The Black Power Mixtape

Streaming: IFC Films Unlimited/Prime Video
Warnings:
Racism
Violence
Rating: Not Rated

The Black Power Mixtape is a documentary made of compiled footage shot by a group of Swedish journalists documenting the Black Power movement in the United States from 1967-1975. The archival footage is overlaid with commentary and interviews from African American artists, activists, musicians and scholars. This documentary is vital when understanding the historical impact of the Black Power movement, especially when considering the current political climate of the United States. The film is divided chronologically from 1967-1975 and it focuses on several topics ranging from Black Power, the opposition of the Vietnam war, The Black Panther Party, covert FBI operations, and the War on Drugs. The film includes people who were significant to the movement including Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and Bobby Seale (to name a few). The Black Power Mixtape also includes archival footage of Martin Luther King Jr., Louis Farrakhan, Emile de Antonio, Richard Nixon, and Ingrid Dahlberg. Some of the commentary carrying the film includes but isn’t limited to Erykah Badu, Ahmir Questlove Thompson, Talib Kweli, Angela Davis, Sonia Sanchez and Abiodun Oyewole. The historical importance of this film is essential to understanding American history, and it is an interesting perspective simply because it was filmed by Swedish journalists. The archival footage as well as the editing joined with the commentary creates a masterful film that shows the audience a side of America that hasn’t been shown to a mass audience before. The Black Power Mixtape is so powerful, it was nominated for numerous awards and won the Editing Award World Cinema Documentary from the Sundance Film Festival, the Best Editing from the Gulbagge Awards, and the Best Documentary from the African American Film Critics Association.

            The first most important element to discuss about The Black Power Mixtape is the historical importance. In the United States, a lot of history isn’t properly taught, and this documentary allows an audience who might not know about this history, to see the truth for the first time. This film pushes the envelope by prominently featuring activists who were considered “dangerous” or “a threat” to the American people. The Black Power Mixtape not only discusses the concept of Black Power and what it means, it also discusses how the government has marginalized generations of people within the United States on purpose. This film makes connections that have not been seen before to American audiences and allows the audience to understand what the Black Power movement was actually all about, rather than what it was misconstrued to be. Diane Archer of Film Comment stated that The Black Power Mixtape is “a chronological musically structured collage tracing the arc of the Black Power movement from its inception during the civil rights era through its dissolution as drugs began to erode black communities in the Seventies, created with rarely seen footage culled from the archives of Swedish Television.” The two main historical events the film does a good job covering specifically is the Civil Rights Movement and the effects of the War on Drugs. These two events are framed to be highly relevant to the Black Power movement throughout the documentary.

            Another important element of the film are the interviews, the commentary that carries The Black Power Mixtape create an interesting approach to storytelling that isn’t often utilized in documentaries. Usually, the interviewee is seen throughout the film however, just the voices of the interviewees are used. This creates an effective way to focus on the content rather than who is speaking which can at times become distracting in certain approaches. One memorable part of the film features Erykah Badu singing during her commentary and the editor joins her voice with images of children in poverty who were not going to be able to eat breakfast that morning. At this point of the film, they were discussing free breakfast and lunch that the Black Panthers would provide, so it was certainly a powerful way to get that message across. Talib Kweli adds to an interesting part of the film where he discusses knowledge, and his commentary is joined with a Black elder who owns a historical bookstore. Editing choices like this adds to the points that the interviewees were trying to make, they allow the audience to understand their commentary on another level. Editors Göran Olsson and Hanna Lejonqvist did a wonderful job capturing the perspectives of their interviewees through the archival footage they used.

            The archival footage throughout the film is shocking and informative. The Black Power Mixtape uses footage that was predominantly never seen by an American audience, so a lot of this imagery was lost in history. Luckily it was discovered 30 years later in a cellar of Swedish Television. Without this footage, this documentary would not exist, and the American Audience would not have seen a great deal of our country’s own history. The archival footage included is one of the only interviews of Angela Davis in jail. This thoughtful interview with Angela has become quite famous and has been used in other documentaries since then. Police Brutality is an additional thing that is highlighted in the film, the only thing that has changed about the police are their uniforms. The Black Power Mixtape makes a point to include footage of people discussing their treatment from police back then which is a devastating comparison to make when considering the issue with police brutality today. The Black Power Mixtape has a lot of elements within it but through the editing, commentary and archival footage the film makes interesting and significant points about the Black Power movement.

            The Black Power Mixtape is not necessarily a film to watch when you want to feel better about being a citizen of the United States. However, it certainly is an inspirational film that makes the audience feel encouraged to work towards change for the future. The Black Power Mixtape is informative and educational when it comes to the civil rights movement as well as the Black Power movement and it is important to continue educating people properly about this history. Through the editing, archival footage and thought-provoking commentary, this film allows the audience to understand a different perspective of American history. I highly recommend watching this documentary film when you want to learn something new about the United States.

