Movie Review-Winter's Bone and White Pathology

The writer Ishmael Reed had a serious issue with the HBO series "The Wire". You can read about it here.

In short Reed viewed it as relying on stereotypes about black pathology for the voyeuristic entertainment of white people who refused to critically examine their own troubles. The creator of "The Wire", David Simon, didn't care for that characterization and battle was joined. I respect Reed and have learned a lot from reading his work. But I disagree with his take on "The Wire" though I definitely see his POV. I wonder what Reed would make of the movie "Winter's Bone" which examines white pathology and poverty in the Missouri Ozarks. No Black people were stereotyped or otherwise harmed in the making of this movie. "Winter's Bone" received four Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. It already won at Sundance.

The movie opens with Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) playing a tough as nails 17 year old who is the default leader of her family. Her brother and sister are too young to provide for themselves. Her mother is a catatonic depressive and her father is usually away selling or producing drugs. Methamphetamine is the drug of choice though cocaine is also shown. In short, this is a dysfunctional family. Like Michael in "The Wire", Ree takes care of things as best she can. We see her walking her siblings to school and making sure they do their homework.

The sheriff and bondsman arrive to inform Ree that her father Jessup has skipped bond. Ree doesn't really care about that but she learns that because her father signed over the family home to make bail, if he doesn't show for trial, the house will be forfeit. Because she is still a minor she would lose effective custody of her siblings.

This is unacceptable to Ree. Girl or not, Ree is still a Dolly and that means something to her.

Thus armed with nothing more than a stubborn streak, pride and an decided unwillingness to take no for an answer, Ree sets out on an epic search for her father among the local underworld members, most of whom are her own relatives (close and distant) and all of whom seem decidedly and dangerously disinclined to answer any questions or offer any assistance to help her keep her family together.

"Talking just causes witnesses" as one person sagely observes.

This movie was directed by Debra Granik and much like "The Wire" it was shot on location with many local non-actors performing in background roles and acting as formal or informal advisors to keep the movie grounded in reality. The movie captures an unpleasant part of America, from aggressive dogs kept chained in front yards to a sort of ugly Scots-Irish clannish pugnacity that underlies the actions of many characters. Stereotypical signifiers float around, such as the ubiquitous pick-up trucks, broken down machinery, outdoor laundry lines and a living room banjo-led hoedown. But Granik's skill as a director and her interest in the source material ensure that none of this ever goes over the top. The viewer never gets the feeling that she is pointing and laughing at anyone. 

The lighting of the movie is a little dim at times but other than that the cinematography is stark and gorgeous. It's the little things that let you know how dirt poor these people are. Although the defining motif for this movie is bleakness there are still a few people willing to help. Again the little touches, like bringing over food to a hungry family, teaching children how to hunt and dress squirrels, or trying to talk someone out of a bad decision really make this film work.

Taking two strong supporting roles are Dale Dickey who plays the pitiless and relentless Merab, the wife of the local crime boss (to whom Ree is very distantly related) and John Hawkes who plays Teardrop, Ree's cocaine snorting, tatted up uncle. Merab is a mirror image of Ree, older and much harder. Merab is who Ree will be in about 30 years if she remains in that area.  

Teardrop warns Ree away from any investigation. Judging by other people's reactions to him, Teardrop is evidently an extremely dangerous individual. Ree tells him that she's always been scared of him. "That's cause you're smart" is his terse response. Teardrop is not a man you want to get crossways with but Granik shows the human cost of his lifestyle.

There are a few scenes of sudden violence but this film makes its mark with the emotional pain of people refusing to care about this seventeen year old or her family. In the hands of a typical Hollywood director Ree would have been transformed into a riot grrrl capable of kicking behind and taking names in her search for her father. We would have seen cartoonish fight scenes like those of Angelina Jolie in "Salt" or Scarlett Johannson in "Iron Man 2". Fortunately the director didn't take that route. Ree's strength is not in violence but endurance.

