People Before Profit blog

Beatrice Lumpkin's extraordinary book about her extraordinary life

Fri, 31 May 2013 15:56:00 +0000

In 1934, New York's Hunter College tried to increase milk prices in its cafeteria from five to six cents a half pint. A twenty percent increase was as hard to swallow for working-class students then as it is now, so freshman Beatrice Lumpkin led a milk boycott:

"The boycott was a huge success. Students massed around our table. I had to climb on top of a table to be heard. I did not realize that the dean of students had come into the lunchroom... It was too late to be diplomatic; I am afraid that I had already called her a fascist... [The dean] was best known for insisting on proper dress for 'ladies'. 'Only Communists or prostitutes would be seen in public without a hat' was one her pearls of wisdom."

The author doesn't mention whether she was wearing a hat at the time, but Lumpkin was already a Communist. She had joined the Young Communist League in high school to study Marxism and work for peace.

Today, at 94, she is still a proud Communist, still a leader in the struggle for justice. She details her 80 years of engagement in the workers' cause in her new autobiography, "Joy in the Struggle: My Life and Love."

There is indeed joy in these pages. The author tells of her 60-year marriage to comrade and steelworker leader Frank Lumpkin (the subject of her previous book, "Always Bring a Crowd"). When Lumpkin talks of solidarity with her fellow workers, of seeing in Cuba the first fruits of the Revolution, or of teaching the African roots of mathematics, her book resonates with hope for a better world.

But as the title says, this is a book about struggle. Another, uglier story weaves through Lumpkin's joy: blacklists and red-baiting, union busting, unemployment, and the vicious racism that she and her husband, like so many others, faced and fought in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s.

This interweaving of anger, sorrow, humor, and joy makes "Joy in the Struggle" a deeply human book about a woman who has devoted her entire life to the fight for equality, democracy, and peace. It is the story of everything that is extraordinary in the trials and triumphs of ordinary working people, told by a great writer, thinker, and fighter of the working class.

More than just one woman's story, "Joy in the Struggle" is a treasure trove of advice and tactics for others engaged in building workers' power and solidarity.

In Lumpkin's vision of the world, nothing falls outside of political work. Injuries and illness show the inequality of access to medical care. Motherhood grounds a discussion of sexism, but also shows the power of solidarity among working women.

Even mandatory hairnets on the job have a lesson ("It was nice to be able to put in curlers and set our hair on the bosses' time").

The most valuable lesson, though, has to do with coalition building. Lumpkin returns time and again to the necessity of building coalitions to advance a people's agenda:

"Bring together everybody who agrees on an issue, even if they disagree on other subjects. The pooled strength of the groups can win on the issue that all the groups support. If we waited until everybody agreed on everything, we could never move forward."

Beatrice Lumpkin's extraordinary book, like her extraordinary life, shows the power of people coming together in the fight for a better world. It is a worthy addition to the ranks of great stories of struggle like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's Rebel Girl or Ben Davis' Communist Councilman from Harlem.

Lumpkin's book is dedicated "to the young people fighting for a world that puts people before profit." It is a great gift that she has given us, and we are proud to carry on her valiant struggle for a fair, peaceful, and democratic world.

Book Review

Beatrice Lumpkin, Joy in the Struggle: My Life and Love

New York: International Publishers, 2013

Paperback, $12,95

"How Can We Make Peace Sexy?"

Thu, 30 May 2013 16:14:00 +0000

While viewing the trailer for Denzel Washington's new summer blockbuster, "2 Guns," I was empowered to write this poem. Does peace have to be sexy in order to get some attention, or be internationally recognized? Why are violence, guns, and bombs presented as being sexy? If looks are important, then how can me make peace look sexy?

How Can We Make Peace Sexy?

How can we make peace

As sexy as Denzel Washington

Brandishing a gun or a bomb?

How can we make peace as

Sexy as Tom Cruise, Will Smith,

Gweneth Paltrow or Angelina Jolie?

How can we make peace sexy?

So to it the masses pay attention?

So that to a leader who speaks about peace,

Our children and youth listen?

I find it uncomfortably necessary

To make peace as sexy as Halle Berry.

How can we make peace sexy enough

To make gun lovers salivate over it

Enough to support an effective

Department Of Peace?

How can we make peace sexy:

Like half-dressed car models

Expensive cognac or sleek beer bottles

The new en vogue teenage band

A well-known soap opera star

So that about peace we want to understand?

How can we make peace something

that's constantly in demand?

How can we make peace sexy? Sultry?

Hot? Steamy? Dreamy? To die for?

To make people come back for more?

Make it so sexy that no one

will ever remember, or think about, war.

How can we make peace sexier

Than a fast red car? So that it is

not considered strange or bizarre?

I take a deep breath, then slowly release.

Wondering how do we create a sexy peace.

Our schools, our streets, our neighborhoods,

our communities, our cities, our world

Needs peace. Peace.

April 29, 2013

Photo: Meme of Angelina Jolie without guns comes from Thumbs and Ammo: "Real tough guys don't need guns, they just need a positive, can-do attitude."

"Devil in the Grove": Must-read Pulitzer Prize winner

Thu, 30 May 2013 14:12:00 +0000

Whites meting out extra-judicial violence on African Americans is nothing new in the South even if white sheets and burning crosses are no longer publicly acceptable. Private police forces have ruled chain gangs and orange grove work camps for generations. "The Man" with a gun and a bad attitude is an enduring fixture of Jim Crow. Calling him "the neighborhood watch" - as with Trayvon Martin's killer George Zimmerman - changes very little. Jury selection in Zimmerman's trial begins June 10. Coincidentally a recently published book gives historical context to today's headlines.

In 1961, Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In 2013, Gilbert King's "Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America " won the same award for nonfiction.

The plots are the same: lynch-law justice in the Jim Crow South. But the treatments could hardly be more different.

Lee wrote an idyll about small town life in Alabama, influenced, no doubt, by the "intrusion" of the infamous 1931 Scottsboro Nine trial which occurred when she was 5 years old (and the experiences of her lawyer-turned-politician father). King spent four years researching the proceedings against the Groveland Boys, accused of raping a white woman in Lake County, Florida, in 1951, and the racial inferno that eventually pitted two almost archetypal figures against each other.

