Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns, and her husband David McMahon, were not the right people to make the lengthy documentary on Muhammed Ali for PBS. I felt the long series had a subtly hostile tone to Ali and a more explicit hostility to boxing. Despite having the resources to access piles of stunning archival footage and despite having a massive eight hours of airtime, the entire work was devoid of emotion. Muhammed Ali was a passionate, emotional figure, but this was not reflected in the deadpan commentary, not the least by the guy they presented as the biographer of Ali, who seemed barely conscious.
This is not to minimize the insights of the brilliant writer and Ali fan Walter Moseley, the inside view of Ali’s brother Rahman, and the expert blow-by-blow from former boxer (and now actor) Michael Bentt. In fact, if it weren’t for Bentt, the series would have been stumbling around the ring helplessly.
If you have been a fan of Ali, as I have been most of my life, then there isn’t much new in this chronological series – other than wonderful clips and images. I appreciated that Burns allowed the women in Ali’s life to talk about his obsessive cheating and need for conquest after conquest, while they provided a home, a haven, and a family. But I was irritated that Burns acted like he had single-handedly discovered that people get hurt boxing and that Ali could be mean during a fight. Burns brought no real insight into Ali’s relationship to Elijah Muhammed and the Nation of Islam. We see his involvement, we see his betrayal of Malcolm X (which he regretted his whole life), and we see that his connection with the group’s leader was a bit of a roller coaster. But Burns provided no depth, no clarity, no understanding of Ali’s experience of Islam. And then there was the way Burns twisted Ali’s unique charisma into some sort of manipulation, when in fact Muhammed Ali widely inspired love. I adored him myself.
The most profound deficit was a total lack of appreciation of boxing throughout the series. We were shown the worst moments of every fight, the blood, the broken noses, the pain. Thankfully, we were also shown some of the spectacular conditioning and training the pros went through. But the filmmakers seemed to have only the most rudimentary grasp of the degree to which Ali brought rhythm, motion, and dancing to the fight. No one ever moved in the ring the way he did. Before Ali, no one ever imagined the sweet beauty a fighter could bring to such a brutal sport. Before Ali, no other boxer floated like a butterfly.
I grew up following Ali, starting with his 1960 Olympic win when I was 13 and was just becoming aware of the civil rights movement. He was only 18 and won all four of his fights in Rome. Over the years, I kept my eye on him, as if we were growing up together. His later struggle against the war in VietNam meant everything to those of us fighting the cops in the streets to protest that vile war. His ability to connect oppressions – “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong… No Viet Cong ever called me n****r.” – was an education for us, as was his example of civil resistance to the draft. And all the time he was the most fluid, graceful fighter we had ever seen.
My exposure to the fight game began early. My parents were big on sports, almost any sport that involved our hometown Pittsburgh. Once we got a black and white TV, we would eat dinner sitting around a card table watching Studio Wrestling on Saturday nights. It originated out of Pittsburgh, and we were as familiar with Killer Kowalski and his main antagonist local boy Bruno Sammartino as we were with our relatives. My dad knew Referee Izzy Moidel, a local ex-boxer. Each of the wrestlers had a schtick and a script – it was fake fighting. Obviously. But I got a taste for the give and take of the fight from those weekly broadcasts. (And went on to become a Tae Kwon Do master for my first career, but that’s another story.)
When Muhammed Ali turned up, he had his schtick too, but he was for real. Boxing was for real. Ali gave shape and meaning to one-on-one combat, not only by being brilliant in the ring, but also by being brilliant out of it. He harnessed his charisma and his pronouncements to his beliefs and became one of the most influential athletes in history.
The Burns group seemed to think that Ali was “interesting,” a celebrity, entertaining. But I didn’t feel the love. Of course, they pointed out his athletic and political contributions, but I was left wondering if they had any feel for the depth of his influence. They stayed, it felt, on an unexcited, slightly aloof level of exposition, more interested in the count than the fervor: one, two, three – Ali won the heavyweight championship three different times.
There’s been a lot of discussion about why Burns (white/male/straight) has the total indulgence of PBS, which for 40 years has broadcast some 200 hours of his work! Meanwhile, there are generations of filmmakers who can’t get their toe in the door, not the least directors of color and women. A long-term Boston PBS tv host, the racist, reactionary Emily Rooney (yes, the daughter of –nepotism is becoming a theme in this piece), retired from her show after her disgusting dismissal of the very idea that a filmmaker of color could reach the heights of Burns. Over 300 film and TV professionals wrote a complaint letter to PBS asking “How many other ‘independent’ filmmakers have a decades-long exclusive relationship with a publicly-funded entity? Your commitment to diversity at PBS is not borne out by the evidence.” The privileged position of the Burns group impacts everything about their work – and in the case of Muhammed Ali, makes them the wrong group of people for the job.
