Philadelphia-based independent filmmaker Tanya Hamilton’s first feature film. It made its debut at the Twin Cities Film Festival on September 30th. The heart of the film is the connection between Marcus Washington [Anthony Mackie of The Hurt Locker and Million Dollar Baby], a pragmatic drifter, and felon, and Patricia Wilson [Kerry Washington of The Last King of Scotland and She Hate Me].

Night Catches Us gives us relationships. And secrets. And reckonings. And reconciliations. That’s a lot for 90-minutes, but it works well, except for this film’s twitchy volume dial; occasionally the dialogue or score would drop or leap a few decibels. That’s only a problem when you’re trying to pay attention.

There are the political stories, and the erotic. Some secrets to protect those adults from truths, which hurt more than their chosen, accepted myths. Other secrets to protect a child, letting her keep her fleeting innocence. Maybe the film’s title comes from the idea that the night catches us with our guards down, and secrets more accessible.

There are three or so pivotal relationships are tense, each carrying historical baggage. On the political tip, Marcus must move past or through Dwayne AKA “Do Right” [Jaime Hector], a former Panther and local thug, who just knows that Marcus’ snitching killed a Panther. On the erotic tip, he rekindles with his lost lover, Patty (That’s Patricia, damn it!) after what she calls abandonment.

In this tight, largely segregated community, their neighborhood is family; that family’s post-1960s politics has cooled into the pragmatic. In order to keep Patty’s home space calm, Marcus confronts a morose, young, wannabe Panther, Jimmy [Amari Cheatom], who is ne’er do well, lost in the romance of activism. Amid Marcus’ confrontations and rekindlings, Patricia strives to smooth the scuffles, which he leaves in his wake – she wants him to stick around.

Marcus has to reckon with “Do Right” for being the snitch that the whole neighborhood “knows” he is, but that he knows he isn’t. “Do Right” needs to assert and affirm his defacto reign over the area. Marcus has meager time for that viril, righteous, boasting. That doesn’t slow “Do Right” even a bit.

The knuckle-head character, Jimmy [Amari Cheatom], is a forthright jab at the myriad young Black men who are lost, scared, and struggling, but dare not let on. Weakness does nothing for street cred. He’s like the cats who spout off Malcolm X or Stokely Carmichaels’ well-worn words, but barely understand how much study and struggle went into them. Jimmy knows too little to carry the words, or the respect that he expects to earn by speaking them. He is a lesson.

Marcus and Patty reconnect.

The budding rapport between Marcus and Patricia’s daughter, Iris, is significant and special for the trio. The girl’s point of view is also a door that connects this film to To Kill a Mockingbird through her Scout-like precocity. Marcus’ quiet strength endears and engages her. He resembles the father figure whom she has lacked, nevermind that Patty already has been sharing her home, bed and herself with one steady man. Marcus is a different refreshing one; in being so, he eases Patty’s burden.

This is an atypical, even radical film, particularly for a Black person, and especially a woman, to make, in at least three ways. First off, there’s no urban blight. Secondly, Patty’s household is basically in-tact, and thirdly we are reminded of or given a primer on the Black Panthers.

The film flaunts no prototypical ghetto blights – neither drugs, nor prostitutes, nor typical gun play, nor casual swearing. In addition to those omissions, Ms. Hamilton’s story is subtly radical. We have an improvised, functional nuclear family with the temporary trio. Both adults are smart, warm, and educated. That isn’t even the radical stuff: Marcus and Patricia’s respective stories provide a primer on the Philadelphia Black Panthers – at least in broad strokes.

Marcus and Iris get close

I ought not fawn over this film or the satisfaction. Chris Rock has joked about “Givin’ people extra credit for doin’ shit they’re already supposed to be doing.” I know: I’m a film snob, along with my other assorted snobberies. But I yearn for stories like this, that are quiet and simple, and which remind me of Akeelah and the Bee. When cynical or quietly bigoted Anglo money men drag their feet, they insist that there’s no audience. Night Catches Us is a splendid surprise. There are scant well-made films for thinking Black people (or for brown or beige one). I hope this refreshes viewers and draws them to the cinema when Night Catches Us comes out on December 3rd. I give extra credit, hoping that that emboldens other filmmakers who want to follow suit.