On the side of good in the Groveland case was black crusading attorney and later Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, working for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who we see in the book slowly, one law precedent at a time, setting the stage for Brown v. Board of Education and the legal end of U.S. school segregation.

On the other side, standing in for all that to the liberal conscience seems backward, despicable, and downright evil, is Willis McCall, a Klansman and sheriff who is corrupt and brutal enough to make Joe Arpaio look like a choirboy.

"Devil in the Grove" is King's second courtroom documentary book. (An earlier one, "The Execution of Willie Francis," takes place in Louisiana.) Woven as alternating vignettes of Marshall's New York life in the waning years of the Harlem Renaissance and his forays south, "Devil in the Grove" contains closely recorded accounts of the defendants' multiple trials and enough car chases, beatings and murders to fill a slew of R-rated film scripts.

King's access to FBI files, NAACP notes and even audio recordings of interrogations allows him to present often verbatim dialogue that showcases Marshall's stellar courtroom tactics and his overarching stratagem to document initial defeats at the hands of racist judges and prosecutors for later appeal, right up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Even Marshall's attempt to curry favor with the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover by making anti-communist statements in exchange for investigations and protection against Klan violence is explained as a tactic.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" was voted the best American novel of the 20th century by a poll of librarians. And its tale, seen through the eyes of a child, has no doubt brought at least one generation of young readers to an enlightened sensitivity to the plight of black Americans at the bar of southern justice. But "Mockingbird" pales in comparison with the possible impact of King's gritty, factual, unprettified account of a very ugly situation.

Included as postscripts are several letters, sent to King before paperback publication by people who grew up in the misery of 1950s Groveland and had read the earlier hardback edition. Do not put the book down until you have read them and reflected on the role of willful ignorance and denial about the world we find around us, now before it is too late.

Pithy read - highly recommended.

Book information:
"Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America"
By Gilbert King
Harper, paperback, 464 pages, $15.99, Kindle also available

Photo: Paul Perkins, Jack Greenberg, Walter Irvin and Thurgood Marshall at the defense table in Ocala, Florida. "Cases of this kind are the kind that will try the souls of men," Marshall said in closing arguments.

You could sell that

Tue, 28 May 2013 00:02:00 +0000

"There is a chance here for you," Paul said, "to become extremely wealthy." He continued to gaze stoically ahead. "The idea strikes me as bizarre," Childan said. "Making good luck charms out of such art objects; I can't imagine it."---Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Part one:

I make things.

Some of them come out very well. Some are fit for everyday use, and I use them. Others are meant to be decorative and have a place in the apartment.

I make shopping bags crocheted out of plastic bags; I crochet small cases to hold personal items. I make teapots, teacups, small books, and little ceramic things.

No matter where I am, using something like a shopping bag, people will remark on them, ask me how I make them, how long it takes, admire the handicraft and design. Then they will get a glow on their faces and set out to award me with the capstone: "You could sell that!"

This is considered the highest compliment you can be paid.

It always makes me wince inside. I backpedal and try to take this in the spirit it is offered in. I say that I make these things because I like them and like to use them and I would be unwilling to part with them for money. You can see the interest drain on the other person's face. You aren't willing to take it to the next level-the Olympics of the marketplace, where consumers can decide if you're really worthy of the gold medal.

One lady ended the conversation with: "Oh well, at least they make nice conversation pieces."

Part two:

I crocheted 20 years ago as a weapon to combat heartbreak. I had learned how when I was ten, but picked it up again with a vengeance to keep away break-up thoughts. It distracted my brain and I began to pile up little yarn bags.

One day, an old friend of the family visited my mom and I. He and his wife had been the wealthiest people we had ever known. They owned a beautiful house, a Tudor-style mansion that I adored visiting as a kid, frankly envious of their son who had all of the rooms, the gardens and the Tudor gazebo to play in for hours. They were like royalty to me. Of course, they were not, and when they had run through all of the money in an effort to pretend that they were, things went south in a hurry.

Our friend visited us in the middle of this downward process. In the course of the visit, my mother told me to go get my yarn bags to show him. I had about 20 by then, in different colors and patterns.

He looked through them all one by one. He looked into my eyes. He pulled something out of his pocket. It was a plastic rectangle. Looking closer I saw that it had the US constitution on it in very small letters. He said, "Look at this. This man had an idea. If he had kept that idea to himself, he would be the only man with a copy of the Constitution in his pocket. But this man had vision. He put his idea up for sale, he got a patent. There are thousands and thousands of these, millions even, for sale. Any man can have one now. I have one here, I am showing it to you. This thing you are doing? It is very nice. But it will never mean anything. You have to take this idea, the part of it people will like, and sell it so everyone can buy it. You will make money. You will have a nice little life. Then if you want, you can make these little things if you want. You will have the time. But one by one like this? It is a waste of your time."

He beamed and sat back. He had delivered the message.

He left and I didn't crochet again for four years.

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation." Karl Marx & Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Part three

I'd been groped by the invisible hand of the marketplace.

The Invisible Hand is the god of bourgeois society. The Hand giveth and the Hand taketh away. If you are found worthy, the Hand bestows riches and fame. If the Hand finds you foul and unworthy, you are reduced to ashes and your name erased from the records of history. Most of us fall into the latter camp, to differing degrees. Our family friend was a priest of the Hand, a desperate acolyte.

In his fall from favor he was at his most anxious to believe. In his effort to be kind, he ended up doing a lot of damage. I never really looked at life the same way after that. It was in its small way a watershed event. He had ripped away the veil of sentiment and revealed his class interest: naked cash payment.

In all instances in our society, we are ruled by capitalism. A brief flirtation with the art world disabused me of the notion that there was anything different going on there. There is no world of special people who do not commodify labor and the products of labor. People have been involved in various reform efforts to break this relationship. Cool "alt-biz" movements are an attempt to break through the exploitation and hopefully train capitalism to be better, cooler, funner, more satisfying, hipper, greener, sustainable, etc. Eventually these efforts, if successful, also tend to monopoly and get formulaic.

Capitalism needs to seek ever-expanding markets to make a profit. A profit is not just having 5 bucks in your pocket from the sale of your cool thing; it is a bottom line that needs to expand every quarter to be considered successful. Every generation of artists and artisans has a sector that attempts to recapture some "authentic movement", to fight this system and reclaim a patch of ground. Others, the "realists", skip that step of emotional agonies over authenticity and jump straight into the commercial market. The first group takes a little longer to get in there, but eventually they do. They conceal their relationship to the market with the branding of their finer intentions, which makes them actually more deceptive than the second group, who are reviled as mere tradesmen by the "authenticity" fetishists.