It's what's not shown that makes this movie powerful. Violence hurts. It hurts more when it comes from people you thought you could trust. Check this one out.



Music Review -Jimi Hendrix West Coast Seattle Boy

This release features four CD's and DVD footage from a man widely considered to be the greatest guitarist who ever walked the Earth (not that I really believe in "greatest" anything when it comes to art and music). It is also a deliberate attempt to emphasize Hendrix’s overlooked R&B, soul and jazz roots. So what's not to like? This must be the Holy Grail. Yes? Everyone should run out and get this, right? Not necessarily.

First off let me say what this release isn't. Unlike say How the West was Won by Led Zeppelin or Agharta by Miles Davis this is emphatically NOT a cohesive set of concert recordings or a fabled lost album.

This release will probably be of interest primarily to hardcore Hendrix fans or obsessive collectors. For the first person the desirability of this may depend on price. It opened at $69 on Amazon and is now fluctuating between $47 and $53. The stripped down version can be had for between $13 and $20.

 The second type of person obviously will buy it no matter what I write but he/she should at least pick it up used. Ok, enough caution, what about the music?

CD1

This features Hendrix as a sideman to sixties era Black American rock-n-roll/R&B stars. If you happen to like this sort of music (and I do) then you will enjoy hearing Hendrix play on cuts by Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, Don Covay, Rosa Lee Brooks, King Curtis and more. If, on the other hand, you don't like this sort of old school R&B this CD may not impress. Standouts include an intense Hendrix solo on the Isley Brothers' "Have you ever been disappointed" that is reminiscent of Duane Allman's later solo on "Please lend me a dime" and Hendrix's riff on Ray Sharpe's "Help me Get the Feeling", which was later sold to Atlantic, scrubbed of Hendrix's guitar and reworked by Aretha Franklin into "Save Me". 

 

CD2

This disc focuses on Hendrix's early work with The Experience. Virtually everything here has been released before. These are alternate or acoustic versions and solo arrangements. Hendrix had a very heavy Dylan influence. This shows in his fanciful cover of "Tears of Rage", which almost redeems the entire release all by itself. Also included are an acoustic guitar rendition of "1983", "Little One" (not Little Wing) and a guitar/harmonica version of "Hear my Train A-coming".

CD3

This CD covers the transition from the Experience to the Band of Gypsys or as I like to think of it from a frustrated guitarist trying and failing to play bass (Noel Redding) to an actual bassist (Billy Cox) who understood where the “One” was. Noel Redding couldn't get groove if you tied him to a train track. With Cox on bass and Miles on drums, Hendrix speeds toward funk and soul. A few cuts sound eerily like Sly Stone without a horn section. The Hendrix connection to groups like P-Funk is obvious.

There are more unreleased items here. This includes "Hear my Freedom" with Lee Michaels on organ, live concerts with the Experience, and a 20 minute jam with jazz organist Larry Young.

Unfortunately this also includes "Mastermind" with Hendrix buddy Larry Lee on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. Sorry Mr. Lee but if I'm going to criticize Redding for being allergic to holding down the bottom, I have to take you to task being a bad singer. You need to be in the proper key and stay in tune. Yikes. This was the only cut that I stopped listening to and pressed next.

CD4

This last disc is mostly Band of Gypsys and then the later reconstituted band with Cox and Mitchell and without Buddy Miles.

The cd consists of projects Hendrix was working on before he passed away. This includes a long version of "Everlasting First", a song with Love frontman Arthur Lee on vocals. Standouts include "Suddenly November Morning", "Peter Gunn" and "All God's Children". This is the good stuff.