Ms. Hamilton found inspiration for Night Catches Us from and made connections to To Kill a Mockingbird. When she had just arrived in high school, she found some of her “aunt’s” things: memories from her activism, like an arrest outside the White House. She was engaged and curious. Her “aunt” wasn’t – at all. Both surprises, the discovery and the stern reticence, opened her mind. In some ways, the girl, Iris, is the filmmaker. Ms. Hamilton’s experience was the slow drip through her life, which impelled her to finally translate that experience, and soem dogged research into this film.

On the technical and aesthetic tips, even though this is Ms. Hamilton’s first feature, she already has a film grammar that distinguishes her work from most of her peers. In a conversation with her, she said that her thesis film at Cooper Union also showed her chosen editorial style: a taste for a mélange of dramatic, archival, and different types of animated footage.

The opening or title sequence can tell a lot about the film and its maker. Is it banal or conservative, is it boldly artistic or vibrant, does it command your attention and interest? Much as out television themes used to describe the show’s world, objective, and attitude, this title sequence does too. It uses hip-hop music, hip-hop influenced images, and movements between those two, to outline the world, history, and dramas within Night Catches Us. Bottom-line: is it used to support the story; in a robust way? These sequences rarely merit a conversation. You can debate whether it should draw our attention, whether it should be subtle and conservative, or should resemble children as W.C. Fields often supposedly said, “be seen and not heard.” I am already biased and convinced.

How about the editing style or aesthetic? I cannot recall the last film I saw that dared to exploit more than dramatic and archival shots in one film, consistently. Night Catches Us moves beyond that: it uses animation, two different types, and does it in as many ways. It’s refreshing. A crude, hand-made Black Panthers comic book of mediocre line drawings comes to moving, swaggering life before Iris eyes as she thumbs through it. It grabs out attention too. It’s a remarkable and motivating animation until Marcus tells knucklehead Jimmy the truth about the propaganda’s source. He pops Jimmy’s bubble, and deflates some of its militant sweetness and fire.

If we’re going to rate this film, 4 1/2 out of 5.

Jul

A very different kind of Fourth of July film: “Nightjohn.”

Independence Day. I suspect that few of us reflect for any meaningful time about what this holiday, this day of remembrance, means to our lives. For the most part, we just don’t have to ask ourselves if our rights will be acknowledged. For peoples on America’s margins, their rights to literacy and education, or their personhood were ignored or denied. Of course, these are natural rights for which the U.S.’ founders fought, tooth and nail.

Now how about July 4th movies?

Identifying films about this holiday’s theme, which emphasize well-developed stories and well-drawn characters over spectacular visual effects, is a trial; they’re mostly about action. I suppose that independent and documentary films treat those lofty, incisive questions far more frequently and deftly than commercial ones do. They’re coveted along a different part of our society’s margins.

Some movies remind us of just how grateful we should be for the founders. Although “Nightjohn” does not refer to the Fourth of July, the made-for-TV film fits the bill.

Struggle.

This word rarely pops to mind when you think about access to education; mostly when you’re struggling to make the grade.

It’s also only a popular movie topic when bullets are flying and bodies are dropping. ”Nightjohn” tells a compelling story about a people’s yearning and struggle to simply, merely read; to understand themselves and their world. It stars a thoroughly talented actor, and Minnesota native, Carl Lumbly; He, as well as scores of other actors, seems terribly under employed and underappreciated.

Carl Lumbly

“Nightjohn” is a coming-of-age story to some extent. It was adapted in 1996 from a 1993 novel by Gary Paulsen. This film is a fantastic and fascinating reminder of a people for whom the pursuit of literacy, education, and personhood meant a death sentence. It’s intense, but in a great way; just like all the other Independence Day films.

So find “Nightjohn.” Pull it from your library, rent it from wherever, or buy it. Watch it; Appreciate it and reflect for at least a few moments. When that’s over, talk to your children about independence and gratitude. And then go back out for a swim or light up the grill again.

Jun

Looking at documentaries nearly 90 yrs after “Nanook of the North”

On June 11, 1922 the “father of documentary film,” Robert J. Flaherty, made his most significant work, “Nanook of the North.” This film is reputed to be the pinnacle of his documentary career as “Citizen Kane” is routinely deemed the pinnacle of Orson Welles’.

Nanook of the North 1922

So roughly 90 years later, I figure that it’s good to ask two questions:

How many people watch documentaries?
Which recently released ones, by or about people of color, are worth watching?

