Films [x3]

sixties@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Tue, 9 Jan 1996 16:17:15 -0500 (EST)

Subject:Film [x3]

[1]

Nina comments,
>I saw the Eyes on the Prize series and I didn't find it controversial.
>Am I missing something?

Interesting observation, Nina. No, the first series ("civil rights") is clearly
well within the framework of acceptable, even noble, history --just as classic
60s-bashers like Allan Bloom, Jonathan Yardley, etc. reserve the civil rights
era as somehow before unrelated to the (bad) 60s which were as we know full of
nihilistic narcissism. So there's a cultural ideology thing at work here.
But, I would think some of the latter parts, on black power, would be
controversial in most mainstream settings --e.g., some of Malcolm's rhetoric,
the "sympathetic" look at the Panthers through the eyes of Seale, Newton, et
al, the revelation of FBI involvement in Fred Hampton & Marc Clark's murder,
etc. Not the kind of stuff that goes down easy in Newt's mainstream. Just
wondering, did you catch some of the Part Two series, shown later?
Ted Morgan
epm2@Lehigh.edu

[2]

Dear Sixties People:

Andy quoted "Incident at Oglala" as a clear film about AIM and the shoot
out at Pine Ridge as well as Peltier's frame-up. Curiously,
though,*Oglala* makes no mention of the "Peabody Coal Company, Anaconda
Copper, Kerr-McGee, Westinghouse, et al.-which have been demonstrably
victimizing Indians far more extensively and systematically than any
individual(s)" (Churchill, *Fantasies of the Master Race* 271-2). I think
Churchill's point is well taken: issues involving Indians are almost always
about land, water and mineral rights. These issues are not dealt with at
all in *Incident*. Still, it's an informative film.

Maggie
mjaffe@mail.sdsu.edu

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,
the true place for a just man is also a prison."

--Civil Disobedience

[3]

For an off-the-beaten track film try "The Torture of the Mothers" which
is about the Harlem riots of 1964. It provides an interesting counter-part
to any film about the Mississippi Freedom Summer project and features Ruby
Dee as well as the actual lawyer from the Harlem 6 Trial. It is very low
budget and rather slow, but it's worth it.
-Rebecca Hill
hillx018@maroon.tc.umn.edu

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