Review: "Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin" Shames Us for Forgetting

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 59 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (2003)
Running time:  84 minutes (1 hour, 24 minutes)
PRODUCERS/DIRECTORS:  Nancy D. Kates and Bennett Singer
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Robert Shepard (D.o.P.)
EDITORS:  Rhonda Collins, Veronica Selver, and Gary Weimberg
MUSIC:  B. Quincy Griffin

DOCUMENTARY – History/LGBT/Civil Rights

I was recently searching Netflix, looking for a movie I could review in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (also known simply as the March on Washington).  I suddenly came across the name of a person involved in the American Civil Rights Movement of whom I had never heard.

That man is Bayard Rustin, and he turned out to be the perfect subject matter for this remembrance for several reasons.  One of them is that Rustin was the chief organizer (official title: Deputy Director) of the March on Washington (August 28, 1963), where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous and historic “I Have a Dream” speech.  The second reason is that there is an award-winning documentary about Bayard Rustin.

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin is a 2003 documentary film from the producing and directing team of Nancy D. Kates and Bennett Singer.  Brother Outsider was originally broadcast as an episode of the long-running PBS documentary series, “P.O.V.” – Season 15, Episode 9 (January 20, 2013).  The film was also shown at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, where it received a nomination for the festival’s “Grand Jury Prize Documentary” award.

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin presents a broad overview of Rustin’s life.  Rustin was an American leader and activist in several social movements, including civil rights, gay rights, non-violence, and pacifism.  Rustin was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1912, and Brother Outsider follows his life from there.  West Chester is where Rustin began his life as an activist, when as a youth he protested Jim Crow laws.

The film chronicles Rustin’s arrival to Harlem, and his subsequent involvement in communism and later in the anti-war movement.  The film also recounts Rustin’s run-ins with the law enforcement officials over his activities and also how he was monitored by the FBI.  The film discusses Rustin’s life as an openly gay man, which got him into trouble, both with police and with his colleagues and contemporaries.  Of course, the film’s centerpiece is Rustin’s long involvement with the Civil Rights Movement, so the film covers the March on Washington.  There is also an examination of Rustin’s relationship with Dr. King and with his mentor, A. Philip Randolph.

Rustin’s friends, family, companions, and figures from the Civil Rights Movement speak on camera about Rustin.  That includes Civil Rights figures such as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Andrew Young, and actress Liv Ullmann.  The film uses a lot of archival footage, which includes film and video of Dr. King, Malcolm X, Strom Thurmond, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, Robert F. Kennedy, and President Lyndon Johnson, among many.  Brother Outsider also includes a sequence from the 2001 HBO movie, Boycott, starring Jeffrey Wright.

In a recent article for CNN.com, writer and CNN contributor LZ Granderson talks about Bayard Rustin’s marginalization in Civil Rights history, which Granderson attributes to homophobia among some African-Americans and in some segments of the black community.  Running through Brother Outsider is the question asking why Rustin remained in the background of the Civil Rights Movement, never really coming forward.  I don’t think the film ever directly answers that question.

Watching the film and understanding the pariah status that gay people had in the United States for the majority of Rustin’s life, one can understand that Granderson is likely right.  Rustin’s status or lack thereof in Civil Rights history has been affected by his being openly gay.  Rustin was both a “brother,” to many in the social movements in which he participated, but his sexual identity also made him an “outsider.”  For portraying this, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin won the GLAAD Media Award for “Outstanding Documentary” in 2004.  Rustin’s place in history is being restored.  On August 8, 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Bayard Rustin (who died in 1987) the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As a documentary about the Civil Rights Movement, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin is essential, not only because it brings Rustin to light, but also because it is a good overview of the movements that preceded the Civil Rights Movement.  The film also draws attention to the figures that both influenced the movement before it began and also built the movement in its early days.  Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, as a documentary, is essential Civil Rights viewing.

8 of 10
A

NOTES:
2004 Black Reel Awards:  1 nomination: “Black Reel Television: Best Original Program” (Public Broadcasting Service-PBS)

2004 Image Awards:  1 nomination: “Outstanding TV News, Talk or Information-Series or Special”

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

http://rustin.org/

For the time being, LZ Granderson’s CNN.com column, “The man black history erased,” can be read (as long as the article remains posted) here or http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/21/opinion/granderson-rustin-erased

The text is copyright © 2013 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for syndication rights and fees.

"Street Fight" is a Heavy Weight Political Documentary

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 222 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


Street Fight (2005)
Running time: 82 minutes (1 hour, 22 minutes)
(Not rated by the MPAA)
PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR: Marshall Curry
EDITOR/CINEMATOGRAPHER: Marshall Curry
Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY

Starring: Cory Booker and Sharpe James

The subject of this movie review is Street Fight, a 2005 documentary film from director Marshall Curry. The film received a best documentary film Oscar nomination and was also aired on the PBS series, P.O.V.

In 2002, documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry followed Cory Booker, a candidate for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, taking viewers behind the scenes in what turned out to be a cutthroat 2002 mayoral race. Booker, a Newark city councilman, was an Ivy League upstart who’d only won a single political race prior to his 2002 mayoral campaign – that of the city council seat he held at the time.