Final Call

Janie Hendrix, (Hendrix's sister and the executor of his estate) has said there's enough unreleased material to produce at least one new CD every 12-18 months for the next decade. While I admit that's good for her bank account I wish that they'd just put out the quality stuff now. There's actually a live Band of Gypsys studio jam that I have on cassette tape (taped off radio) as well as an Experience concert in Germany that I was hoping would be on this release. Oh well. Overall this was just barely worth it. I had heard too much of it before. I would advise others to buy it at a DEEP discount-IF you are a rabid Hendrix fanatic. If you're not, don't spend your money on this. But do pick up Band of Gypsys, not least for Hendrix’s improv on Auld Lang Syne , Who Knows and most especially his antiwar masterpiece Machine Gun . Unfortunately that last song is all too relevant today.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

“Alabama's gotten me so upset

Tennessee made me lose my rest

And everybody knows about Mississippi G****m”

-Nina Simone

JACKSON, Miss. - A fight is brewing in Mississippi over a proposal to issue specialty license plates honoring Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the "War Between the States." The group proposes a different design each year between now and 2015, with Forrest slated for 2014.

"Seriously?" state NAACP president Derrick Johnson said when he was told about the Forrest plate. "Wow."

Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.

Sons of Confederate Veterans member Greg Stewart said he believes Forrest distanced himself from the Klan later in life. It's a point many historians agree upon, though some believe it was too little, too late, because the Klan had already turned violent before Forrest left.

"If Christian redemption means anything — and we all want redemption, I think — he redeemed himself in his own time, in his own actions, in his own words," Stewart said. "We should respect that."

And here we go again.  As Faulkner wrote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past”.  This is true of America in general, the South in particular and perhaps Mississippi most of all.  This is ultimately what these constant battles over history are about-whether it is textbooks in Texas,  Michele Bachmann’s whitewashing of the Founding Fathers or the never ending battles over the Civil War and associated symbols.  Who gets to define history?  Who gets to tell the story? That’s the question.  Here’s what one eyewitness had to say about the Fort Pillow massacre:

Achilles Clark, a soldier with the 20th Tennessee cavalry, wrote to his sister immediately after the battle: "The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor, deluded, negroes would run up to our men, fall upon their knees, and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. I, with several others, tried to stop the butchery, and at one time had partially succeeded, but General Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued. Finally our men became sick of blood and the firing ceased.”

From my POV there is simply no way to take nuanced views on the Civil War.  

The Confederates tried to break up the nation because they were concerned about their ability to keep slaves. They wanted to extend and protect slavery throughout the entire nation.  Don’t take my word for it. Read what they wrote.

The Civil War was the bloodiest war this nation ever fought.  More Americans died in the Civil War than died in World War II. The South lost. Slavery was ended. That was a good thing.  Not only did the South lose, it got its collective a$$ kicked, militarily speaking.  However a horrible thing happened postbellum. For a variety of reasons- political, pragmatic, racial and cultural- the South never really admitted that it was wrong.  

 

Unlike post-WWII Germany the South never had to face up to its crimes and indeed the North ultimately lacked the interest or resources to force it to do so. These were after all Americans. There was money to be made and reconciliation to accomplish. So the Black narrative of what the war was about or what slavery was like was ignored and the myth of the Lost Cause and the gentlemanly rebel took hold. Obviously these myths still resonate with many people today. The US thus lost a chance to save itself another 100 or so years of segregation, murder and exploitation.

Now I really don’t care what people put on their vehicle or what sort of shirt they wear.  

But I do draw the line at state endorsement of a man who led an armed rebellion against the United States. 

Ironically however Forrest's last recorded speech in 1875 was given to an early Black civil rights group. In this speech he supposedly urged racial reconciliation and may have defended voting rights for Blacks.

Go figure.

Is this just a question of if you don’t like the proposed license plate don’t get one?

Do you see any First Amendment issue here?   

Why are there some Americans who grasp so tightly to a belief that the Confederacy was a good thing?

Where are the Germans who hold similar views about the Nazis?   

If John Newton (slave trader and author of Amazing Grace) can be redeemed , why not Nathan Bedford Forrest?

Film Review-Takers

Film Review-Takers

Michael Mann’s “Heat” cast a heavy influence over many heist movies that came after it. “Takers" referenced this in the first 15 minutes by having the ski-masked, body armor equipped, assault rifle wielding robbers take down a bank and get away clean.  “Takers” features a multi-racial group of robbers and this could have been an interesting part of the story.  However the film, directed by John Luessenhop, mostly sticks to genre conventions.