"The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat." Karl Marx & Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Part four

At the end, buying and selling your talents is considered the pinnacle of success in capitalist society. The more you sell, the better you are than everyone else. If you fail to do it, you have lost. You are a loser. Though many people of the social realm of the arts like to think we are outside of all of that, we are proles. The faster we realize this, the more we will have to unite us with the revolutionary segment of society. The more we try to preserve some "alt-capitalism" for ourselves, the longer we perpetuate this state. There is only one kind of capitalism; there is no good kind and bad kind.

Individual responses are not going to change anything though.

The Buddhist view is "Make positive effort for the good" as if your individual actions and thoughts will emit waves through existence and slowly chip away at the rock face of "bad".

This will take too long. In fact, it will not work. It may even do the opposite.

Photo: Crochet with plastic bags. Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

"Multicultural Soup"

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:30:00 +0000

Editor's note: The following poem was read by the poet at a May 19 People's World party, potluck and fundraiser celebrating international labor solidarity and the fight for immigrant rights. Held at Chicago's Unity Center, which houses the website's editorial offices, Artemio Arreola from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights spoke on the current struggle for immigration reform. Musicians performed traditional songs from Vera Cruz, Mexico, called Son Jarocho. The event, emceed by Melissa Parks, director of a low-income energy program at Unity Center, ended with Ethnic Dance's Paul Collins leading audience members in group folk dances, from countries such as Turkey, Bulgaria, Bolivia and the United States (scroll to end to see video).

I am sprinkling Spanish, Moroccan,

African, Asian, and Middle Eastern

culture and understanding into my

life morsel after morsel.

I am a universal man, so I delve into

all our world has to offer. That offering

is far beyond my house, my couch,

my city and even my country.

We live in an ever engaging world

that is getting smaller and smaller.

We are mixing and mingling at markets,

libraries, poetry readings,

community centers, schools.

This is cool. This enhances what we

know. This helps us grow.

This soup that we are creating is by

need and by circumstance. The bright

yellows vibrant oranges, cocktail reds,

and delicious greens are the things that

warm our souls. That provides for us and

nurtures us.

We are not in this world alone. We don't

have all the answers as individuals. So it

is critical (that) we come together and share.

That we get together and talk. That we

come together and learn.

Mi tierra es tu tierra.

Mein Lan ist dein Land.

Nchi yangu ni nchi yenu.

My land is your land.

We stir together. We live amongst

one another. We share our cultures.

We value our uniqueness in this

multicultural soup.

Photo: Christopher Sims reads Multicultural Soup at People's World solidarity event (PW/Earchiel Johnson).

New “Star Trek” shows flaws of today’s sci-fi

Thu, 23 May 2013 19:19:00 +0000

"Star Trek Into Darkness," the new Star Trek vehicle, benefits from 3-D and the latest movie gadgets, but suffers from not having Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry alive to make it original and creative. [SPOILER ALERT:] The story is twice-warmed-over from the original television version, and presented on the big screen before as "The Wrath of Khan."

The cast is cool, with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto back as Jim and Spock. Zoe Saldana as Uhuru is quite adequate, but I'm still waiting for her to match her performance in Avatar. Benedict Cumberbatch is as good as any Khan so far. Old time Trekkie fans like me and my movie buddy nod our approval.

But the best part of the experience came even before the movie started. The theater we were in ran three trailers from upcoming science fiction movies - blockbusters all. Unfortunately, like nearly all American sci-fi, they present the grimmest of all possible futures. We are either starving to death or being eaten by zombies in almost every predicted future!

The reason is capitalism, and the particular part of capitalism that we're living through today. Sci-fi generally extends current trends in a linear, non-dialectical way. If an author sees that the population is increasing, he/she projects the idea that people will eventually have to become cannibals to survive. If he/she sees curtailment of civil liberties, then the future must be a rigid dictatorship. If there are more shootings in America's schools, then sci-fi authors have to say that future first graders will necessarily be armed.

Almost every sci-fi movie review nowadays uses the word "dystopia." It means "an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives;" "anti-utopia," according to Wikipedia. Outside of sci-fi movie reviews, the word seems to have no other use in our language.

Gene Roddenberry's future wasn't like that, and that's why there are still Trekkie festivals, reruns of four TV versions of "Star Trek," regurgitated Roddenberry plots in movies, and generations of people worldwide who spread their fingers and say, "Live long and prosper." Roddenberry's future shows humanity that has already conquered its internal problems and only finds desperate situations when confronting new worlds. We overcome those situations, too.

When you stop and think about it, Roddenberry's is really the only possible future. It's a future worth thinking of and working toward. Until we bring that world about, we can enjoy the Star Trek movies.

Movie information:
"Star Trek Into Darkness"
Directed by J. J. Abrams
2013, PG-13, 123 min.

Photo: "Star Trek Into Darkness" official site

Students can now earn a college degree in heavy metal

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:50:00 +0000

The music genre of heavy metal, known colloquially as metal, is increasingly becoming the object of study and analysis. Now, England's New College Nottingham has introduced the Heavy Metal Music Performance degree, which will prepare them for careers in the music industry.

Students enrolled in the degree program will learn the history of metal, from past censorship issues to major events and achievements. They will also study metal genealogy (or the lineage of bands and subgenres), metal's relationship with philosophy and religion, composing the music, and learning the ins and outs of the music business, with an emphasis on the metal/hard rock side of things.

Course lecturer Liam Maloy spent seven months putting the course together. He remarked, "In the past, heavy metal has not been taken seriously and is seen as lacking academic credibility when compared with other genres such as jazz and classical music. But that's just a cultural construction."

Nottingham is a major music hub in England, with a particularly strong focus on metal. The annual Download Festival there attracts an average of 75,000 rock and heavy metal fans per year. Metal record label Earache Records was also founded there in 1985. Also, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, who led the music movement known as The New Wave of British Heavy Metal ("NWOBHM"), hails from that city.