Want to get an intimate sense of Muhammed Ali? Do yourself a huge favor and watch Billy Crystal’s hilarious, moving 14-minute tribute at Ali’s funeral. I’ve seen it a dozen times and have never failed to tear up. Eight hours of Burns’ presentation and I never felt much other than annoyance.
Ifé Franklin has produced and directed this remarkable short film entitled The Slave Narrative of Willie Mae. These moving 20 minutes represent just three out of 17 scenes of the book, of the same title, on which it is based. The depth of the collaboration among multiple talented artists is impressive. Letta Neely, who edited Franklin’s volume of historical fiction (Wild Heart Press, 2018), also wrote the script for this film. The actors are riveting, not the least Qualina Lewis as Willie Mae, the young enslaved woman whom her mother, an elder aunt, and a sister field hand are preparing for escape. The multi-talented Michael Gordon Penn provides a frightening threat as the overseer. Their cooperative work together on this film mirrors the joint efforts of these women to save the youngest amongst them from the brutalities of Lenox Tobacco Plantation in 1852.
Ifé Franklin has combined community activism and a rich and outstanding variety of artistic expressions since high school, when she began to study photography. Over the years she has added many layers to her arts education and has produced an impressive range of installations and visual arts. Watch her short film here. Her hope is to bring the full story to the screen.
Nomadland is a rare mainstream film about poverty. We meet traveling (mostly) white people and the supportive communities, simultaneously temporary and recurrent, that they build. Most, like Fern (Frances McDormand), are dealing with the devastation following the Great Recession. Slow and painful, it is full of desert landscapes and mud and rocks. Fern occasionally takes up very tough temporary low-wage jobs – like Christmas rush at Amazon – but where are the Black or Brown workers? I was struck hard by the profound aloneness which some of the characters sought and was puzzled about the absence of abusive men in these landscapes.
Many friends raved about The Prom as just the kind of light fluff with content that we all crave, but – forgive me – I found it annoying. All the glitter and jazz hands failed to camouflage the apologetic born-that-way vibe that straight people adore.
The story: Four failed actors (Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Andrew Rannells) decide to take up a cause in order to make themselves seem sympathetic. They pick Emma (a constantly smiling Jo Ellen Pellman) from Indiana, who isn’t allowed to take her girlfriend to the prom and who is abused by both the high school kids and the head of the PTA (Kerry Washington). Her school principal (Keegan-Michael Key) supports her; he is the film’s only consistently warm-hearted and charming character.
The critic Jennifer Heaton nailed it when she wrote: “This adaptation of the Broadway show is like a supermarket celebrating Pride with a rainbow cake or your straight work colleague throwing around drag slang they don't understand.” Moreover, it is obvious that the film was directed by one man and written by two, because they understand little to nothing about lesbians, who are minor plot devices anyway. For example, the (cliched) gay Corden character decides he will make baby-butch Emma into a dazzling woman for the prom – and puts her into a pastel tulle dress, high heels (which she has never worn), makeup and flowers in her hair, and then they all crow about how gorgeous she is. She looks exactly like all the straight girls. It is a brutal case of debutchification which every poor dyke has experienced to their distress.
Each song sounds exactly the same as the next; the dancing is choreographed by someone who missed hip-hop altogether; and it feels like a homogenization of every musical from 1964. At an extremely long 2h 11m it’s about 2h 11m too long. Complete with evil mothers instantly forgiven via a hug, it is banal and boring.
A perfect Pandemic film, Uncle Frank propels us away from our present stress and drops us into 1973. Innocent Beth goes north to attend NYU where her Uncle Frank teaches. She discovers that he lives with his life-partner Wally. Via a road trip, they all end up back in the South for the funeral of Frank’s nasty-assed father (Beth’s grandfather) and the site of Frank’s devastatingly traumatic first teenage love. It is sometimes tough to watch, especially if you grew up with a vicious parent, and the joyful ending is excessive. The acting is superb, the film is often funny, and I highly recommend its bittersweet portrayal of loving support.
We all want diverting movies that are not unintelligent. I enjoyed “Belle,” the 2013 mainstream film based on the 18th Century life of the mixed-race daughter of the Royal Navy Captain whose family resided at Kenwood on Hampstead Heath. Heiress Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is raised to know her limited place at the table of aristocrats. “Belle” features an impressive cast, thoughtful performances, and lush period settings. The tumultuous romances of both Dido and her sister/cousin are impacted by the clash between class and race. In the end, we witness the first judicial victory of the slavery abolition movement.
