People Before Profit blog

A look back on the life of Richard Attenborough

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 11:46:00 +0000

Richard Attenborough, one of Britain's best known actors, film directors and producers has died at aged 90.

Much has been written about his fine acting performances and the many award winning films he made, about the archetypical luvvie the world media called Dickie and who himself seemed to call everyone "darling."

What I want to do however is to show another side of the man who was true to his socialist principles and who supported so many good and progressive causes.

In 2005 Attenborough told Guardian readers he had voted Labour 60 years previously in the post-war khaki election. He had also joined the Labour Party, the victors in that 1945 election. He remained a Labour Party member and supporter right up until his death.

Indeed when [conservative P.M.] John Major made him a supposedly non-political life peer in 1993 for services to the cinema he rather annoyed Major by immediately taking the Labour whip.

That didn't stop him having differences and strong criticisms of some Labour policies. He voiced strongly his opposition to the Iraq war.

Attenborough never shied away from contentious issues. As early as 1954 he played a young man wrongly accused of paedophilia and murder in Eight O'Clock Walk.

He explained a key motivation in the thinking behind his film-making. "I believe we need heroes." It was these heroes that became the themes of some of his best movies.

Steve Biko was the hero of his 1987 film Cry Freedom. It showed Attenborough's hatred of apartheid and indeed all kinds of racism. It was the high point of Attenborough's anti-apartheid activities and support for Nelson Mandela's rainbow South Africa.

With his wife, English film and theatre actress Sheila Sim. he established a number of educational colleges in South Africa and Swaziland.

He battled for 20 years to raise the funds and support to bring another of his greatest heroes, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, to the screen. Many believe the film was his greatest triumph. It won many awards.

Attenborough was never reluctant to state his progressive views on a wide range of subjects and reflect those views in his work.

"I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life," he said.

He backed up this strong view when he acted the lead role in the 1971 film 10 Rillington Place, based on the book [by British journalist Ludovic Kennedy] that exposed the hanging of innocent Timothy Evans for a murder carried out by John Reginald Christie, played by Attenborough in the film.

"I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism," was another of his oft-stated positions.

A couple of rather dubious parts in anti-union comedies early in his acting career need to be weighed against his long and active membership of actors' union Equity. He served on its council and held many leading positions.

In 1983, Attenborough was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian award, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolence Peace Prize. They meant as much to him than his countless movie industry awards.

This year in particular we should not forget he directed Oh! What a Lovely War, perhaps the best film ever made showing the futility of war.

Later films from him would tell the story of Hollywood giant Charlie Chaplin, who was accused of being a communist and banned from returning to the US during the period of blacklisting and red-baiting that plagued the US movie industry in the '50s and '60s.

In Shadowlands he addressed the question of what happens when US atheist and communist poet Joy Davidman challenges Christian theoretician and children's book writer C.S. Lewis's faith. [It's complicated: in 1958 Davidman married Lewis.]

Perhaps the greatest disappointment of his life, and ours, was that he was never able to make a film about a man he admired as much as any other.

He had a life-long ambition to make a film about his greatest hero, the political theorist and revolutionary Thomas Paine.

He called Paine "one of the finest men that ever lived. I could understand him. He wrote in simple English. I found all his aspirations - the rights of women, the health service, universal education...Everything you can think of that we want is in Rights of Man, The Age of Reason or Common Sense."

Sadly the money could never be raised. Perhaps the thought of Richard Attenborough and Thomas Paine coming together still had the power to frighten the life out of those who hold the political and cultural purse strings in our country.

Photo: Richard Attenborough CC BY 2.0

Reposted from Morning Star

Native rap star Frank Waln to perform for ESPN show on R-word

Wed, 27 Aug 2014 14:50:00 +0000

CHICAGO - If you haven't heard the uproar over the Washington R******s and the push to #changethename, then you haven't been paying attention to social media or you've been living under a rock. Recently, ex-Bears head coach Mike Ditka said, "R****** name change is so stupid, it's appalling." While on the flip side, NFL sportscasters Phil Simms and Tony Dungy have said they will only refer to the Washington team as Washington and not the R-word.

ESPN came to the American Indian Center of Chicago, to film (Indian-famous soon to be real-famous) rap star Frank Waln performing a new song for the show, "Outside the Lines." The shoot was done on the stage at Chicago's American Indian Center with Robert Wapahi's mural beautifully lit up in the background. This was a closed shoot and, according to the director, the show is to be focused on the Washington R-word and the debate over a name change. After filming the video, Chi-Nations had the chance to catch up with Frank to talk about how the issue is affecting the youth and he had a lot to say. (See video below.)

Earlier this year, the American Indian Center hosted a town hall on this very topic and the response to the portrayal of natives as mascots. Overall, the opinions were mixed and inconclusive on the use of native imagery as applied to the Chicago Blackhawks but in seemingly full agreement to the disgust over the Washington football team's use over the derogatory R-Word.

This is a debate that will not be resolved until Washington's owner, Snyder, changes the name. Asking Chi-Nations member Anthony Pochel how he feels about the portrayal of native people as mascots and he said, "As Native youth we feel - what's that word when you feel not a human - dehumanized."

ESPN's show, "Outside the Lines," will air next week on Tuesday, September 2, 2014.

Photo: Frank Waln via Facebook

"Boyhood," in a land of opportunity they don't make it easy

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 16:38:00 +0000

Writer and director Richard Linklater's latest release had an intriguing gestation, filmed in and around Houston over a twelve-year timeframe from 2002 to 2013. He used a core of actors who came together for short stints to move the story along, following developments in their lives suggested and scripted by the actors themselves. The film is almost a sequential montage of home movies, a time-lapse study in maturation. A front door opens and something looks different: Yes, it's a few months later.

Growing up can seem interminable to those growing up: Boyhood is a genuine bladder buster, clocking in at 166 minutes. Be forewarned! Yet it is always magnetic, never self-indulgent.

The four principals are the boy, Mason, Jr., played from age 6 to 18 by Ellar Coltrane, who started this project at the age of seven. His older sister Samantha, played by Lorelei Linklater. The self-realizing mother, Olivia, portrayed by Patricia Arquette; and the somewhat irresponsible father, Mason, Sr., by Ethan Hawke.

Covering twelve years of life as a series of milestones, the film has an epic quality, while remaining almost obsessively intimate. Critics have compared it to a Tolstoy novel. There are references to the beginning of Dubya's Iraq War, five years later to the election that Barack Obama won, and toward the end to the NSA's far-reaching antennae into our lives. But one might cavil that its tight focus on the family ignores much that is happening in the wider world. Perhaps the concerns of boyhood do not generally extend that far.

And yet it is clear what side Linklater is on: The people's. Indicated in a pile-up of details, about neighborhoods, schools, mortgages, discipline and the work ethic, the job market, male chauvinism, bullying and domestic violence, the power adults wield over children, romance, marriage, divorce, and blended families, sex, alcohol, religion.

It's rough being a kid in a society that treats so wide a swath of its citizens as so much human trash. Viewers will simply have to extrapolate for themselves all the other kids on the block who don't make it out of childhood in one piece. We know there's a lot of broken promises in life. Linklater has chosen the universal title Boyhood. It's up to us to figure out how generalized this particular story can be.

I'm reminded of those one-minute YouTube videos addressed to young GLBT kids, but really to every kid, from people telling them, "It Gets Better." You get the feeling that if Mason and Samantha can just hang in long enough to go off to college, they're gonna be OK. The director seems to feel that America is still a land of opportunity, but dammit, they don't make it easy.

A nice touch: Mason starts driving, and his vehicle is a Toyota truck, the TO and the TA erased, so only YO remains, as he begins finding his way around as the young "I" of a fully formed personality.