This is, however, not the first time that metal has been observed from an academic standpoint. In a 2007 study, University of Warwick psychologist Stuart Cadwallader found that many intelligent teenagers and young adults increasingly turn to heavy metal, above other musical genres. He presented his findings to a British Psychological Society conference in York after research that surveyed 1,057 members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth. He also held an online discussion involving 19 students in the academy, 17 of whom were metal fans.

Cadwallader said, "Participants [in the study] said they appreciated the complex and sometimes social or political themes of metal more than perhaps the average pop song. There is a perception of gifted and talented students being into classical music, but I think that is an inaccurate stereotype."

Metal was also the subject of a February 7 study this year by a group of physicists from Cornell University. That project's goal was to determine how humans behave in extreme social conditions, including riots and organized protests and demonstrations. The focus, in particular, however, was on the collective behavior of more energized, panicked crowds. Since scientists couldn't exactly start a riot for the purpose of research, they used mosh pits at metal shows as the basis of their study.

For those not acquainted with metal culture, mosh pits are highly-energized sections of a crowd at concerts, in which participants push and slam into one another, often in a circular motion. It is considered a form of aggressive dancing connected primarily with metal, hard rock, and hardcore.

Researchers found that traditional mosh pits were highly unpredictable and random as far as movement was concerned, while circle pits (where participants moshed in a more circular motion) had a sense of order and regulation; computer simulations were able to reproduce circle pits based on that orderliness. Researchers hope the work will lead to a better understanding of "crowd mentality."

However, metal's associations with academia have taken plenty of flak from detractors. Chris McGovern, chairman for the Campaign for Real Education, remarked, "I'm not against metal, I just don't think it will impress an employer to find that a youngster has a degree in heavy metal. It could become a 'disqualification.'"

Metal Music Blog writer \m/ecca wrote, however, that while "people with this degree may be discriminated against in the job market, the real target market for this degree are people who possess the passion for the heavy metal genre. Many of the best musicians in the genre do in fact have a strong musical education background. Don't write off this degree upon your first glance."

Maloy concluded, "Here in Nottingham, we wanted to offer something special that reflects our city's culture and employment opportunities. Metal is an extremely technical genre of music, and the study of its culture and context is a rising academic theme, so we're very excited to be at the forefront of its integration with education."

Photo: Thrash metal band Slayer performs at a show. Wikipedia

Special effects legend Ray Harryhausen: An appreciation

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:23:00 +0000

In 1974, my friend Kenny Ames and I went to a theater and saw "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad." Two Now 'N Later-chomping seven-year-olds, we weren't there to see the performances of the human actors (John Phillip Law, Tom Baker, and Caroline Munro). We were there to be awed by the onslaught of fantastic creatures: an evil wizard's flying reptilian spy; a giant six-armed statue of Kali coming to life; the climactic battle between a griffin and a cyclopean centaur. We rushed home and made drawings of them on paper plates while the memories of their hideous screeches and menacing, writhing forms were still fresh.

I soon realized that my favorite movies on TV - "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad," (1958) "Mysterious Island" (1961), and "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), had something in common besides the awesome monsters: they had special visual effects created by Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen, who passed away May 7th at age 92, is revered by fantasy film geeks, special effects artists, and directors alike for his masterful advancement of the stop motion animation technique.

Stop motion animation is a visual effect achieved by taking stills of three-dimensional articulated models that are painstakingly moved a fraction of an inch between shots. When the resulting film is run, the effect of independent motion is created. Each model must be photographed 24 times for each second of screen time. Now imagine applying this technique to animating a seven-headed hydra, or a squadron of sword-wielding skeletons. Working alone, Harryhausen methodically filmed scenes in a day or two, sequences in a month or two, and enough sequences for a full-length film in a year or two.

Harryhausen was a behind-the-scenes "technician" and "craftsman" who contributed directly to the thematic content of the movie. His hand was responsible for every aspect of the fantasy sequences he created, from the conceptual drawings and sculptures of models, up through cinematography and post-production effects. As director John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London") observed in a 1995 interview, Harryhausen was "truly an auteur" of the work.

Harryhausen's technique was called "Dynamation". It involved new, complex methods of montage that combined rear-projection photography and traveling mattes to create the effect of human characters interacting with fantasy beasts against a real background.

Harryhausen's first major special effects movie was 1949's giant gorilla epic, "Mighty Joe Young." On that film, Harryhausen worked with his stop-motion mentor, Willis O'Brian, who provided the groundbreaking effects for "King Kong" (1933). Harryhausen next provided a rampaging Rhedosaurus for "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" (1953). In the sixties and seventies, Harryhausen created his most famous work exploring Greek and Arabic myths: "Jason" and the "Sinbad" movies, culminating in 1981's "Clash of the Titans."

Harryhausen's creations are memorable are memorable not only for their technical brilliance, but also for the emotional "performances" of the creatures - he imbued them with a sympathetic expressiveness that enabled them to be read as "real" characters we care about. In a 1995 interview, Harryhausen said he had an early, passing interest in acting, and cited an acting class he took at L.A. City College as the foundation for the drama he brought to life in his creatures.

Harryhausen was always drawn to the popular imagery of myths and prehistory. Never "faithful" to his sources, he freely mixed and matched mythos, combining extinct creatures with gods and monsters from a variety of traditions, and a heaping portion of poetic license. It didn't matter that Harryhausen's bizarre mytho-poetic mash-ups ignored the cultural, historical and geographical specifics of the myths from which they borrowed. Who cared if the Kraken is from Norse, not Greek mythology, or that a giant horned caveman co-exists in Sinbad's time? What really mattered was that we finally had an answer to the question, "who would survive a death-cage match between a dragon and a giant, cloven-hoofed Cyclops?"

Idolized by generations of filmmakers and special effects artists, Harryhausen was recognized for his contributions to cinema with a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1992, presented by his good friend, fellow fantasy icon Ray Bradbury. Contemporary fantasy directors such as Steven Spielberg ("Jurassic Park") Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man), Peter Jackson ("Lord of the Rings," "King Kong") and Tim Burton ("Beetlejuice," "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure") all hail Harryhausen as an early major influence.

In a 1997 interview, Harryhausen said, "fantasy is essentially a dream world... and I don't think that you want it quite real, you want it to be an interpretation - stop motion to me gives it that added value as a dream world that you can't catch if you try to make it too real." Of computer generated imagery (CGI) he said: "If you make things too real, sometimes you bring it down to the mundane."