How do you make a profound film? Take one of our greatest playwrights, August Wilson (Pulitzer Prize); add the tortured, nuanced final performance of the late Chadwick Boseman as ambitious cornet player Levee; and anchor it with Viola Davis’ uncompromising seething portrait of the “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey. Let Levee seduce Ma Rainey’s pretty girlfriend (Taylour Paige) downstairs, while Ma is upstairs demanding her due from the white music men who want to exploit her prodigious talents. Highlight the scars of unendurable racism and how the different coping strategies divide the band members, and you have the elements of passionate truth-telling. Play-like in its staging, this is a film that must be seen and felt.
If you love you some Jane Austen and you love you some Bollywood, and if you need a joyous film with a happy ending, then rent this film from Amazon Prime for $3.99 and settle back. Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha (“Bend it Like Beckham”) sure knows her Pride & Prejudice. With an impressive respect for Austen’s words and wit, she creatively transports the Bennet/Bakshi family to India where a technicolor cast of thousands celebrates love. My main criticism is that William Darcy is played by an actor so bland and charmless that it is hard to believe he wins over Lalita/Elizabeth, the most outstanding of the four unmarried daughters. Loved it!
I know that "The Queen's Gambit" is all the rage, and, yes, it is one of the few series that I watched all the way through in perhaps three sittings. But as riveting as it is, I have some problems with it. This is a show about a woman, based on a book written by a man, with three male series writers, and a male director. In the right hands, that would not necessarily have been an issue, but I was bothered by how drenched it was in the male point of view. For me it wasn’t so much the male gaze as the male leer. (What was the point of view of centering the camera on her ass as she danced alone in her underwear in her own home?) And I wasn’t surprised to hear that most critics believe the main character had a great deal in common with the life of Bobby Fischer, a misogynist prick. ("They're terrible chess players... I guess they're just not so smart... I don't think they should mess into intellectual affairs, they should keep strictly to the home"—CBC)
Beth Harmon is a brilliant child prodigy and adult champion in chess. She has big eyes, a great sense of 60s fashion, and takes to leaning her chin in her palm in a fetching manner. She somehow attracts women and men who want to save her, serve her, and adore her, although she seems totally incapable of returning the favor. Beth is all about Beth, given to either dreamy or drunk or stoned monologues, and on the few occasions where she actually responds to another person, she is likely to be rude and brief.
I found it hard to stomach that she never cuts her chess teacher Mr. Shaibel into her success, although she mentions him. The first gesture of gratitude to this custodian at the orphanage where she lived, comes after his death.
The series packs a visual wallop. Every shot is carefully and skillfully framed, so much so that sometimes I felt it was a period-perfect series of stills. The episodes gallop along, clutching your attention all the time, until the 6th and 7th final episodes which were so repetitive and drawn out that my viewing partner wondered if they had changed it from a 5- to a 7-part series last minute and had to stretch out the narrative. For example, in the final chess battle, in Moscow, we see her exit the hall the first day to several women wanting her autograph. The next day, a dozen. The next day, fifty. The next day, a crowd. The next day, a mob. We got the point.
Sexually, she is an object of lust to all the men she beats in chess. Even a gay journalist wants her for a minute. She herself floats through life without sexual passion in her stylized outfits and big eyes, when she isn’t hiding in her home drinking and drugging herself into isolated oblivion, always to be saved by one of her admirers. She sleeps with one woman, but I don’t count it because it was only after getting stupid drunk on the night before the finals of a tournament.
I know they purport to examine mental health and substance misuse, but really the camera obsesses over her oversized eyes and caresses her increasingly stylish outfits. Beth Harmon is not a character I could believe, let alone love.
I found "The Queen's Gambit" suitably diverting, quirky, and just long enough to fit into pauses from following the Covid and breaking news. But I was also annoyed by the lack of authenticity around the inner life of this character.
The Crip Camp provided teens with disabilities a chance to join the “Woodstock generation” in an inspired summer camp environment that eliminated the barriers that had limited their lives: protective parents, separate schools, social ostracization. After meeting each other, they formed life-long bonds around courageous and witty activism. We watch the community go from the isolation of the 50s, through the struggle for the 504 legislation, and on to the famous 1990 crawl up the steps of the Capitol to win the ADA. This exhilarating film is the first documentary from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. Enthusiastically recommended.
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