Make no mistake: This is not just a coming of age story about the boy. All of the core characters grow up, mature, come into their own over these twelve years, leaving detritus behind that no longer serves a useful purpose. The implication is that none of us ever stops growing and changing-and that a riveting film could conceivably be constructed about any life, given enough resources and expertise.

Linklater's recent films include Fast Food Nation, Me and Orson Welles, and Before Midnight. Boyhood won a Silver Bear for the director at the Berlin Film Festival, and it also scored big at the San Francisco, SXSW, and Seattle film festivals. Much deserved. See it.

Photo: "Boyhood" Facebook page.

Boyhood, 165 mins., rated R

Director: Richard Linklater

Writer: Richard Linklater

Stars: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke |

"Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists": Great socialist novel marks 100th anniversary

Fri, 22 Aug 2014 13:22:00 +0000

The 20th century Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser argued that bourgeois art operated on the model of consumption: the play, novel or painting was meant to arouse and satisfy our desires, leaving us content and complacent. By contrast, radical art, he suggested, must instead aim to "produce a new, true and active consciousness" in its audience. What we need, Althusser suggested, is art that both helps us to recognize the social structures that shape our lives and also motivates us to go out and transform them.

In an era when most works of art are meant to leave us satisfied, glutted with special effects and violence and fantasy and sex, motivated only to buy the DVD or look forward to the sequel, such radical art seems hard to come by. So perhaps it is time to recall a great work of socialist literature from the past: The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, by Robert Tressell, published 100 years ago this year.

Tressell was the pen name of Robert Noonan, a British house painter and socialist who was born in Ireland in 1870 and died in England of tuberculosis in 1911 at the age of 41. The novel was published, with the help of his daughter, three years after his death, and has remained popular in England ever since, sometimes credited with helping promote the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.

Writing in the early part of the 20th century, Tressell describes the gradual decline in prosperity of the working class following the 1907 depression, a decline that seemed to have no end in sight, with each passing year seeing more men out of work, more families becoming homeless, and an increasingly difficult struggle to survive on sporadic work and multiple low-paying jobs. Tressell's novel is set in a time before computers and cell phones, when the automobile was new and uncommon. But the economic hardship faced by the working class following a financial crisis from which the rich "recovered" while workers were forced to accept lower wages and a diminished standard of living ... well, that sounds all too familiar, right?

Tressell seems to have written the novel in an attempt to solve the great problem that has always faced socialists: how do we overcome the power of capitalist ideology? Throughout the book, we hear Tressell's frustration, often given voice by the character Frank Owen, a socialist house painter who repeatedly attempts to convert his coworkers to his way of thinking. Late in the book, during a parliamentary election campaign, Owen once again faces despair: "They did not know the causes of their poverty, they did not want to know, they did not want to hear." The majority of the working men support the conservative Tory party, sure that this party will give them "plenty of work" by means of some rather obscure financial and tax reforms.

Despite his obvious frustration, Tressell rejects the cynical path taken by one socialist in the novel, who gets tired of being abused by those he is trying to help and turns to writing campaign speeches for the Tory party. For Tressell, the only hope for our children, for the future of the majority of the human race, is to keep working to produce a socialist party. This novel is one part of such work, and it attempts to combine two different approaches to achieve this end.

One part of the novel is a traditional melodrama reminiscent of many Victorian novels. We witness men out of work struggling to make the rent, buy food, and clothe their children; older workers sent to the workhouse and early death; and the wives of these working men putting in 14-hour days doing piecework sewing at home or cleaning houses, until several characters contemplate suicide as the only escape. The focus, in this part of the narrative, on the despair of the women and children is clearly meant to be motivational. The workers "do not want to know," and Tressell hopes, by showing them the awful effects of this lingering economic recession, to make them feel the need to know.

The other part of the novel, probably the bulk of the writing, consists of social and economic satire, meant to expose corruption and to explain the inherent injustice in "The System." Tressell tries, in multiple chapters, to find ways to explain the inherent contradictions of capitalism and the solutions offered by socialism, reminding us again and again that it isn't a matter of a few corrupt and greedy individuals, that the capitalist system itself requires poverty and inequality. And his explanations are very well done, lucid and compelling.

Of course, as he also repeatedly reminds us, no matter how clearly explained, most people will just not want to understand, or if they do, will remain convinced that there's nothing they can do to change things. This is where socialist art comes in, however. A novel like this should leave us frustrated and exasperated, motivated to work together to educate and agitate, to produce a socialist party. Our children's lives depend on it.

Tressell didn't live to see his novel published, but it has remained in print continuously for a century now, first in an abridged edition, then after 1955 in an edition that restored the novel, as closely as possible, to its original manuscript form. Today, it is available in a relatively cheap edition from Wordsworth Classics, as well as in free or very inexpensive digital formats.

Tressell's depiction of the real daily life of ordinary working men and women is engaging and will likely ring true to anyone who has worked in such trades even today. And certainly all socialists can share his experience of frustration at the difficulty of the work to be done, the very hard work of helping people break through their illusions and misconceptions. His novel can serve as an inspiration to us, both to follow the example of his characters and work for a socialist future, and, hopefully, to write more such novels today, depicting the reality of working life with no fantasy Hollywood endings. The only solution is collective political effort, Tressell tells us. Part of that effort, he shows by example, is the creation of socialist art. Can we listen to him today?

Tentative pacts avert Metropolitan Opera lockout scheme

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 16:01:00 +0000

NEW YORK (PAI) - Tentative contracts with its major unions on August 18 averted the Metropolitan Opera's scheme to lockout its 2,500 union workers in mid-August.

The workers, including International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 1 and Musicians Local 802, which represents the Met's orchestra, were scheduled to vote on the pacts later in August, union leaders said.

Met General Manager Peter Gelb had planned to lock all Met workers out on August 17, but postponed his drastic move as a federal mediator brought the two sides to agreement.

"After many hours of deliberation, we have reached a tentative agreement which is subject to the approval of Local 802′s executive board and ratification by the Met Orchestra Musicians," said Local 802 President Tino Gagliardi.

"The contract includes an unprecedented mechanism for greater financial oversight of the Met's spending going forward," Jessica Phillips Rieske, a clarinetist and chair of the orchestra's bargaining committee, told local media. "We hope it will lead to better collaboration in pursuit of real efficiencies."

"This wasn't easy. However, after a summer spent negotiating, in these final hours we were able to craft an agreement that allows the show to go on and is fair for our members," IATSE International President Matthew Loeb added in a statement.

"We've said since bargaining began in May that IA members understand the financial realities facing the Metropolitan Opera. We've always been willing to contribute to a solution that will keep the world's best operas in front of the world's greatest opera fans. We also have insisted, from day 1, that management must confront budget realities and make substantial and quantifiable contributions to a financially sustainable business model."

Gelb demanded changes in work rules, cuts in health insurance and pensions and cuts - the Met said - of 18 percent. The unions said some of the cuts would be even larger than that due to the pension and health care changes. Gelb declared he needed the slashes to close a $2.8 million deficit in a $311 million budget. He also threatened to declare the Met in bankruptcy in 2017 unless he got what he wanted.

The unions responded savings are available elsewhere in the Met's budget, especially in management overspending. They cited, among other problems, Gelb's own multi-million-dollar salary and $166,000 spent on an expensive stage set.

In the end, news reports said the tentative 4-year pact calls for wage declines of 3.5 now and another 3.5 percent in six months, and a 3 percent raise in its final six months. There were no pension or health care cuts, though the sides agreed to revisit the issue later.

It also imposes a neutral auditor/overseer, investment banker Eugene Keilin, former chair of a board that oversaw New York City finances, with complete access to the Met's books. And it orders the Met management to slash $11.25 million from outside, non-operating expenses. One duty Keilin will have is to make sure Gelb keeps that promise.