Photo: "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad," Columbia Pictures

Links:

Ray Harryhausen

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366063/?ref_=sr_1

Sinbad Battles Kali

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hohUHIndLg0

Jason Battles Skeletons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY

This is Dynamation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arq6fTGkC6E

Taro vs. Cyclops

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_6Fr1SmYhA

New films tell stunning tales of war, greed, love

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:28:00 +0000

Several films at this year's Tribeca Film Festival deal with excessive greed. Inequality for All, which I wrote about earlier, showed the drastic effects on the American economy of skyrocketing CEO salaries. But Big Men presents inside footage of exactly how greed consumes a small Texas company given a chance to exploit the natural oil resources of an entire country, in this case Ghana.

Comparisons to how neighboring Nigeria was exploited, and the resulting corruption and mass poverty, give a clear indication of what will happen in Ghana as local leaders kiss up to the Texas millionaires and their fatal attempt to ravage further Africa. Director Rachel Boynton (Our Brand Is Crisis) provides an insider's look with stunning accuracy.

Then there's Bernie Madoff, who made off with a lot of people's money! Probably history's worst white collar criminal, Madoff set up an elaborate Ponzi scheme with a legitimate office that was a front for an entire floor of scheming money grubbers. In God We Trust is another insider's look at greedy corporations, exposing the operation, the key players and how they fooled so many people for so long. The Ponzi scheme works by paying investors with money collected from new investors. The key to this expose is the lone honest secretary, Eleanor Squillari, who kept records for everything, not knowing a thing about the scam until the day Madoff was arrested. Her quest for truth and justice makes for a fascinating story, with footage inside places few of us would ever see otherwise.

Another great film that challenges U.S. imperialism and exposes its henchmen is a new documentary about the iconic author/philosopher Gore Vidal. In Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia we meet the opinionated author who often held parties for the most brilliant thinkers, politicians and artists of the time. Footage of his classic TV battles with conservative William Buckley, and interviews with many notables who called him friend, make for an extremely entertaining reminder of this man's attempts to beat off the wolves. Tragic turncoat Christopher Hitchens, who proclaimed himself the successor to this progressive literary figure, is put in place by Vidal, who exposes Hitchens' political failings, and ends up outliving Hitchens besides.

We meet Vidal's loving male partner who shared his entire adult life, and we realize how we miss such stimulating thinkers, unafraid to tell it like it is, who fearlessly challenge the establishment. This is a valuable way to spend your time in a movie theater.

There is a plethora of films addressing the many threats to our environment, and Gasland was an important addition to the body of work. But Gasland Part II is a long-winded and unnecessary sequel to the quite sufficient Part I treatise on the dangers of fracking, ultimately of interest to only the most dedicated. Activist filmmaker Josh Fox, a Michael Moore wannabe, is heavily immersed in an important mission and certainly most dedicated to the cause, but this film adds little to the message that fracking is not good for your health or the environment. Although it updates recent findings on the extent of damage caused by fracking (deep drilling for natural gas), it offers little that is new.

War atrocities committed by American soldiers in Afghanistan are the subject of Kill Team. Embedded reporters and soldiers' own cell phone cameras provide footage not available in past wars. A group of U.S. soldiers is charged with killing innocent civilians for sport. The absorbing documentary interviews the participants and discovers that a bullying sergeant forced them to get involved in the thrill game. Kill people, drop a weapon on the scene to make it look like the attack was justified, then cut off body parts for souvenirs. One bullied soldier disgusted with the process, decides to become the whistleblower and is isolated from the rest of the group. His parents, concerned for his life, fervently support his innocence, and the bulk of the film is the defense team's preparations for the upcoming military trial. Well edited with building suspense, the film pops out of the news headlines, providing the human drama that is seldom seen in war reportage.

Bridegroom is about gay love, but it's a story for anyone who has a heart. Laughing and crying throughout the entire theater, a long standing ovation for the artists, winner of the audience award for best documentary - it doesn't get much better than that. At a time when the same-sex marriage issue is on the front page, young and handsome 29-year-old Tom Bridegroom dies in a fall from the roof of his apartment building. His partner of six years, Shane, is devastated and posts his tragedy on YouTube. It goes viral with 4 million hits!

Interviews with Shane, his family and friends, and poignant pictures of the two men growing up, provide a convincing testament to the power of love, and the urgency of the struggle for legalizing same-sex marriage. Shane's hip great-grandmother scolds critics, "It's a Romeo and Romeo story. Get over it."

Jin and The Rocket are films about exotic destinations that most people will never see. And they're also films that most people will never see. That's unfortunate because these are the true gems at festivals, films that bring stories from the other side of the world into your living room, that show great art and filmmaking resides in nearly every country in the world. Both are films about the tragedy of war.

Jin is an almost silent drama that follows a young Kurdish woman rebel who leaves her post to wander through the most breathtakingly beautiful forests of the world, and also the most dangerous. Constantly being trailed, her life is on the edge of survival, caused by the tragic battle over land and borders. She wants to return to a normal life but the film constantly reminds us of the futility of her quest, and the futility of war.

The Rocket won the top Audience Award, and rightfully so. An Australian film about Laos, it is a fantasy about a rocket-making contest in a small village facing famine unless there is rainfall. A peasant family is forced to leave their village set to be flooded by a new dam. Ten-year-old Ahlo is an ingenious rocket maker, who competes for the top prize to not only help feed his family but help bring rain to his village. It's a light-hearted fantasy, but also a grim reminder of the devastation of war as unexploded bombs are still being discovered throughout the village.

Photo: From Big Men (via tribecafilm.com).

Is fashion political? See “Diana Vreeland” and decide

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:28:00 +0000

There's a strong-willed woman with a vast reputation who so affected culture that much of her work casts a shadow that reaches well into today. She had a cult following that numbers many who influence the world of today. It's not Ayn Rand I speak of, but Diana Vreeland.

Both Rand and Vreeland could be intimidating and had a similarly unconventional, highly stylized appearance and persona, but there's a lot of difference between them.

Ayn Rand wrote florid romances with enough talent to attract generations of readers, but chose to gather all the attention into a divisive philosophy that she wanted people to take very seriously indeed.

