Shola Lynch: Free Angela and All Political Prisoners

Shola Lynch's Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2012) is a nifty companion documentary to her Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004). Between Shirley Chisholm and Angela Davis, there's a lot of ground to cover. So much so, given the context of the times both then and now, they'd make for an absorbing, expanded mini-series. In each case, Lynch provides an exciting introduction. 

Free Angela and All Political Prisoners focuses on Angela Davis in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when she twice became a cause célèbre, first in California and then worldwide. Strong reaction to her intellectual engagement came from such high profile characters as Governor Ronald Reagan, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and US President Richard M. Nixon. As we know now, Hoover died in 1972 before the end of Davis' trial, Nixon went down as a result of Watergate, and Reagan went on to become president of the USA in the following decade.

Lynch's documentary starts off at an even pace, then picks up steam when Angela Davis becomes a fugitive, then slows into the details of her final trial, leaving me wanting more, more, more. A sequel about Davis' work from the mid-1970s until now (she just turned 70) would be equally fascinating, I suspect, as would even more about her family -- including her parents, from Birmingham, Alabama -- and siblings Fania, Ben and Reggie. (In the small world department, Ben Davis, now 68, played for the Detroit Lions in the 1970s.)

Today's Rune: Opening.
    

Dreaming in French, Part V: Angela Davis

There's a new film out about Angela Davis, which reminds me to put up a handful of additional notes about her from reading Alice Kaplan's Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis (The University of Chicago Press, 2012). Besides, the book's due again after renewing it three times from the library already, so . . . here we go.

Angela Davis' (b. 1944) development as a thinker and activist embraces a lot of territory, including French and German philosophy. In addition, when imprisoned, she received moral and some support from engaged French philosophers, poets, and general fans.

Some of the people we encounter in Dreaming in French who connect to Angela Davis include a German boyfriend, Manfred Clemenz. "Intellectual passion is a kind of love, and the love she might have had for Manfred Clemenz would be hard to separate from her discovery of philosophy" (Kaplan, page 179).

In 1964, Davis began a thesis on Alain-Robbe Grillet (1922-2008), the novelist and scriptwriter for indie films such as L'Année dernière à Marienbad / Last Year at Marienbad (1961); he went on to direct his own films, such as Trans-Europ-Express (1966). Grillet wrote fiction and about fiction; he wrote about film, and he wrote about Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian director often discussed on this very website. In approaching Grillet's work, Angela Davis utilized both existentialist philosophy (freedom and responsibility) and the "new" anthropological structuralism. Kaplan notes of Davis' emerging thought: ". . . in addition to her attentiveness to structures and signs, she maintained a deep commitment to the idea of human freedom;" she paid close attention to both "conciousness and concept" (Kaplan, page 180).

To make a long story short, other influences on Davis included Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno, Albert Camus, the civil and human rights movements, the US-Vietnam War, Cuba, the Black Panthers and all the other interconnecting frisson of the 1960s. Some additional characters that come up: Ronald Reagan (as governor of California), Jean Genet, Jean Seberg, Jane Fonda and Yolande DuLuart (Angela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary, 1972). Even the Rolling Stones came to her support as needed with an eccentric song, "Sweet Black Angel" ("Exile on Main St.," 1972). 

More to say, but that's it for now except: Happy Earth Day!

Today's Rune: Protection.       

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975: Take Three

Göran Olsson's The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011) contains so much material, I can barely tick off all that's shown or heard. In addition to MLK, we see Coretta Scott King (1927-2006). And the Black Power salute at the Olympic Games in Mexico City (1968). The Last Poets, inspired by Malcolm X and formed in 1968. Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, the Black Panther Party. Bobby Seale in Stockholm, saying "in the final analysis" -- a phrase nearly identical to today's "at the end of the day." Free food, free breakfast program hosted by the Black Panthers. J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO. Exile in Algiers, Algeria. Huey Netwon, From Russia With Love in the background. TV Guide taking issue with Swedish journalism. Emile de Antonio (1919-1989 -- director of In the Year of the Pig, 1968, and other influential films). The Attica Prison uprising (1971). Civil rights lawyer William Kunstler (1919-1995). Elaine Brown, Black Panther. Governor Ronald Reagan of California vs. Angela Davis (1972) and her aquittal; her earlier study wih Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979). Robin Kelley, Sonia Sanchez, John Forté, Erykah Badu, Louis Farrakhan, Harlem and Lewis H. Michaux (ca. 1884–1976).        