Federal mediators recommended and the Met, Musicians Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists "jointly agreed to retain an independent financial analyst to perform a due diligence financial study of the Met and to render a non-binding report to the parties to assist them in reaching new collective bargaining agreements," AGMA said in a statement.

AGMA President James Odom added: "We are encouraged with this step forward that we believe will address the issues in contention and will ultimately lead to an agreement that is fair to everyone." Gagliardi said: "We all look forward to a fair and independent analysis of the complex issues we have been contending with for months. This is a significant development."

And Loeb added: "The tentative agreement - which includes mandatory cost reductions from management and an independent monitor to track budget performance - offers a way to get the Met on a track for success."

Photo: Save the Met Opera Facebook page.

"Life Itself": A Roger Ebert biopic

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 14:12:00 +0000

The new documentary Life Itself is based in part on Roger Ebert's autobiography by the same name. Seemingly inborn with a need to absorb, reflect, and report, at the precocious age of 15 Ebert (1942-2013) joined the staff of his local newspaper. At the University of Illinois at Urbana, he became editor in chief of The Daily Illini.

Early in the documentary the story is told of the article Ebert wrote in response to the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young Black girls. He quoted the often-expressed judgment that the crime could be traced to Alabama Governor George Wallace's door, but Ebert extrapolated the responsibility to all of America, whose bloody race stain, as Lady Macbeth also knew, would never really be erased.

Ebert began working for the Chicago Sun-Times, and within five months became its film critic. In that post he earned a reputation for being fast, literate, and a good storyteller. He also developed a brilliant, nerdy, overweight, socially inept persona as a frequent habitué of Chicago's O'Rourke's tavern, populated well into the wee hours by his heavy drinking newsmen colleagues. In 1975 he won the Pulitzer Prize, the first for film criticism.

The Sun-Times was a good fit for Ebert: Both positioned themselves as pro-labor, liberal Democratic. As a critic, himself of working-class origins, Ebert kept in mind his mainstream readership, avoiding high-falutin verbiage, at the same time able to put his sophisticated understanding of film into accessible language. He showed no bias toward any particular genre of film, capable of evaluating quality wherever he found it, and always glowing with the love and possibilities of the medium itself.

The film tells three main stories: Ebert's rise as a writer; his love-hate, and very public relationship with the Chicago Tribune's Gene Siskel, his counterpart for a quarter of a century on the nationally syndicated PBS film-review program that aced out both the brainier critics on the East Coast and the more celebrity-conscious Hollywood scribes out West; and his going sober, which led finally, at the age of 50, to a successful marriage with Chaz, a Black woman with a ready-made family whom he met through AA. This latter third is also fused with Ebert's successive bouts with cancer, leading ultimately to the removal of his lower jaw and round-the clock medical care.

Throughout it all, Ebert remained upbeat and cheery, knowing that he was loved by a loyal and beautiful woman, also wanting until the very end to connect with his readers. He posted his last blog, his farewell to the world, the day before he died.

Many viewers of the Siskel and Ebert show are likely unaware as to just how wide-ranging Ebert's talents ran: He wrote a zany, over the top screenplay for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, produced several collections of his film writings, travel books on Cannes and London, plus a co-written volume on computer viruses.

Although it's of interest to see them interviewed on screen, director Steve James overuses such personalities as filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, and Ramin Bahrani, critics Gregory Nava, Richard Corliss, and A. O. Scott, Siskel's widow Marlene Iglitzen, various old friends, television producers and agents, as well as Chaz Ebert and family, not to mention numerous outtakes of the Siskel and Ebert show, all of which become redundant by the third or fifth time we see them. At a running time of 115 minutes, Life Itself is full of itself by a good 20 minutes.

Having conducted an extraordinarily unpredictable life, reviewing some 6000 films, Ebert lived his own movie. It was perhaps inevitable that eventually he would star in one. Honest, candid, frank with his readers, he also wanted James's camera to record his day-to-day existence as he morbidly experienced it: jawless, speechless, with a flap of skin hanging from his upper lip forming a chin you can see through, getting his trachea suctioned out (at least twice in the movie), typing or writing out responses to questions, struggling mightily with exercise machines, keeping up his sunny optimism and dedicated work ethic to the very end.

Ebert wanted these daily indignities seen by his viewers, even though he knew he would probably not survive to see the completed film. Perhaps he believed that more than anything else, he wanted to leave to posterity his unbeatable, can-do, will-do, never-give-up attitude as a lesson to us all.

Except for the length, highly recommended.

Photo: Film official website.

Life Itself

Director: Steve James

120 mins., rated R

Kartemquin Films

Remembering Robin Williams: the laughter, compassion, and humanity

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 14:24:00 +0000

When I first read the news of Robin Williams' death, I was stunned by a reaction of deep sadness, dismay, and horror I don't often feel in response to the news of a celebrity passing. He was like a family member gone too soon. It was as if I felt personally betrayed; he had at least 20 good years ahead of him to make us laugh, think, and feel.

Like other Gen Xers, I grew up with Williams' manic comedy, starting with Mork & Mindy in the late seventies. Even as an 11-year old, I realized the show itself was asinine, mere scaffolding for Williams' brilliant improvisation. William's wacky portrayal of a silly-sweet-sardonic alien observing human behavior, able to appeal to adults and children alike with saucy double entendres and plain nuttiness, still stands as a major comedic creation.

Robin Williams' career traversed stand-up comedy, television, and film. A Screen Actors Guild member from 1977, he appeared in dozens of films, including "Dead Poets Society," "Awakenings," "Good Morning Vietnam," "Mrs. Doubtfire," and "The Birdcage." He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "Good Will Hunting" in 1997.

Much has been made of William's cause of death; the familiar old "blame-the-victim" sentiments regarding suicide (it's "selfish" or "cowardly") have been trotted out and shot down. Williams suffered from depression and was struggling with substance abuse for much of his career. He was fairly open about his "demons": note especially his 2010 appearance on Marc Maron's "WTF" podcast, in which he comically relates a "conversation" he had with his conscience when, in the depths of alcohol-triggered depression, he contemplated taking his own life: "How will you do it? Cut your wrists with a Water Pik?"

In the wake of Williams' death, theories about motives for suicide continued to surface: despair over his waning career in the youth-worshipping entertainment industry; the stereotype of "the Sad Clown;" his ongoing struggles with alcohol; a recent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease; even guilt over his lineage (Williams was a descendent of an infamous white supremacist Senator from Mississippi, Anselm J. McLaurin).

Depression is an insidious, misunderstood disease with organic roots in genetics, life experiences, and resultant chemical imbalances in the brain. Suicidal depression is not a result of "character flaws," to characterize it as such is a distraction, and does a major disservice to its sufferers and their loved ones.

One of Williams' outstanding lesser-known performances is in Bobcat Goldthwait's dark 2009 comedy "World's Greatest Dad." Williams plays the grieving father of an obnoxious teenager who accidentally kills himself by autoerotic asphyxiation. Williams' character, a frustrated writer, redeems his son by staging his death as a suicide, ghostwriting a fake suicide note and memoir, thereby transforming the reviled punk into a beloved symbol of teenage angst. Williams' performance is a masterpiece of heart breaking, understated pathos and hilarious awkwardness, in which he ironically delivers the clichéd mental-hygiene bromide: "suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems."

Williams, hardly "selfish" or "cowardly," gave back to the people via his career-spanning progressive activism, from speaking out against the dangers of nuclear power at the Hollywood Bowl in 1978, to raising money for a variety of anti-poverty efforts through Comic Relief, testifying before the Senate in 1990 on the problem of homelessness, and walking the picket line with union brothers and sisters during the 2007 writers' strike.