Vreeland, as editor at Harper's Bazaar in the 1950s and Vogue in the 1960s, took the fashion magazine and developed it into a multifaceted cultural touchstone that married imagination, style and intelligence into a roadmap for the celebration of freedom - in particular, freedom for women.

One could easily deride the world of fashion as a frivolous pursuit, and scoff at any contribution of someone who took it seriously, but Vreeland is the perfect figure to regard if you want to argue that style matters.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, a recent documentary focusing on Vreeland and her work, is now available on DVD and download. It's a smart and candid look at a woman who discovered how to share her sensibility with the world. Featuring parts of Vreeland's dictation of her memoirs to writer George Plimpton, and interviews with former employees and collaborators, it's a celebration of a time when style had a direct and powerful relationship with changing the world.

To her, style was a way to make your imagination apparent. Perhaps this enthusiastic maverick was more than anything a product of her times: from her Belle Epoque childhood watching Nijinsky leap across the stage, through her period of liberating flapperhood, and into the postwar era when she commanded the pages of glossy magazines, she was always ready for the new and exciting.

During the period when Vreeland wielded power and influence she embraced the new opportunities for women and led by example. She adored being a powerful female who had "things to do," work was something that she indulged in, something that surely proved useful for a creature with such vast energy. And her work was far from a private affair. It involved staff and assistants as well as photographers (such as Richard Avedon and David Bailey) and stylists who helped her expand the scope of their endeavor. Viewing the results (prominently and cleverly featured throughout the film) it's easy to see how it helped make the magazine an important artifact of a world embracing change and progress.

Magazines of today lumber towards irrelevance under the weight of consumerist/corporate ad-heavy fluff. Unlike them, the Vogue of the 1960s took its cue from Vreeland's sensibility - she chose models in a novel way, breaking from the clothes-horse with ideal proportions, and developed enthralling ways to depict fashion.

She was less interested in clothes than she was in people, and, being unconventional in appearance herself, she often celebrated what would have earlier been seen as "flaws" - Barbara Streisand's nose, Lauren Hutton's toothgap, Penelope Tree's extraterrestrial waifishness. Her judgment was sound, and from Lauren Bacall to Twiggy to Cher, she excelled at, "rather than giving people what they want ... giving people what they don't know they want yet."

By veering the world of fashion away from the well-heeled lady to the world of the young, to other faces and races and places and attitudes, she celebrated freedom and the people who used it to "invent themselves". As one witness suggests, she seemed to have been waiting for the '60s.

Vreeland also saw clothes as clues. She enthused that if you observe carefully you can see the "oncoming revolutions" in them. She was talking about clothes as something people create and wear for personal reasons, making them important in several ways, rather than as mere products.

Vreeland helped Vogue attain renown and success, but often she was at odds with selling ads and making advertisers comfortable. One can see in the film the trajectory that would end in conflict, eventually resulting in her dismissal as the 1970s unfolded. For Vreeland, it didn't seem to be about buying but inventing: Enthusing about Japan she celebrated that the island didn't deliver gold or diamonds, that the Japanese had to work at developing style from very little, and perhaps that's why they had such success at it.

To Diana Vreeland work was never a burden, but always an opportunity. The Eye Has To Travel does its subject justice in making apparent the vitality and enthusiasm that guided this remarkable women. It also reminds the viewer of the power of modernist thought and how it could recircuit the way we see the world and ourselves, delivering change and forward movement, sometimes with incredible flair.

Movie information:

"Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel"

Written and directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng

2013, 86 minutes, PG-13

Photo: dianavreeland.com

Red diaper babies at Tribeca and off Broadway

Tue, 14 May 2013 20:24:00 +0000

"Red diaper baby" is a term used to describe a child of parents who were either in the Communist Party USA or close to it. It's also the name of a hilarious one-man play written and performed by monologist Josh Kornbluth. It affectionately pokes fun at the trials of growing up in a communist family, but ultimately derides and condemns the communist model. Josh also wrote and starred in a popular film, Haiku Tunnel, directed by his brother Jake, which means Jake is also a red diaper baby.

Jake Kornbluth presented a new film at the recent 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, Inequality for All, his first documentary, in which he focuses on the life and teachings of Bill Clinton's secretary of labor, Robert Reich. It won a special award at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

The film is reminiscent of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth as an expose on the failings of the capitalist system with suggestions on how we can save it. Reich is an intelligent, well-liked spokesman for the American capitalist system, hoping to bring a human face to its exploitative aims. After incessant self-deprecating remarks about his short height, Reich is shown charming his classroom in a down-to-earth analysis of what went wrong with the American economy over the last century.

The film displays a simple graph that shows the fall and rise of the economy from the 1900s to now, then overlays it on a picture of a suspension bridge showing the cables dropping between two towers. Reich also uses the graphic to show the growing disparity of salaries between CEOs and workers, which started out the 20^th century as roughly 10 to 1 but now reaches over a ratio of 430 to 1

He points out that the big change came in the late 1970s when women joined the workforce in large numbers, mostly due to the need for supportive family income, and credit spending became rampant, and thus began the disintegration of the middle class. Reagan and the neoconservatives chucked unions, deregulated many industries and gave free rein to banks and corporations.

But Reich's faith and hope lies in the capitalism system. He suggests we need to get the billionaires to spend more of their wealth to feed the economy, and we need to return power to unions in order to raise wages, although he admits workers' pay will never come close to what it was before.

Of course Reich's prescription is OK as far as it goes. But the director should have listened to his communist parents when he was growing up: they I'm sure knew more about the cyclical nature of capitalism, and its voracious appetite for greater profits. A suspension bridge has cables falling and rising more than once. In the case of capitalism, where is the end of the bridge?

Also appearing in the Big Apple is the work of another red diaper baby, this time in the off-Broadway theater. The award-winning drama Finks is a fictionalized play by Joe Gilford based on the lives of his well-known progressive actor/comedian parents, Jack and Madeline Lee Gilford, who were victims of the McCarthy-era blacklist.

This historically accurate recreation of the dark days of the witchhunt features characters who are composites of well-known actors and directors like Jerome Robbins, Phillip Loeb and Zero Mostel. Much of the dialog is based on actual transcriptions from 1950s House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, where "finks" named names and ruined people's lives. The fast-paced wonderfully acted slice of history exposes the rabid insanity of the attempt to silence the progressive community and shows the destruction it eventually caused, ending careers and even some lives.