The bonus "reels" are also well worth delving into in their own right. There's a heartbreaking section about Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) and her bid for the presidency in 1972 -- ahead of her time, she was hopelessly outnumbered, defeated but unbowed. There's more with Stokely Carmichael. And there's a very interesting section on the 1974 trial of Joan Little in Raleigh, North Carolina -- charged with first degree murder for stabbing a rapist-prison guard with the ice pick he threatened to kill her with, immediately after he raped her. She was eventually found not guilty. 

Today's Rune: Harvest.   

Jean-Luc Godard: Alphaville

Alphaville: Une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution, Jean-Luc Godard's black and white 1965 "science fiction" film -- really more of an alternate reality take on its own time and place -- considers a number of questions about the nature of social existence. Through Godard's idiosyncratic scrim, it seems as if there are elements and ideas shared with both Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle, 1962) and Herbert Marcuse (One-Dimensional Man, 1964): a lot about memory, desire, and the encroachment of technocracy. All three artists processed the world as they knew it at the time and looked forward, particularly in the grim wake of the Second World War and all of its attendant technology-magnified horrors via the Cold War and military-space-nuclear developments to that point. They were, I suspect, more sensitized to "external reality" than most of us are nearly fifty years later.

Since the 1960s, it would seem that human societies and their leaders have shown 1) more incompetence and 2) more resilience than any of them would have expected at the time. So far, somehow some way, we have collectively muddled through.

In a similar vein, François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 came out in 1966.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Herbert Marcuse: One-Dimensional Man

One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society by Herbert Marcuse (1964, 1991) is a book I find worth picking up again every so many years in order to check against current actualities. Reading Angela Davis' take on blues singers recently prompted me to do it again -- for in Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (1997), she noted how much Marcuse influenced her thinking and writing about the subject at hand.

One-Dimensional Man is both simple and complex; some of it is of historical interest but much is still also pertinent to the here and now of 2011. The original "Cold War" discussions can be updated by substituting "Drug War" or "War on Terror" or whatever it is that supposedly comes together as a unified narrative after the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan in our day. Wordplay and manipulation of "hearts and minds" continues, most certainly, just as it did fifty years ago, around the time Marcuse was working on the first edition of One-Dimensional Man. All one need do is listen (or read or watch or think) carefully: just about everything we need to know is right out in the open. Seek and ye shall find, indeed.

Der eindimensionale Mensch. Marcuse's discussions of language usage in advertising and the public sphere has gotten me over the years to pay more careful attention to phrasing and compressed concepts across languages. Examples might be "The American People" (what exactly is meant by that, so-often used by so many individuals to justify so much, yet meaning next to nothing?); and, in the USA, "Vietnam" as shorthand for the United States-Vietnam War, and "the Mexican War" as shorthand for the United States-Mexican War, American-Mexican War, or the US-Mexican War. Why the distinction? Because, because, because . . . the Devil is in the details, and so is history and so are cultural dynamics. If or when we accept concepts/images without weighing, considering and playing with them, we become spellbound or just plain unaware of the numerous "hypnotic-ritual formulas" used socially, clichés that tend to shut down further thinking about history and accepted reality.    

L'homme unidimensionnel. Somehow "unidimensional" sounds cooler than "one-dimensional." But as we all know, 3D is better yet.

El hombre unidimensional. Man, homme, hombre, Mensch. A little outdated in a title for the 21st century, eh? Mensch is okay. People, humanity, society, civilization or culture might convey more universality today.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed

Shola Lynch's Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004, 2005) uses a mix of split-screen techniques, music straight out of Shaft (1971), Cleopatra Jones (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), and intermittent scroll worthy of an exciting election night to tell the tale of Shirley Chisholm's run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. The viewer is thrown into the fray with Chisholm herself (at the time and near the end of her life) punctuating the story throughout. "If you understand power," she says in a 1972 clip, "then you know what I'm trying to put together."

It's a wild ride that includes Chisholm (including three assassination attempts), George Wallace (shot in Maryland during the primary campaign), Ed Muskie (effectively knocked out of the race for personal reasons), Hubert H. Humphrey and George McGovern vs. the Nixon-Agnew juggernaut, with the Vietnam War as backdrop. "You do your thing and you let me do mine," Chisholm quips to those breaking for other candidates. It's as complex and fierce a struggle as angling to become Shogun.