Marc Maron aptly sums up Williams' gifts:

"He was sensitive, he was perceptive, he was empathetic, his mental agility was astounding, he was full of love, and by the nature of putting all those out into the world, he required [those things] of us."

Photo: In this Oct. 22, 2002 file photo, Robin Williams sings "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in the seventh inning during game 3 of the World Series in San Francisco. Williams was everywhere in San Francisco, it seemed, as he made a place for himself in the everyday fabric of a city where he once said he passed for normal. Julie Jacobson, File/AP

Comedian John Oliver confronts racism, police militarization in Ferguson

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 12:16:00 +0000

Sometimes it takes a Brit to hold up a mirror to America, capture its ugly side and reflect it back in biting, yet empathetic, satire. That is exactly what the former Daily Show reporter and British born comedian John Oliver did on his new HBO show, Last Week Tonight. In the 15-minute segment below, Oliver forthrightly exposes the relationship between racism and the militarization of police departments. "The police are not soldiers," he says, "so why ... are they wearing [expletive] camo? They are northwest of St. Louis, not northwest of the Amazon. If they want to blend into their surroundings they should be dressed as a dollar store. ... If you are a cop in the United States, you should dress for the job you have, not the job you want. Because if you have all this equipment it is going to go to your head."

Oliver quotes the American Civil Liberties Union report, "War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing," which ties the heavy arming of police forces across the country to the failed war on drugs and the ongoing war on terror. The war on drugs is widely seen as a key reason for the mass incarceration and criminalization of African Americans - referred to as "the new Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander in her book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."

Photo/video: HBO

For Whom the Whistle Blows: “The Kill Team”

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 11:48:00 +0000

If Chelsea/Bradley Manning is the whistleblower best known for exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq, another Army Specialist, Adam Winfield, is arguably the most famous truth teller who revealed American atrocities in Afghanistan. Winfield found out the hard way that not only is it tough for those who dare to blow the whistle, but the first casualty of war is still truth.

The 21-year-old infantryman revealed that soldiers of the Fifth Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division, deployed near Kandahar, executed Afghans for sport, then planted weapons beside their corpses to "prove" the casualties were "terrorists." (They also captured these chilling Kodak moments with a series of photos.) Winfield's reward for trying to report these crimes against humanity was, the moment he stepped off a plane returning to America, to be arrested and charged with premeditated murder. He found himself in the Kafka-esque, Catch-22 trap of becoming a target of a major investigation into war crimes he himself had tried to expose.

Winfield tells a probing camera lens: "War is dirty. It's not how they portray it in the movies." But it is how Dan Krauss depicts combat in "The Kill Team," a hard hitting, award-winning documentary where the fog of war mingles with the haze of hashish.

Focusing on Winfield's Alice in Wonderland-like trial and tribulations, "The Kill Team" is also a moving family drama. Backing him up every step of the way are Winfield's Cape Coral, Florida, parents, Emma and Christopher, an ex-Marine. In 2010 Adam tells his father about the wrongdoing in Afghanistan and asks him to inform the Army inspector general. Christopher attempts to alert the military, but to no avail. Even after Adam receives a three-year sentence and bad conduct discharge, his mom and dad unwaveringly believe Adam to be not only innocent, but courageous for standing up for what's right.

Although some disagree as to whether or not Adam is a whistleblower or murderer -- he did not try to stop the killing of Allah Dad and pled guilty to a charge of manslaughter -- Krauss' nonfiction film paints a sympathetic portrait of its protagonist. "The Kill Team" also interviews other members of Winfield's platoon, such as the conflicted Corporal Jeremy Morlock and Private First Class Andrew Holmes, both charged with the premeditated murder of 15-year-old Gul Mudin. Both were dishonorably discharged and are serving long sentences behind bars.

Pfc. Justin Stoner was assaulted by fellow soldiers after he reported their drug use. Along with the apparently decent Winfield, Stoner is the film's conscience and hero. Questioning the military's dehumanization of recruits, the philosophical Stoner ruminates: "Your job is to kill. Then why the hell are you pissed off when we do it?"

The highest ranking soldier charged in this sorry affair is Staff Sgt. Gibbs of Billings, Montana, found guilty of, among other things, three counts of murder. Gibbs looms as a cross between two classic characters from Hollywood's Vietnam War epics: Marlon Brando as Col. Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now" and Tom Berenger as Sgt. Barnes in "Platoon." Like them, the gung-ho Gibbs reportedly goes rogue, instigating the Stryker Brigaders' renegade mayhem and cutting fingers off Afghan cadavers so he can use the bones for a skeletal trophy necklace. Much to his surprise, Gibbs' running amok on the warpath landed him a life sentence at Fort Leavenworth (where he might have some illuminating tête-à-têtes with fellow inmate Chelsea Manning).

A well known documentarian on the left, Krauss directed, co-wrote, produced, and shot "The Kill Team," which won the Tribeca Film Festival's Best Documentary Feature and the San Francisco International Film Festival's Golden Gate awards. "The Kill Team" unspools slowly, deliberately, told mostly by talking heads. It reminds us that far from being a noble endeavor fought, as Winfield ironically muses, by "a bunch of honorable men with unshakable patriotism," war is, as Jean Renoir titled his 1937 pacifist masterpiece, "The Grand Illusion."

While politically aware audiences will appreciate Krauss' war-is-hell message, this documentary's real target market are those young impressionable people who have bought into the madness of Washington's endless imperial misadventures. Adam Winfield wised up. Perhaps, by seeing "The Kill Team," others will wake up and stay home instead.

"The Kill Team" is rolling out now in theaters across the nation.

Photo: "The Kill Team" official Facebook page

Actress Lauren Bacall, who protested Hollywood blacklist, dies at 89

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:47:00 +0000

NEW YORK (AP) - Lauren Bacall had one of those incredible lives.

The wife and co-star of Humphrey Bogart. A Tony Award-winning actress. A National Book Award-winning author. A giant of fashion. A friend of the Kennedys. One of the last survivors of Hollywood's studio age.

A star almost from the moment she appeared on screen to the day she died, Tuesday, at age 89, at a New York City hospital.

"Stardom isn't a career," Bacall once observed, "it's an accident."

What a lucky accident it turned out to be.

Her career was one of great achievement and some frustration. The actress received a Golden Globe and an honorary Oscar and appeared in scores of film and TV productions. But not until 1996 did she receive an Academy Award nomination - as supporting actress for her role as Barbra Streisand's mother in "The Mirror Has Two Faces." Although a sentimental favorite, she was beaten by Juliette Binoche for her performance in "The English Patient."

Bacall would outlive her first husband by more than 50 years, but never outlived their legend, which began in their first movie together, "To Have or Have Not," when she uttered to Bogart among the sultriest lines in Hollywood history (in part because of that come-hither delivery): "You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

They were "Bogie and Bacall" - the hard-boiled couple who could fight and make up with the best of them. They were A-list glamour and B-movie danger. Unlike Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Bogart and Bacall were not a story of opposites attracting but of kindred, smoldering spirits. She was less than half Bogart's age, yet as wise, and as jaded, as he was. They threw all-night parties, laughed at the snobs, palled around with Frank Sinatra and others and formed a gang of California carousers known as the Holmby Hills Rat Pack.

After Bogart's death, she continued to forge her own distinct path. On television, in films, in her books, she was blunt, sardonic, demanding, loyal. Pity anyone who knocked Bogart, crossed one of her friends or voted Republican.

Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx, the daughter of Jewish immigrants. Her parents divorced when Betty was 8, and the mother took part of her family name, Bacal. (Betty added the extra L when she became an actress.)

At first she dreamed of becoming a dancer, but thought herself too "gawky" and acting became her ambition. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and played a few walk-on roles in Broadway plays. Diana Vreeland, the famed editor of Harper's Bazaar, recognized the slender, long-limbed actress as ideal for fashion modeling. The wife of film director Howard Hawks recommended her for movies, and Bacall went to Hollywood under a contract. "To Have and Have Not" came out in 1944.