The incumbent Sharpe James was a four-term, old-timer who represented the old-fashioned political machine’s way of running a political campaign and managing a government. That old political machine will try to win by any means necessary. James was the undisputed king of New Jersey politics, and some called him a “king maker.” James was also not above using down-and-dirty tactics to win, and he was not above bringing forth race and skin color as divisive issues he could use to defeat his opponents.

Booker and James are both African-Americans, but Booker has a lighter skin complexion than James. James, who at the time of the film had been in politics for 32 years, was one of the politicians that enjoyed the first fruits of the hard fought Civil Rights battles. Booker, on the other hand, represented the new generation of black leaders born after the Civil Right movement. These young African-Americans want to bring new ideas to government, and race (skin color, ethnicity) is less of a factor in how they run their campaigns, manage government, and operate in the public arena. Just being one of the father’s of Civil Rights or being a first generation beneficiary of the movement doesn’t make one untouchable or above criticism from these young black leaders.

Such an attitude rankled supporters of Sharpe who saw Sharpe and his career as the epitome of the struggle for civil rights and what the movement wanted to achieve. So Booker, who wasn’t born in Newark (whereas James was) was seen as an outsider. James encouraged that sentiment and went so far as to suggest that Booker wasn’t black or, as a light-skinned Negro, not black enough. James also liked to accuse Booker of being Jewish (he’s not) and a lackey of right wing, white Republicans. Booker often struck back by pointing out Newark’s problems and how the city had languished under James’ stewardship.

Raising hard questions about American politics, race and racial identity, and democracy, Street Fight earned a 2006 Academy Award nomination (“Best Documentary, Features”) for its story of a bare-knuckles political race. Marshall Curry’s brilliant follows it all, letting his camera record something uniquely American and rarely shown to the country at large – an inner city political campaign in which two black candidates go after each other for blood. The film’s one flaw is that Curry deliberately avoided covering the issues and focused on the “street fight.” Curry has said in interviews that in the battle, in which both men went into the neighborhoods of Newark canvassing for votes and feting voters, he saw the true story. It’s debatable if issues such as poverty, gang violence, municipal construction, etc. weren’t as important.

Still, anyone who likes politics and documentaries will find that Street Fight is a gourmet meal and a lavish dessert in one.

9 of 10
A+

Thursday, October 26, 2006

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards: 1 nomination: “Best Documentary, Features” (Marshall Curry)

"My Country, My Country" is a Family Story

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 55 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux


My Country, My Country (2006)
Running time:  90 minutes (1 hour, 30 minutes)
CINEMATOGRAPHER/DIRECTOR: Laura Poitras
PRODUCERS: Joceylin Glatzer and Laura Poitras
EDITORS: Erez Laufer and Laura Poitras
Academy Award nominee

DOCUMENTARY – Family, Politics, War

Starring: Dr. Riyadh & family, Peter Towndrow, and Edward Wong

In her Oscar-nominated documentary, My Country, My Country, filmmaker Laura Poitras provides an inside look at war-torn Iraq from the perspective of a Baghdad doctor and his family. The film follows the doctor from mid-summer 2004 to shortly after the January 30, 2005 elections.

Dr. Riyadh is a physician who serves the people of his community in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya in the city of Baghdad. Working from the Adhamiya Free Medical Clinic, Riyadh is a healthcare provider, but he’s also an advocate for the people in many other areas of their lives. For instance, he helps some of his patients get much needed cash.

Dr. Riyadh, a Sunni, is a critic of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, but he supports the idea of democracy as a way to save Iraq. He runs for office during the tumultuous January 2005 elections as a candidate for the Baghdad Provincial Council representing the Iraqi Islamic Party. Poitras follows Riyadh as he campaigns for office, visits the notorious Abu Ghraib prison where he counsels prisoners (including a 9-year old boy), and consults with American military officials. Poitras also observes varied groups, interests, and parties involved with the buildup to the election including the U.S. military, an Australian private security contractor (OAM), and a New York Times reporter.

Laura Poitras’ camera is very revealing as she captures the weary Riyadh in the six months leading up to the election of the Transitional National Assembly. The Sunni doctor’s weariness is evident as he examines patients and engages his family in caustic debates and acerbic conversations – often accompanied by gunfire outside the family home or on TV. Although the election occurred just a little over two years ago, My Country, My Country isn’t dated because the Iraq War is ongoing and so are the repercussions of the January 2005 elections.

Although Poitras gives her viewers that you-are-there immediacy, the film seems too interior and insular. There are glimpses of the larger outside world, but much of the film is inside something – a doctor’s office, a home, an office, meeting hall, etc. My Country, My Country, which was broadcast as an episode of the television documentary series, P.O.V., is more about Riyadh’s dismay and malaise, and less about Iraq. Although her film is engaging, Poitras seems to have not noticed that both her camera and her narrative yearned to break free from Riyadh and see more of post-invasion Iraq. Still, My Country, My Country will remain an essential look at the personal cost of the war from the standpoint of an ordinary Iraqi man.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2007 Academy Awards: 1 nomination for “Best Documentary, Features” (Laura Poitras and Jocelyn Glatzer)

Wednesday, March 28, 2007