13th

Streaming: Netflix (With Subscription)
Warnings:
Violence
Racism
Explicit Language
Sexual Abuse
Drug Abuse
Graphic Imagery
Rating: TV-MA

13th is a documentary film that examines the prison system in the United States in depth and exposes the nation’s shameful history of racial inequality. Written, directed and produced by Ava DuVernay, 13th explores race, justice, and mass incarceration in the United States. The title of the film comes from the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States constitution that was adopted in 1865. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery across the United States and ended involuntary servitude however, redesigned racial caste allows punishment for a conviction of a crime to carry out new forms of involuntary servitude. 13th explains how slavery has been perpetuated since the end of the American Civil War and portrays how certain laws weigh more heavily on minority communities especially African Americans. This film examines the prison industrial complex from every angle and highlights the issues by discussing how people are profiting off of incarcerations of marginalized communities. In order to best explain this information DuVernay interviewed experts from numerous professions including Newt Gingrich, Henry Louis Gates, Cory Booker, Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, and Jelani Cobb just to name a few. The film was released to Netflix in 2016 and was later released for free on YouTube in 2020. An interesting fact is that the film was produced and filmed in secrecy, it was only revealed after it was announced as the opening film for the 2016 New York Film Festival, and it was the first documentary to ever open the festival. 13th was well received by critics, Manohla Dargis of the New York Times praised the film, and she summarizes it by stating,

“The United States did not just criminalize a select group of Black people. It criminalized black people as a whole, a process that, in addition to destroying untold lives, effectively transferred the guilt for slavery from the people who perpetuated it to the very people who suffered through it.”

13th was nominated for dozens of awards, it won Best documentary at the British Academy Film Awards, as well as the Primetime Emmy Awards. It also won a Peabody Award for excellence and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Duvernay won a Primetime Emmy Award for her writing and was nominated for her directing. 13th is an eye-opening film that uses archival footage, graphics, cinematography and tactful editing to reveal the prison industrial complex in a powerful way.

            The first most important part of the documentary to highlight is the archival footage. The archival footage validates everything that the interviewees are saying and the way it is edited enforces their points as well. Editor Spencer Averick known for Selma, A Wrinkle in Time, and When They See Us interlaces the archival footage with modern day commentary from politicians like Donald Trump. This editing technique enhances the facts that the interviewees are stating and allows the audience to make the connection that the prison industrial complex is a redesigned form of modern-day slavery. The editing also highlights how not much has changed from the past to present day, the same type of treatment that people endured decades ago still goes on today.

            The second important element of the film that assists with better portraying the statistics are the graphics. Throughout the film the graphics show appalling numbers of incarcerations and highlights how they grew astronomically over the years. In addition to the climbing numbers of incarcerations, the graphics also compare the ratio of how many white men will be incarcerated in their lifetime (1 in 17) versus how many Black men will be incarcerated in their lifetime (1 in 3). Lastly, the graphics also emphasize words from statements of the interviewees, or at times words from music that is included. This accentuates the information that is being brought to the attention of the audience with an added visual element. The use of graphics throughout 13th helps the audience comprehend and contextualize the important information that is being articulated.

            Finally, the cinematography is something that didn’t go unnoticed in 13th. The cinematography was executed by Kira Kelly and Hans Charles. The filming locations and production design of the interviews were deliberately placed with brick walls and industrial equipment to represent the labor that has been stolen from Black people in this country for centuries. Angela Davis’ interview was located at an abandoned train station, it was chosen in particular because “it was this gorgeous train station, gorgeous because of the level of decay. It’s something that would be hard for our art department to recreate,” stated Kelly. There is a large arch that frames Davis in the shot, it appears almost like a throne which DuVernay notes in an interview with Oprah Winfrey (conversation available on Netflix). In another interview with Michelle Alexander, Kelly deliberately makes Alexander stand out with a gray background and a pop of color with her chair, also hinting like she is on a throne.  In Henry Louis Gates’ interview he is on a Hollywood soundstage with an electrical plant in the background. A shot was included where the sun is setting on the electrical plant which is exactly the type of background that unconsciously makes the audience think of work or labor. This attention to detail and deliberate artistic approach with these interviews is interesting but also significant when it comes to documentary filmmaking. Oftentimes creative shots are not something that can be achieved in certain settings and the filmmaker just has to work with what they have, however DuVernay and Kelly were methodical when approaching the look of this film.

13this an eye-opening documentary with stunning cinematography, thoughtful editing, informative graphics and heartbreaking archival footage. This film is important to better understand how the prison industrial complex is fostering involuntary servitude in the United States. This film shines a shameful light on how the United States never reconciled for the atrocities they produced throughout history towards African Americans and marginalized communities. The fact that this film is on Netflix to reach a mass audience is one step forward towards change. Education is a powerful tool that cannot be taken away and this film certainly tells a truth that needs to be heard.