In "By Myself," she wrote of meeting Bogart:

"There was no thunderbolt, no clap of thunder, just a simple how-do-you-do."

She was 19 and on her first day of shooting, her hands were shaking so much that she couldn't manage a simple scene of lighting a cigarette. Hawks helped by breaking the scene into short takes.

"I realized that one way to hold my trembling head still was to keep it down, chin almost to my chest and eyes up at Bogart. It worked, and turned out to be the beginning of 'The Look,'" she later wrote.

Work led to romance. The quarter century age difference (he called her "Baby") failed to deter them, but Bogart was still married to his third wife, the mercurial actress Mayo Methot. She was persuaded to divorce him in Reno, and the lovers were married on May 21, 1945.

Bogart and Bacall made three more movies together, and bantered best in the classic adaptation of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep." She took time out to bear two children, and to accompany her husband as they roughed it in Africa for "The African Queen," co-starring Bogart and Hepburn. She also became active politically, joining Bogart in protesting the Hollywood blacklist of suspected Communists and campaigning for Democrats. Few could forget the picture of her slouched on top of a piano, legs bare and dangling, while Harry Truman (then vice president) was seated in front of the keys.

But the party began to wind down in 1956, when Bogart was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. For the next 10 months, his wife rarely left home in the evening. She organized late-afternoon cocktail parties where such friends as Sinatra, David Niven, Hepburn and Tracy buoyed Bogart's spirits with jokes and gossip.

On the night of Jan. 14, 1957, Bogart grabbed his wife's arm and muttered, "Goodbye, kid." He died in the early morning at the age of 57.

"At the time of his death, all I wanted, I think, was to believe that my life would continue," she told The Guardian in 2005.

Bacall had a brief, disastrous engagement to Sinatra and a troubled, eight-year marriage to Jason Robards Jr., with whom she had a son. Professionally, she thrived on the stage and remained busy in films. She won Tonys for the Broadway musicals "Applause" and "Woman of the Year," the latter a 1981 production in which she revived the role immortalized by her friend Hepburn on screen. Meanwhile, she was memorably obstinate in an all-star film adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express," co-starred with longtime friend Anjelica Huston in "Mr. North," and in recent years appeared as herself in a brief cameo for "The Sopranos," in which she curses out a robber and is rewarded with a punch in the face.

In the 1940s, Bacall became friends with William Faulkner when he was writing scripts for Hawks. One of her prized possessions was a copy of Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech on which he wrote that she was not one who was satisfied with being just a pretty face, "but rather who decided to prevail."

"Notice he didn't write 'survive,' " she told Parade magazine in 1997. "Everyone's a survivor. Everyone wants to stay alive. What's the alternative? See, I prefer to prevail."

AP film writer Jake Coyle contributed to this story. Biographical material in this story was written by The Associated Press' late Hollywood correspondent, Bob Thomas.

Photo: This 1965 file photo shows actress Lauren Bacall at her home in New York. Bacall died Aug. 12, 2014, in New York. She was 89. AP

Among his many triumphs, Robin Williams stood with striking writers

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:14:00 +0000

Shock at the death of Robin Williams led me to search peoplesworld.org to see what - if anything - we had written about him since 2002, the farthest back these archives go. What I found surprised me: a 2008 story about the Writers Guild of America strike, "Letterman proves union-made comedy is funnier." (It surprised me because I wrote it and obviously had forgotten about it.)

Williams was the first guest on "The Late Show with David Letterman" after Letterman settled with the union during the contract fight. Williams puts on a working-class British accent praising Letterman, "You're a friend of the brother worker, David, even though you're dressed right now like Dale Carnegie...it's a good thing what you've done, Dave. You've struck a blow ... against, pretty much, insanity."

As Letterman pulls out a photograph of Williams on the picket line, he jokes how he was out there "handing out donuts and caviar."

Williams came on the show right after his USO tour of Iraq and Afghanistan, which he talks about at length.

Below is a 10-minute clip of that terrific show and - now unforgettable - moment in time with the brilliant Williams.

Photo: Actor Robin Williams, left, marches in the picket line with others during the fourth day of a strike by television and film writers, Nov. 8, 2007, at the Time Warner Center in New York. Tina Fineberg/AP

“What If,” romantic comedy, sells movie tickets

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:56:00 +0000

Zoe Kazan is teamed with Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame in a story that asks the question, "Will the 'Harry Met Sally' formula work again?"

Actually, it does, and Zoe Kazan gives her best performance since the wonderful "Ruby Sparks."

Daniel and Zoe play longtime friends who have no intention of ever becoming closer. Or at least they have no such stated intention, even though everybody they know, and everybody in the audience, knows better. There's a tremendous lot of clever dialogue as the various young people exchange innuendo laden conversations.

The scenes of Toronto are excellent. There are six, yes count 'em, six Canadian and U.S. union logos in the final frame!

What If, 102 mins., PG-13

Director: Michael Dowse

Writers: Elan Mastai (screenplay)

Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Megan Park

Photo: What If Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/thewhatifmovie

New "X-Men" is more of the same

Wed, 13 Aug 2014 10:47:00 +0000

X-Men: Days of Future Past is not a terrible movie. It does, however, demonstrate just what a tangled web (forgive the Spider-Man reference) that Marvel's mutant superhero franchise has become. The seventh X-Men film overall, it simultaneously serves as a quasi-sequel to three different films: the mostly-loathed X-Men: The Last Stand, the brilliant spy caper prequel X-Men: First Class, and the refreshing spinoff The Wolverine. Its visual style is fun, and it certainly has its exciting moments, but beyond that, it feels like this film's director is clutching at straws.

The sad thing is, this should have been a great entry in the series with important sociopolitical messages. It was adapted from one of the most celebrated storylines in the comic books, in which Congress passes legislation called the Mutant Registration Act, which forces all mutants to identify themselves with the government. It leads to a dystopian future in which robotic Sentinels hunt down mutants and place them in concentration camps. On the eve of possible nuclear holocaust, one of the X-Men, a young female mutant named Katherine "Kitty" Pryde, is sent back in time to change things by preventing the assassination of an extremist politician by a mutant - a pivotal moment that first triggered anti-mutant hysteria.

Days of Future Past, the movie, follows this basic outline, but strips away or sanitizes all of the parts that mattered most. Never living up to the original story arc, it suffers from a haphazard juggling of characters, an amorphous tone, and needless historical references that seem to be there solely to give the film a modicum of self-importance.

I always said that First Class, the best X-Men movie so far, was an altogether different beast than the campier films that preceded it, and I feel vindicated after watching this sequel try and blend the two - with rather disastrous results. The alt-historical oomph and emotive punch that made First Class so great is almost recreated here, but it's hampered by the need to insert several motifs and tropes from the original trilogy - up to and including professorial narration and a melodramatic intro.

"The future: a dark and desolate world," says a voiceover from Patrick Stewart as the story begins. You know. Just in case the CGI-rendered shots of crumbling buildings, bleak skies, and burning cityscapes didn't quite send the message.

A paragon for missed opportunity

The allegorical weight of the original comics, meanwhile, is here either obfuscated entirely, or made tasteless and shallow, due to a sense of rushed, obligatory inclusion in between the wham-bang action scenes. Days of Future Past is also a paragon for missed opportunity; where it could have had a strong female lead, it instead suffers from what I call "Wolverine overload." Because if you think Kitty Pryde is the star of this movie, think again. Here it's Wolverine (the ever-bankable Hugh Jackman) who goes back in time instead. Kitty, meanwhile, is played by the talented Ellen Page, so it's pretty much an insult that she gets maybe six minutes of screen time the entire film. But alas, director Singer isn't having it; better to play it safe than to take a risk. It's sadly ironic, too, because X-Men itself has always been, metaphorically, at least, about championing those who endure discrimination: women, minorities, gays and lesbians.