The playwright's personal recollections of the courage of his parents and others who stood up to the attack, and also those who succumbed to the pressures of HUAC to "fink" against their former friends and associates, are stunningly presented in a highly entertaining production filled with exciting dialog, dancing, music and award-winning performances. The play recently received two nominations for Drama Desk Awards, Outstanding Play and Outstanding Actress.

Gilford tried for over five years to get the play produced across the country, to no avail, until the small long-running Ensemble Studio Theatre took it in. Hopefully regional theaters around the country will be attracted to this exciting reminder of the days of courage against the American witchhunt.

Photo: A scene from "Finks" by Joe Gilford. Ensemble Studio Theatre

Are you more like Pinochet or Einstein? Take the quiz!

Fri, 10 May 2013 18:56:00 +0000

In the online age we are constantly being asked to take surveys, respond to polls and register comments. But how many of these surveys also seek to educate? The Communist Party of Wisconsin is doing its best by launching the "Workers Political Quiz."

The online quiz asks 10 simple questions, covering issues of economics, peace, and democracy. The questions are designed to help pinpoint the person taking the quiz on the political spectrum. Once the quiz is completed the answers are automatically tabulated and the quiz taker is informed if they rate as a "Reactionary," "Centrist," "Liberal," or "Progressive." Those taking the quiz need not include their email address to participate, but if they do, in addition to getting the results of the quiz in terms of the political label they are closet to, they will also get an example of others who fit the same label. They also receive a longer explanation of what that particular political outlook is based upon and what it's adherents rank as their priorities. The quiz results also provide the participant with a short list of some famous personalities that fit into the same category.

For instance, Albert Einstein, author of essay "Why Socialism?" and W.E.B. Du Bois, author of "The Souls of Black Folk," are examples of "Progressives." The coup plotting Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet and anti-birth control former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum are ranked as "Reactionaries."

The quiz is quickly proving to be one of the most popular features of the Communist Party of Wisconsin website, which itself was launched just this year.

Party activist Reza Mehrparast said, "Creating a website for the Communist Party of Wisconsin presented us with a unique challenge, on the one hand the concept of socialism is hardly a new one, and the party itself has been active since 1919. We wanted to illustrate that proud history while at the same time presenting the current struggles in which the party is engaged."

Mehrparast went on to say that while the quiz itself is new it drew inspiration for its creation from such other applications as the Little School for Marxist Education on the website of the Communist Party of Texas and Norman Markowitz's "Marxist IQ" quiz which is found regularly on the website of Political Affairs. But it isn't the last innovation the Wisconsin party has planned for their presence on the web.

"In today's marketplace of ideas websites are critical" commented Mehrparast, "to keep them fresh and have their users check in frequently they must be updated regularly, so it's time to redouble our efforts."

In the meantime Mehrparast said he hopes people will enjoy the quiz, learn something from it, and pass it along to others.

Photo: CPWisconsin.org

"Iron Man 3" is more about the man behind the armor

Tue, 07 May 2013 14:38:00 +0000

In the second sequel to Iron Man, titular hero Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) loses everything - even his iconic suits of armor. And that's just what this film needed in order to work as well as it does. In Iron Man 3, the rich playboy's arrogance costs him and those he cares about dearly, when a terrorist surrounded in mystery and mysticism launches a vengeful attack on the United States. But the real enemy is the wealthy entrepreneur who's pulling all the strings.

After three films' worth of Stark's ego, we now see a wiser, more humble Iron Man. Badly shaken by the events that took place in superhero mashup The Avengers, he now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition to lending a level of believability to the story, that also marks a definite point of character evolution. My main issue with the typical superhero sequel is that its main character is left to stagnate; to become a vapid archetype in a cape and tights, or else a supposed altruist with a Jesus complex. Iron Man 3 wants to convince the viewer that Stark is only a fragile human being, after all, and it does a good job of it.

The story begins with the usual snarky humor, but quickly takes a dark, violent turn: Antagonist the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) orchestrates a number of bombings and murders an oil executive on national television, leaving the viewer to decide which is more rattling: his cold persona, or his valid points about the destruction and foreign affairs atrocities perpetuated by American one-percenters.

When Stark issues a televised threat to the Mandarin, the man responds by attacking Stark's home with guns and missiles, plunging all his Iron Man suits into the ocean, and nearly killing girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). After nearly dying himself, Stark ends up in a desperate situation in a small town, where he befriends a young boy and works to rebuild his only surviving suit of armor. This is a significant part of the film, as it brings the hero back down to Earth and humanizes him through his interactions with the people he is charged with protecting.

All is not what it seems when the real culprit behind the attacks is revealed to be rich scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who plans to kill the president and use the Mandarin persona to strike fear into the hearts of citizens.

Iron Man 3 speaks volumes about modern, real-world issues, like corporate greed, scapegoating, xenophobia, and the always-profit-driven beating of the war drums. The problem is, these are volumes that viewers are already familiar with. The story doesn't offer a new message, just an alternate take on one that was covered in the first Iron Man.

This one had a different director than the two that preceded it, and that can be felt throughout the film - and not necessarily in a good way. Erratic plot pacing plagued the movie, as well as the presence of throwaway characters and a lack of good character interaction. Shane Black doesn't seem to know how to make the chemistry work between Downey and Paltrow, for example. Though Downey's trademark poker-faced wisecracks are still well executed, his dialogue with Paltrow is a bit jarring; something is amiss.

On the other hand, Iron Man 3 is engaging in that it's very much about the men behind the machines - and that includes the corporate wealth machine. Furthermore, when Black casts the spotlight on Stark alone, he really gets underneath his skin and puts him in situations that move the story forward, however awkwardly. That willingness to test the characters and up the ante in terms of what the hero needs to deal with...that's something that Iron Man 2 never learned, and the third installment promptly corrects that. Downey's voiceover during the film sums that character development up nicely: "You start with something pure, something exciting. Then come the mistakes, the compromises." This is not a film about a hero saving the day. This is a film about mistakes, violence, collateral damage, and how one can pick up the pieces in the end.

Unlike its predecessor, which glorified the high-tech Iron Man suits, Black's take on things shows us that the metal outfits are actually rather unimportant and disposable. Indeed, more of them are destroyed than put to actual use. What matters, we are told, is the man himself. Downey spends a greater portion of the film being Tony Stark than Iron Man, and that says something about the overall direction of this story. It's nice to see some "real people" on the big screen once in a while - explosions and plots to rule the world not withstanding.