I didn't care about the characters until the last 20 minutes or so. The movie doesn’t succeed in making you care about them.

The robbery team is composed of Idris Elba (the leader), Paul Walker (the quietly efficient and dangerous second-in-command), Hayden Christensen (a blues piano playing front man who is tougher than he looks), and Michael Ealy and Chris Brown (who play brothers who are quite protective of each other)

An imprisoned crew member (T.I.) is released early and comes to the crew with a BIG job that must be done right away. This violates their rules as Idris prefers to plan out jobs to the last detail.  He also likes to take at least a year between heists.  But the money is too good to miss and so the big job is undertaken. T.I. apparently holds no resentment for the fact that Michael Ealy is marrying T.I.'s former girlfriend (Zoe Saldana), or the fact that he’s been in prison for the past few years. 

Matt Dillon and Jay Hernandez star as cops that are on the crew's trail. Dillon’s character is a somewhat nicer version of the cop he played in “Crash”. Steve Harris and Glynn Turman play the police bosses who do the usual yelling and blustering about the rules and lawsuits. Nick Turtorro plays a stereotypical Italian lowlife who knows a guy who knows a guy…

This is an ensemble cast but Idris is the lead and doesn't have enough to do. The movie gives him a subplot with a problematic older sister but it falls flat.  Elba has no romantic tension to drive the story. There is no man meets woman, man loses woman etc. The film sets this up with Ealy but he's not the lead and Saldana isn’t given anywhere near enough screen time. We simply don't care about her. She barely has lines or scenes with Ealy.

T.I. does a good job playing an intelligent man who is always two steps ahead of everyone else and whose smiling face doesn't tell you what he's thinking.  The final 20 minutes were predictable and stretch the bounds of the movie's PG-13 rating. This movie should have taken more chances. It should have gone for the R rating.  It also would have helped immensely if we had more information on how such a diverse crew had hooked up and stayed together. We have nothing to explain the crew’s motivations, history or loyalty to one another.  I did like seeing a group of black men on screen with different personalities. I don't know if this was Chris Brown's first film role or not but he didn’t embarrass himself.

I give this movie 5/10 stars. It had style but not quite enough meat. This film doesn’t compare well with the similar movie “The Town”. It was shot well and looked good but the story just wasn’t strong enough to fully recommend.  When a director can make Elba and Saldana forgettable, he’s doing something wrong.  My verdict is this film was generic.

If you saw this film, what did you think?  (No spoilers please) If you didn’t see this film would you rent it?

Power to the People

They know we’re not satisfied, so we begin to holler

They make us a promise and throw in a few more dollars

There’s no price for happiness, there’s no price for love

 Up goes the price of living, and you’re right back where you was

“(For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People"- The Chi-Lites

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

-Frederick Douglass

 “I would not refer to him as a dictator” 

-Joe Biden speaking of Hosni Mubarak who has ruled for thirty years, uses emergency decree as a normal state of affairs and exiles, imprisons or tortures political opponents.

At the time of this posting Hosni Mubarak is still the dictator of Egypt.  He has shut down the internet and phone service in an attempt to stop protesters from communicating.  The Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei was placed under house arrest. The state has placed tanks in the streets of Cairo and the police are in full attack mode –water hoses, beatings, tear gas, the works. There are differing reports on how many have been killed so far but one thing seems to be safe to say : the protesters don’t want reform-they want revolution. On MSNBC last night one protester was helpful enough to carry a sign that read “GET OUT” in English, French, Arabic, German and what looked like Spanish.

 Although Mubarak is talking of forming a new government and our President is trying to walk a fine line by talking of reform I think it’s fair to say that reform would not be welcomed by anyone.

The ironic thing in all this is that it was just recently that Secretary of State Clinton chided the “Arab World” for not having greater democratic freedoms.