Speaking of minorities, the original story was also intended to work as an analogy for anti-immigrant legislation, but I'm sure that flew right over the director's head; and I'm positive that 20th Century Fox (whose chairman is capitalist Rupert Murdoch) didn't know or care. It's another reason why the rights to X-Men need to revert back to Marvel Studios (who put out Iron Man, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.), who are much more forward-thinking (they recently introduced a female Thor and a Muslim-American Miss Marvel).

Other topical aspects that would have worked in this story are completely absent. For example, the plot's focus on the expansion of security and control based on fear would have been a great opportunity for commentary on the NSA spying scandal. But the filmmakers seem unwilling to touch upon apologue outside of the time period in which the story is set.

Strong actors relegated to glorified cameos

Jackman gets most of the spotlight, but I'm thankful they let two others shine: James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, both fantastic actors, return once more to play the young versions of X-Men leader Charles Xavier and nemesis Magneto, respectively. Evan Peters (American Horror Story, Kick-Ass) gets a small but interesting part as super-fast mutant Quicksilver, during what I will admit is one of the most hilarious and fun prison break scenes I've ever seen. And I'll add that Nicholas Hoult, who is also pushed to the background, is another great actor; his performance in British drama series Skins was phenomenal.

Other strong actors like Ian McKellen and Halle Berry (who I've always felt was miscast in these movies, anyway) are here relegated to glorified cameos. And Patrick Stewart deserved much more time than he received playing the older version of Xavier, but his character has been treated with the same carelessness as others in the film series. Another character, Bishop - an important African-American mutant in the comics - gets two lines the whole film before being killed off. Another insult, another missed opportunity.

As a comic fan and an X-Men fan, I still enjoyed and absorbed other parts of this film. But it's lazy, it's sloppy, and it could have been done better in different hands. Non-comic readers or those simply seeking an escapist action flick won't appreciate this one much. This is a movie about returning to the past, and indeed, in the end, all it really does is tread the same old ground.

X-Men: Days of Future Past, 2014, 131 mins., PG-13

Directed by Bryan Singer

Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters

With cameos by Kelsey Grammer, Anna Paquin, James Marsden, Famke Janssen

Photo: X-Men official Facebook page

"Guardians of the Galaxy" is spacefaring fun

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 14:54:00 +0000

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, the latest entry in their rapidly expanding universe of comic book adaptations, is a good-natured thrill ride full of fast-paced action and utterly ridiculous humor, and it may very well become the "Star Wars" of this generation. Certainly, it's as iconic as those original films were, and - with a talking raccoon and a compassionate alien tree as two of its main characters - quite eclectic.

The plot follows a ragtag group of crooks, Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), and Drax (Dave Bautista), who are drawn together in an effort to protect a precious item, an orb that contains an Infinity Stone, from a ruthless heretic/religious zealot named Ronan (Lee Pace). If you weren't already predicting it, they eventually evolve into the titular heroes while defending an entire planet from Ronan's powerful warship. It all adds up to a melting pot of space action, lighthearted fun, and swashbuckling adventure (think Raiders of the Lost Ark meets John Carter of Mars - and not the Disney version).

Guardians may very well be the first-ever "feel-good superhero film." Quite honestly, it's one of the most enjoyable films of its kind that I've seen. It unabashedly dispenses with the grittiness of The Dark Knight or the self-deprecating snark of Avengers. And after the strained hyper-realism of recent films of this type, some of which have become buried beneath their own overinflated senses of relevance, it's nice to see something like this, which is willingly whacky and straightforward. It brings back some classic tropes, leading one to realize that it's okay to resurrect them if you can make it fun.

It doesn't hurt to set it all to a 70s soundtrack, either. That literally comes in the form of a cassette tape called "Awesome Mixtape" and played by main character Star-Lord, who at the film's beginning cruises through galaxies on his pirate spaceship, flirting with female aliens and confusing galactic overlords with wisecracks and outdated cultural references. In fact, he goes on to challenge an utterly bemused Ronan to a dance-off toward the film's climax, cutting through a crescendo of drama with the out-of-left-field comedy that really shapes the whole movie. And it works. Guardians knows it's based off a comic book, and it's one of the first adaptations that feels like it was purposely ripped right from the inked pages to the big screen.

I will say that it's noticeable, more so here than in some of Marvel's other films that the studio really tried to keep things as family friendly as possible. It doesn't really hurt the film, save for one or two corny lines out of an otherwise slick script. Rocket, the aforementioned loudmouthed raccoon, is harmlessly funny enough to please the junior astronauts in the audience, but with his Joe Pesci-like personality, it's a laugh riot for us older viewers and seasoned comic book readers, as well.

Marvel took a risk with this one, because unlike Iron Man or Captain America, this is not a comic title that many people are familiar with. It paid off, however, and from the box office to almost every major film critic's website, it's all good news. On the other hand, I have heard one or two reviewers say that Guardians is formulaic and predictable. I would counter that with a suggestion: that some viewers have gotten so used to seeing comic book films struggle to push the envelope (often becoming increasingly convoluted), that they are rather caught off guard when a film comes along that pulls that envelope back instead. Director James Gunn exhibits an honest enthusiasm for simplicity, it's true, but I think the audience appreciated that. It shows that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to make a good popcorn movie, which is exactly what Guardians is.

Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014, 122 mins., PG-13

Directed by James Gunn

Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Dave Bautista, Glenn Close, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Djimon Hounsou, Karen Gillan, Benicio del Toro, John C. Reilly

With cameos by Josh Brolin, Nathan Fillion, Seth Green, and Rob Zombie

Photo: Guardians of the Galaxy official Facebook page

"Calvary": Chaos and possible redemption

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 12:11:00 +0000

"Calvary" is a profound, even allegorical, examination of modern human conditions. My movie buddy and I attended because Brendan Gleeson, playing the priest, is a wonderful actor.

The only really bad thing about "Calvary" is the hype being used to sell tickets. On the way to the movies, having seen the confusing ads, we were hoping for another madcap comedy like "Waking Ned Devine" but worried, since the main character is a priest, that we might be going to a "gotcha" church-financed Christian faith-triumphs- over- reality morality play. The hype is completely misleading and the movie is neither funny nor fake. There's precious little to laugh at. The Church isn't praised, but takes a drubbing on money grubbing, pedophilia, and/or Nazi collaboration from almost everybody with a speaking part in the movie.

We attended, despite the hype.

During a confessional, at the beginning of the movie and before the credits, a parishioner says that he will murder the priest the following Sunday. We follow the priest through the week.

He lives and works in a small town on the coast of Ireland. The seascapes and landscapes in the film are very worthwhile (stay for the credits as there are more breathtaking pictures during the credits). The people the priest encounters may be a little bit overstated, but that's important to the story and the ordinary, understated people of life are passed over.

Every person in the movie has a story that contributes to the overall experience. Most of them live in chaos; so much so that even the priest, who has plenty of problems of his own, seems to be a gravitational center for all that whirls around him.

By the time they get to the middle, some might think the movie a little bit slow. It has no vampires, sex, violence or special effects. But wading in deep waters is necessarily a bit slow, and this movie is very deep indeed. The chaos of the characters extends into the audience. We can't be sure how we feel about the situation, the priest, or the other characters. We aren't sure how it will all come out and even how we want it to come out. Like the priest and all the characters, we can't be sure if we will ever get the answers to all the questions raised.

Viewers will likely be talking and thinking about "Calvary" for some time after they see it. The best solution might be to see it again.