Shirley Chisholm -- change agent, way paver, contender. And a whole lot more, from NOW leader to progressive prophet, some thirty-seven years ahead of her time.

The website: http://www.chisholm72.net/home.html



We're talking Greek Tragedy, American-style. Chisholm makes it all the way to the July convention in Miami before conceding (along with Muskie and Hubert Humphrey); McGovern becomes Democratic candidate, only to be crushed in the general election by Nixon and Agnew, who in turn are forced out of office thanks to high crimes and misdemeanors.

Dear readers, Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed is a hip, worthy and timeless documentary. I dig.



Today's Rune: Fertility.

On the Chisholm Trail, 1972

Just got to see Shola Lynch's fabulous documentary on Shirley Chisholm's 1972 candidacy for president of the USA, Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed. More details in the pipeline.

Today's also the first day of the Lenten Season, post-Fat Tuesday. I'm aiming to raise funds for the Catholic Relief Services.

Today's Rune: The Self.

1972 and 2008

In my enthusiastic support of a woman for president in 2008, I blanked out about Shirley Chisholm's campaign as a Democrat in 1972. Turns out there's a nifty documentary available in DVD format that I just ordered for the library: Shola Lynch's Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004). Looks good for its content about candidate Chisholm, the election process (then and now), and the context of the times -- Vietnam, Nixon-Agnew, a fractured USA, all of it. I was a kid at the time living in Durham, North Carolina, but remember viscerally the passionate engagement of my teachers. One was fresh from an Ohio school near Kent State and hopping mad at the Establishment!



For insight into dirty political deeds, this one looks good: Allen Raymond's How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative (2008). Certainly the last two elections had their share of them -- did Bush really win Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004? And if he didn't, why is he the president of the USA?


Of course, back in 1972, Shirley Chisholm didn't win the election. She didn't become the Democrats' official candidate, either. Instead, Nixon-Agnew won in a landslide. The two crooks did it again! Here's Spiro Agnew (on the right) at NASA in 1971 shaking hands with former Nazi, SS Sturmbannführer Wernher von Braun ("once the missiles go up, who cares where they come down?"). The Royal Spanish couple watches on (that's Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias just beyond Agnew, if you didn't guess . . . now King Juan Carlos I)

So the Democrats didn't win in 1972, but Agnew and Nixon got theirs eventually . . .


Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard from Ridley Scott's A Good Year (2006). Archie Panjabi, Albert Finney, Abbie Cornish, and most of the cast is good. The pleasures of pastoral France trump the mad business parade in London . . .

Today's Rune: Opening.

God Save the Queen
Her fascist regime!
They made you a moron
Potential H-Bomb!

Working Without A Net

1. Looking back, the art history classes I took were the most fun. They were both incredibly easy and thoroughly enjoyable, a nice combination. The professors would flash slides on a screen, talk about art and artists, movements and counter-movements, women and religion, cultures and clashes, and I would absorb as much as possible. As far as school work goes, what could be better? These classes at UNC-Chapel Hill sparked a permanent interest in visual art, for sure.

Above is Edgar Degas' Mlle La La at the Circus Fernando (1879). It's his birthday, and this seems more appropriate than his ubiquitous ballet dancers.


2. When I worked at Duke University's Perkins Library in the late 1980s, I occasionally saw George McGovern walking around West Campus. He was very tall. I'm glad to know he's still kicking up interest, working to address world hunger issues and end the Iraq occupation, just as he labored to end the Vietnam War, even though he turned 85 today. Like Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter and other elder statesmen, he keeps on keeping on.

Newer Books: Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now (2006), with William R. Polk.

William R. Polk, Understanding Iraq: The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan's Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation. Some of Polk's ideas might help galvanize the disintegrating American social structure, too.


3. Herbert Marcus, One-Dimensional Man (1964), is still relevant decades later. How does one remain free in modern society, shaking off mass hypnosis? By taking a critical view of the status quo, for one thing. Advertising and propaganda, stand back -- we're trying to think! One thing I noticed at the minor league game the other night was the constant prerecorded noise. Not like the silly organs of yesteryear, but a hypnotic barrage of mostly crap designed to get the "participant" to buy more shit. Live sports venues have been moving in this direction for some time. I suppose that's why it's called "advanced capitalism."

Today's Rune: The Warrior.

Birthdays: Edgar Degas, Lizzie Borden, Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky, Herbert Marcuse, George McGovern, Atom Egoyan, Campbell Scott, Nancy Walls.

Ciao!