Photo: Flickr (CC)

Movie Review

"Iron Man"

Directed by Shane Black

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce

2013, PG-13, 130 min.

Films about African Americans stand out at Tribeca Festival

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:35:00 +0000

Most Americans, and particularly African Americans, are unable to address American history or race relations without thinking about the tragic legacy of slavery and the ensuing centuries of racism and hatred directed at Black people in America. African Americans' responses to this painful reality has taken many approaches over the centuries: some chose nonviolent civil disobedience (Martin Luther King), some chose a more confrontational approach (Malcolm X at some points in his life), or a back-to-Africa movement (Marcus Garvey), some formed what they considered a revolutionary organization (MOVE), engaged in militant self-defense (Black Panthers), pursued multiracial political and social struggle (communists, socialists), or racial separation and Black nationalism (Nation of Islam), to name a few.

Films at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival last month that highlighted prominent African Americans and their eventful lives were infused with this dilemma of choosing the right course of struggle against racism and injustice.

In The Trials of Muhammad Ali we learn about the people and events that shaped Ali's courageous struggle for justice and the right to practice his Muslim beliefs. The bright and charismatic young Cassius Clay was nurtured in his desire to become a boxer by a consortium of white Louisville investors who remained friends through his entire career. His Christian parents were loving and supportive. But when he turned to the Nation of Islam in his late teens, he chose a route that he thought would be independent from the white power structure. Of course history has proven otherwise, and Ali discovered that being Black in America was tough enough, but being a Muslim, and especially one who refused to serve in the military, would shape the course of his life.

This new documentary is a brilliant tribute to the ultimate champion, a fighter in and out of the ring to this very day. Every major development in his career is examined using vivid photographs, archival footage and revealing interviews with many people who touched his life. The film digs deep into the history of the Nation of Islam, with rare footage of Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, who in the movie lavishes praise on his Muslim brother. It includes the many people who have stood strong at Ali's side through all his trials, including the unflinching love of his devoted brother, and the young woman he met at his first mosque visit, who eventually became his wife and responsible for many of the decisions in his struggle for justice.

The well-edited fast-moving documentary covers Ali's long span of life starting when he was 12 years old, his training to become world champion, his notorious Supreme Court case sentencing him to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Vietnam, and the eventual reversal of the ruling; the years when his title was taken from him and he had to make a living lecturing on the college circuit; his poignant Olympic torch lighting with him shaking with Parkinson's disease; amazing fight footage and scenes of him visiting places and admirers all around the world. Ali is probably the most recognized athlete in world history, but what's most amazing is that he never flinched in his struggle for peace and justice.

Famed actor and comedian Richard Pryor is the subject of a probing documentary that reveals his turbulent youth and the psychological scars that eventually shaped his unique and hilarious comic persona. Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic starts from the beginning of Pryor's life and grabs the viewer into a story as powerful as his comic genius. Although many remember the tragic result of his uncontrollable drug use, as he was discovered on fire with burns on 60% of his body, the movie rather focuses on his amazing life and what led up to that fateful accident. Never before shown scenes from some of his concerts, his early days in Greenwich Village, his first gig in Las Vegas where he let loose one evening with extreme profanity and was fired, his early TV stints, and blockbuster film roles that led to million-dollar contracts, are all covered in this highly entertaining study of the real Richard Pryor. He was close friends with Huey Newton, supported the Panthers and most of his material was infused with a deep understanding and disdain for racist America.

An altogether different style of documentary about a unique woman in a mostly man's world of Black entertainment is I Got Somethin' For You. Whoopi Goldberg presents a loving study of Moms Mabley, one of the most popular comics in entertainment history. Mabley grew up with her parents while they worked in vaudeville, and went on to shape a style that was fresh and, though slightly naughty, was filled with such realistic humor that audiences at the Apollo Theater in New York would slide out of their seats in laughter. At the time little was known of her personal life, as a lesbian who dressed in men's clothes in public and worked with the top names in the industry. The way she dressed and her informality created the feeling of a loving mom on stage, but she was well aware of racism, sexism and anti-gay sentiment in America. She found a way to deal with them all, using her talents and determination to win over the enemy.

Some of the people at the Tribeca Festival screenings, including some judges who gave Let the Fire Burn an award for Best Editing in a Feature Documentary, knew nothing about the astonishing events that took place in 1985 in Philadelphia. A large four-storey house in an established downtown Black community, occupied by members of the African American MOVE organization, was assaulted by the police and, by orders of the mayor, bombed from a helicopter hovering over the structure, taking the lives of 11 women and children. It burned to the ground on orders from the police chief who was quoted as saying, "Let the fire burn," and the fire eventually destroyed 60 other adjoining homes in the neighborhood. It was the only bomb ever dropped on civilians in American history.

This spellbinding and emotionally gripping documentary is structured around two historic video pieces. One is the lone surviving video of the deposition hearing of the sole child survivor of the attack, Birdie Africa, as he described, just weeks after the event, the horror of the attack and resultant fire that only he and Ramona Africa survived. The other is a video of a thrilling and unabashed exchange of ideas that took place at a mock hearing set up to defuse tensions in the community a couple years after the tragic events. It included members of MOVE who were not in the house during the bombing, local civil rights leaders, the police chief, psychologists and others who tried to explain MOVE, what led up to the attack and what went wrong. It found the city administration responsible.

Philadelphia is a city long known for its sordid history of racism, especially during the reign of former racist Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo when he was elected mayor. The police officer who saved Birdy Africa from the fire was praised as a "cop with a heart" and commended for his heroism. After his actions were revealed to fellow officers, his locker was spray painted with racist epithets and he eventually was driven from the police force.

The Tribeca jury made a statement upon awarding the film: "Let the Fire Burn tells a story we were stunned to realize we didn't know. It offers a time capsule, taking us to a horrific moment in our nation's history with a masterfully structured edit that vividly mines a trove of blistering period archive images without voiceover narration. The film ensures that a criminal and senseless destruction that cost eleven deaths - five children, six adults - shakes us to our core and is remembered with utter visceral power."

Photo: From In The Trials of Muhammad Ali.