Calvary, 2014, 100 mins., rated R

Director: John Michael McDonagh

Writer: John Michael McDonagh

Stars: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly |

Photo: Calvary movieposter Fair use

Abraham Galloway biography provides truer picture of Civil War

Fri, 08 Aug 2014 16:21:00 +0000

The book, "The Fire of Freedom, Abraham Galloway & the Slaves' Civil War," opens with two guns held to the head of the Union Army recruiter. That was by order of Abraham Galloway, an African-American leader of the enslaved men who wanted to join the Union Army. Not until the recruiter meets their demands, does Galloway order the guns lowered and allow the recruiter to leave. The demands were: promise of equal pay for the new recruits, schools for their children, jobs for women and provisions for their families. Above all, was the demand that the Union Army would force the confederacy to treat captured soldiers as prisoners of war and not re-enslave or execute

In turn, the recruiter left with Galloway's promise to recruit an entire African American regiment in just a few days. Five days later, 4,000 men, women and children marched into the Union Army camp in New Bern, North Carolina. The next day hundreds more came and a brigade was formed. Galloway was only 26 at the time.

A bricklayer by trade, Galloway had escaped from bondage at age 20 and made it all the way to safety in Canada. But he wanted more than safety for himself. Not only did he return to bring his mother to freedom, he became a leader of the abolition cause and built a network of freedom fighters deep in the Slave South.

Different picture of Civil War

Through the short life of Abraham Galloway, David Cecelski brings us a very different picture of the Civil War than is taught in most schools. I recommend "The Fire of Freedom" for the truer picture it presents. In his prologue, Cecelski credits "the great W.E.B. Du Bois", author of "Black Reconstruction" (1935), with showing the essential role of the slaves in winning the war. Their "General Strike" drained the strength of the Confederacy and they supplied 180,000 of the best Union Army volunteers. Over half of the African American Union soldiers were recruited from the South. But this analysis by Du Bois was pushed aside by racism and McCarthy-type red baiting. Fortunately, Cecelski tells us, "A new generation of scholars has begun to rediscover that powerful tradition of African American militancy within the Civil War South."

As a reviewer, I was struck by the advanced and modern tone of speeches by Abraham Galloway and other African American abolitionists. I should not have been surprised by the class-consciousness of their outlook. After all, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were among the widely read writers for the Tribune, founded by Horace Greeley in 1841. The rallying cry of "Workers of the World Unite!" had already appeared in the "Communist Manifesto" in 1848.

Galloway insisted, "The war would emancipate the poor white man of the south, as well as the blacks." He continued to fight for all working people after the Civil War. At the 1868 North Carolina Constitutional Convention, a newspaper quoted him as saying, "I came here to help the poor white man, as well as the colored man, and to do justice to all men." Cecelski points out that Galloway made this statement although he was one of only thirteen blacks out of 120 elected to the convention and felt a special responsibility to represent the political concerns of the states' African American population.

An even more pointed statement by John Mercer Langston shows the class-consciousness of many African American leaders of that time. At the 1864 National Convention of Colored Men of the United States, Langston called for delegates to "resist not only slavery but also the 'system of oligarchy' that led to civil war and that oppressed poor and working class people of all races."

The right to vote and women's rights

On April 29, 1864, Galloway led a delegation of liberated former slaves to a meeting with President Lincoln. The delegation included a brick mason (Galloway), two barbers (one also a carpenter), a farmer, a baker and a preacher. They presented Lincoln with a petition thanking him for the Emancipation Proclamation. Then they insisted, in the words of the petition, "...finish the noble work you have begun, and grant to your petitioners that greatest of privileges, when the State is reconstructed, to exercise the right of suffrage . . . ".

It was universal suffrage that Galloway and the liberated slaves were fighting for, free of property restrictions and most definitely including women. (At this point, I will stray from Cecelski's book to say that the alliance between the African-American equality movement and the movement for women's suffrage was supported by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and other great African-American leaders. If that alliance broke up later, it was not from the African-American side. )

As Ida B. Wells wrote in her Crusade of Justice, she had a disagreement with Susan B. Anthony, her good friend. Anthony admitted not supporting Black women who wanted to form a branch of the suffrage association. Anthony added, " I did not want anything to get in the way of bringing the southern white women into our suffrage association. And you think I was wrong in so doing?" Wells wrote, "I answered uncompromisingly, yes, for I felt that although she may have made gains for suffrage she had also confirmed white women in their attitude of segregation."

Galloway's strong support for women's rights was visible at an African American conference held three days before the North Carolina Constitutional Convention. Although the delegates were all men, half the seats were reserved for women, an unheard of practice at the state's white political convention. Elected twice to the state Senate, Galloway voted to ratify the 14^th and 15^th amendments to the U. S. Constitution. He introduced a bill to limit the workday to ten hours but it did not pass. In 1869 and 1870, Galloway introduced bills for women's suffrage and against domestic violence. But these bills for women's rights did not become law in North Carolina until 50 years later.

Public education

Most prominent of all the freedmen's demands was public education available to all. When the Klu Klux Klan used terror to attack the freedmen's rights, the KKK killed teachers and students and burned down school buildings. It was a fight all the way. The hunger for education was huge, as explained by Robert Hamilton, a black journalist from New York City. "The number of scholars is very great, and continually augmenting being fed by escaping bondmen who come from plantations within a sixty mile radius of this place . . . Study they will and it is useless for their teachers to tell them to stop even for a few moments."

For the former slaves whom Galloway had recruited for the Union Army, schooling began while still in their barracks. The soldiers had built their own barracks to replace the tents issued by the Army. Officers organized literacy classes. Galloway told William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator, "The badge of slavery is superseded by the U.S. uniform. And the reading book and the slate are the accompaniments of these former victims of ignorance wherever they go. They hunger for the 'forbidden fruit' of knowledge with a zest of appetite which imparts marvelous powers of acquisition."

This eloquent praise of learning makes it hard to believe Cecelski's claim that Galloway himself never learned to read and write. This is a man who went toe to toe with the best legal minds of his day. That was true on the floor of the state Senate as well as in the writing of the state Constitution. If Galloway were truly illiterate, that would make his achievements all the more remarkable. But I suppose it's possible. I have certainly marveled at the ability of Stephen Hawking to remember trunk loads of abstract knowledge without the use of books or Internet. In meeting Calloway, we have met one of the great people in our history.

Short but well-lived life

On September 1, 1870, at the age of 33, Abraham Galloway died unexpectedly. Just before his death, he had escaped two assassination attempts. He had surely lived a very vigorous life up to the day before he died. The cause of death is not known. Although he died broke, 7,000 people came to his funeral in Wilmington, N.C. His unrelenting fight for freedom continues to inspire us today.

Photo: Sketch of Abraham Galloway reprinted with permission from the North Carolina Museum of History.

Book review

"The Fire of Freedom, Abraham Galloway & the Slaves' Civil War"

By David Cecelski

The University of North Carolina Press, 2012, 352 pp (hardcover)

“The Last Ship”: Life and love while everybody's dying

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 14:46:00 +0000

In TNT's new series The Last Ship, a pandemic extinguishes the human race while the crew of the USS Nathan James tries to keep cruising around as scientists on board try to come up with a vaccine. Almost everybody on Earth is already dead when the story starts.

To the cast's credit, it's hard to picture the hard-bitten sea captain in his former role as "Dr. McSteamy" in a hospital drama, nor the dead-serious scientist in her former roles as vampire or office siren. There's some shoreside action, but shipboard life is by nature claustrophobic, so the program doesn't zing along as well as some.

The situation is kind of grim, and so is the program. On the light side, there's a dog.

The Last Ship, based on the novel by William Brinkley, is on TNT on different nights.