Documentaries seem to be some of the least respected and loved films. Unless critics or viewers have raved about a film, and then it has been carried by word of mouth, it seems to be left to sink or swim in the media market place. The trailers and previews for documentaries seem to be very few and far between. One well-established and well-known Minneapolis producer, Craig Rice, an African-American, corrects us about the idea of an abyss for documentaries.

They’re “more popular now than they ever were before” Rice said. He said that, whatever fans of popular films might assume, documentaries are out there. “And they’re making money.” When asked about people of color, particularly African-Americans’ interest, he said, “I don’t think we watch documentary films! It’s always about popular films.”

The ones that are worth watching, like those that I’ll recommend, have as much drama, or action, or whatever you want in a movie experience, as the films at the cineplexes.

I’ll recommend three films:

Ken Burns’ “Unforgivable Blackness,” from 2004, is about a brazen iconoclast. He is Jack Johnson, an African-American. He was a boxer competing with Anglo (white) foes, in the 1910s when that was neither typical, nor safe. Anglo men were expected to win and retain the heavy weight title well before the opposite was assumed. He was such a force of personality that he couldn’t have been ignored in this century and certainly not 100 years ago at the start of the 20th.

He preferred and openly romanced Anglo women. So 100 years ago, nearly 50 years before the criminal courts made miscegenation legal, he ignored the colorline and lived.

The Film:

“Unforgivable Blackness” is an exceptional film. It is a compelling story about a 20th century character, Jack Johnson, who seems barely known and rarely discussed in mainstream media. But he was larger than life. His bravura preceded, and may have rivaled, that of Mohammed Ali. At the time, boxing was one vital pillar of Anglo (white) American manhood. By wanting to compete, as an equal, with Anglo fighters, Mr. Johnson showed his desire to knock that pillar down. White manhood was at stake.

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Marshall Curry’s “Street Fight,” from 2005, is about a brawling political contest in Newark, New Jersey. It was that year’s Academy Award nominee for best documentary feature. This was a mayoral contest between two strong-willed African-American men from disparate backgrounds and who carry themselves with very different swaggers. There was the 32 year incumbent, Sharpe James, and the Rhodes scholar upstart, Cory Booker. They are from disparate generations and each one fights to keep and maybe lift the beleaguered city of Newark, New Jersey out of its economic and criminal justice abyss.

The Film:

The film shows those unorthodox and guerilla campaign tactics which Mr. Sharpe’s team used to keep to his mayoral power within his clutches. He used his official power to have city employees do his crony work, while Mr. Booker strove to run a professional and civil campaign. With the way that Mr. Booker seems to have chafed against the voters, they seem to have sided with the corruption they know and understood, Mr. James, in lieu of taking a chance with a different smooth talker who might just be an updated Mr. James. “The Washington Post” called it the best political documentary since “The War Room,” which was a chronicle of James Carville’s and George Stephanopoulos’ work with the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign.

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Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco’s “Daughter from Danang,” from 2002, is a gut-wrenching story about two women’s reunion: a trans “racial” Vietnamese and American daughter, Heidi Bob, (born Mai thi Hiep) and her Vietnamese birth mother. It was that year’s Academy Award nominee for best documentary feature. Ms. Bob, now in her 30s, hadn’t seen her mother since she was taken away at seven years-old.

Their story is complicated by the context and questions of the United States’ Vietnam-era foreign policy. So, this is the dual narrative of these women’s intertwined stories and an even-handed criticism of that slim portion of American foreign policy.

The film:

“Daughter” opens with the story of how Ms. Bob, a trans “racial” adoptee, was “evacuated” you might say from Vietnam. This broaches a phalanx of rich, mixed, and probably bittersweet emotions on the parts of the Vietnamese and North American families. They each want to believe that they are acting for virtue; for the children’s, their families’, and even their respective nations’ sakes.

One stunner. An irony is that she is one of many adoptees who were relocated to the United States as supposed orphans when they were not; their families were often assured and trusted that the U.S. would reunite them with their children…at some point.

This film opens viewers’ eyes and minds to a little discussed chapter of post-Vietnam war history and the story of trans “racial” adoptees. As “Daughter” shows it is as simple and as complex as that.

It reminds me of a fiction film: Oliver Stone’s “Heaven and Earth,” from 1993. It is the third in his defacto Vietnam trilogy. In its essence it’s a very complex story, with composite characters, about making a life and recreating oneself in a new, foreign, and at times forbidding reality.

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Will Wright. Digital Journalist. Reporter.

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