Photo: "The Last Ship" poster

Robey Theatre Company celebrates with Paul Robeson Theatre Festival

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:53:00 +0000

The two-day 1^st Annual Paul Robeson Theatre Festival staged at the Los Angeles Theatre Center July 18-19 celebrated not only its eponymous artist, but the 20^th anniversary of the Robey Theatre Company, dedicated to developing "innovative new plays written about the Black experience."

The Festival featured works that either specifically portrayed Robeson or were Black-themed in nature. A new three-act play, Paul Robeson in Berlin, written by Robert Coles and Bartley McSwine and directed by Robey's artistic director Ben Guillory, is based on Robeson's (Stogie Amir Kenyatta) 1934 trip to Moscow to meet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (who wanted to cast Robeson as Jean Jacques Dessalines in an epic about the Haitian Revolution). Forced to make a layover in Berlin, Paul and his fair-skinned wife Essie (Tiffany Coty) were harassed by the Nazis, who mistakenly saw them as an interracial couple.

On day two, 13 short plays were offered, of which a few highlights:

In Kurt Maxey's The Agreement, well directed by Dylan Southard, Robeson (Shon Fuller) takes an informal, man-to-man meeting with President Truman (Anthony Pellegrino) at the White House. This rendezvous supposedly took place shortly after a very public meeting between Robeson and other civil rights leaders with Truman in 1946 to discuss proposed anti-lynching legislation. The depiction of Robeson is in keeping with how Paul Robeson, Jr. described the confrontation: "He told President Truman that if there wasn't an anti-lynching bill, African Americans in the South would avail themselves of their constitutional right to armed self-defense and compel military intervention by the federal government."

This insubordinate attitude, combined with leftist politics, landed Robeson before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Robeson's (Odell Ruffin) defiance is captured in playwright Alicia Tycer's imaginative H.U.A.C., in a surreal, Brechtian piece creatively directed by Southard. Lisa Renée vamps it up as Paul's defense attorney as he appears before the Committee in 1956, in a futile effort to get his passport back. She is astonished that he refuses to take the deal she has cut for him. Robeson likewise confounds the prosecutor (Ian Forester), treating the not-so-grand inquisitors with the contempt they so richly deserved.

A more personal side of Robeson is depicted in Nui Brown's Eslanda Unplugged, wherein his wife Essie (Eslanda Goode Robeson) confronts Paul (here portrayed by Jah Shams) over his philandering and the overall state of their marriage. As the wronged wife, Elizabeth June is excellent, putting him more on the defensive than HUAC did! The deft performances, adeptly directed by Robert Clements, depict a couple who still love one another, but for whom monogamy is complicated when so much temptation is at hand, as they reach for an understanding about their marriage and the passion they once felt.

I have no quibble with Eslanda Unplugged from a dramatic point of view, because it's well acted and written, and captivating to watch. However, its portrayal of the private lives of public people raises disturbing questions: Do we really have the right to know what goes on between a husband and a wife behind closed doors? (For the record, Essie publicly supported Paul while he was being persecuted by HUAC.) What happened to the old admonition against reading other people's letters? Some may appreciate Eslanda Unplugged as a feminist statement; others will deem it "TMI," stuff that is really none of our damn business.

La'Chris Jordan's Deep Rivers takes us behind the scenes to a private meeting, during the 1960s, between the older Robeson (Frank Faucette) and a civil rights activist called James (Aaron Jennings), inspired by CORE's James Farmer. Farmer offers Robeson a way out of the wilderness by renouncing his radicalism for rehabilitation as part of the Civil Rights brethren. But for Robeson, this recantation would betray his own self.

The most interesting of the non-Robeson mini-plays was Greenwood 1964, wherein Harry Belafonte (played by the drama's writer/director Mohammed Ali Ojarigi) and Sidney Poitier (Montelle Harvey) hide out from the KKK in a Mississippi "safe house" during "Freedom Summer." Belafonte was close to Robeson and to Poitier's left, and the two stars clash as they debate the cause and its costs to celebrities.

Let's hope this Robeson-palooza indeed becomes an annual event. As Robeson famously said, "The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice."

For more info see: www.robeytheatrecompany.org/.

Photo: Co-Founders Danny Glover and Ben Guillory with recognition certificate recipients Kellie Dantzler, Levy Lee Simon, and the first recipient of "The Robey" Dwain A. Perry on opening night.

"Get On Up" says it loud: He's Brown and he's proud!

Fri, 01 Aug 2014 16:03:00 +0000

Tate Taylor's well-directed Get On Up is the latest movie about tortured artiste who acts in self-destructive ways, a 138-minute biopic about "The Godfather of Soul," James Brown.

Co-screenwriters Jez and John-Henry Butterworth provide details from James Brown's (the stellar Chadwick Boseman) childhood that provide insight into the singer's violent behavior, as well as into his talent and success. After a flash-forward to a later criminal episode, the film progresses more or less chronologically, but with frequent flashbacks to Brown's turbulent childhood and career trajectory. The film also creatively includes scenes where Brown speaks in a pseudo-doc, "you-are-there" manner, taking us into his thoughts while he is performing.

As a boy growing up near Augusta, Georgia, in the 1930s, Brown witnessed domestic abuse, which caused his mother, Susie Brown (the great Viola Davis), to abandon him. He's then raised in a brothel by its madam, Aunt Honey (Octavia Spencer).

All the fame and fortune on Earth can't compensate for a troubled childhood-and it doesn't. The singer who created 1965's hit I Feel Good didn't always feel quite so good. Brown's talent and drive propelled him to the top of the charts, yet he still beat his wife DeeDee (Jill Scott), and mistreated his band members. The driving beat of Brown's funkadelic music and his frenetic stagecraft often gave form to his inner demons.

Brown was, well, funky, and Boseman captured this, delivering an Oscar-worthy, psychologically nuanced performance. Boseman uncannily looks and moves like Brown, although according to the "New York Times," Brown's own voice has been remixed into the score.

Astute observers can place Brown's childhood in segregated Georgia and his subsequent experiences in the Jim Crow South and white majority America into a racial/sociological context. But this isn't hammered home in Get On Up; it's subtext to be read between the lines.

Race is directly dealt with in the sequence where after Dr. King's shooting, with that "the-show-must-go-on" show-biz ethos, Brown goes ahead with a scheduled concert in Boston. I believe Boston was one of America's few urban centers that didn't erupt in riots after MLK's killing. Although he himself could be violent, much to his credit, Brown rose to the occasion and prevented violence.

Brown went on to record "I'm Black and I'm Proud" in a studio with a chorus of African American children, becoming a cultural avatar of the Black Pride and Consciousness movement. Brown eschewed conking his hair and started sporting an Afro-although this might have been a marketing decision in those changing times, more than a nationalist statement.

One of Brown's most affectionate onscreen relationships is with his agent Ben Bart (well played by Dan Aykroyd). The two develop a true friendship, as well as a working business relationship. Brown possessed intuitive business smarts: Getting the green seemed to be his version of Black Power.

Although Brown was sometimes guilty of violent acts, he was also aware that Black performers had to "represent." Violence allegedly committed by noteworthy Blacks reinforces racist perceptions prejudiced whites and other non-Blacks may already hold. In any case, being an ultra-talented, rich (if owing back taxes), famous VIP is still no excuse.

Other fine performances are by Nelsan Ellis, as Brown's longtime band mate and friend Bobby Byrd. Brandon Smith has an inspired cameo as Little Richard, whose encounter with Brown is quite interesting. The Rolling Stones' brief intersection with Brown is rather humorous, especially considering the fact that Mick Jagger - whose fancy footwork was clearly inspired by Brown - is one of the movie's producers.

With its fabulous musical and dance numbers, Get On Up is a challenging, complex portrait of "the hardest-working man in show business."

Film review

"Get On Up"

Directed by Tate Taylor

2014, PG-13, 138 min.

Photo: "Get On Up" movie poster via impawards.com