Of course the US doesn’t really give a damn about democratic freedoms in the Arab world as witnessed by the tepid US response to the overthrow of the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali, the US endorsement of the undemocratic Palestinian Authority, the Saudi and Jordanian monarchies, the Gulf States and the hostility to votes that go the wrong way in Gaza, Turkey or Lebanon. Always judge by a government’s actions, not its words.

We will see how this Egyptian situation turns out. It really does come down to how brutal the regime wishes to be in holding on to power against how much can the people truly endure in their quest for freedom. Much of the time state brutality wins. That’s just how it is. But not always….

The other great irony about all this is that if it were Arabs in the West Bank protesting conditions that are just as bad if not worse than those in Egypt the US would not even feel compelled to try to pretend to stand with the protesters. These events should if nothing else caution people who think that some basic universal rights are not desired by all.

QUESTION: What should the US be doing, if anything? Why does the US support so many dictators? Are you disappointed that the US President, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, did not mention that another Nobel Peace Prize winner is under house arrest? Will Mubarak be forced to step down?

Still wrong after all these years

Walter Williams

A physicist, biologist, and economist are shipwrecked on an island with no food except canned goods. They have no can opener. They soberly consider their dilemma. Each professor presents a plan to the others.

The physicist has identified some coral reef. He proposes that at low tide he carefully wade out to the reef, break off some coral, attach it to a stone and use that tool to open the cans. The biologist disagrees. She states that because this island is known for inedible and highly acidic snails they should dig for those snails and express their acid to cut through the can lids.

The two scholars look expectantly at the economist. He says "Let's assume we have a can opener".

Walter Williams is an economist.  Much like the economist in the story, he is prone to making useless assumptions. Williams was the subject of a recent WSJ column. 

As a right wing libertarian Williams has a blind spot to free market inefficiencies and immoralities. He assumes morality. Williams thinks the majority of issues which impact black people are either their own fault or caused by the government.

Today just 17% of construction workers are unionized, but Democratic politicians, in deference to the AFL-CIO, have kept Davis-Bacon in place to protect them. Because most black construction workers aren't union members, however, the law has the effect of freezing them out of jobs. It also serves to significantly increase the costs of government projects, since there are fewer contractors to bid on them than there would be without Davis-Bacon.

Analysis of this issue launched Mr. Williams' career as a public intellectual, and in 1982 he published his first book, "The State Against Blacks," arguing that laws regulating economic activity are far larger impediments to black progress than racial bigotry and discrimination. Nearly 30 years later, he stands by that premise.

"Racial discrimination is not the problem of black people that it used to be" in his youth, says Mr. Williams. "Today I doubt you could find any significant problem that blacks face that is caused by racial discrimination. The 70% illegitimacy rate is a devastating problem, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with racism. The fact that in some areas black people are huddled in their homes at night, sometimes serving meals on the floor so they don't get hit by a stray bullet—that's not because the Klan is riding through the neighborhood."

Williams glosses over a few things.

The bloodiest war in this nation's history was fought because a group of slave owners were worried that the Federal government might interfere in the private marketplace and limit or end slavery. Afterwards the partisans and descendants of the losing side set up a formalized system of apartheid while those of the winning side, who generally eschewed most of the Southern Jim Crow system, still practiced what amounted to informal segregation. Each system also featured semi-regular outbursts of public or private violence should any Black person ignore certain barriers.

These systems finally broke down post-WW2 for a variety of reasons, free market capitalism not being the most prominent. In fact the general arc of the US political economy from 1910-1970 was away from free market capitalism. The most effective tool used to dismantle these structures was government action to limit the choices of private individuals and companies.

This is anathema to libertarians. Fundamentalist free market libertarians don't accept the government’s right to interfere in the private marketplace. They believe that the market will work it all out and if it doesn't why then it's up to the individual to shop, work or move somewhere else. So food safety laws, anti-discrimination laws, environmental protections, workplace safety regulations, child labor laws, medical licensing, unions, fair housing laws, affirmative action, taxes etc are all bad things under this point of view - very bad things indeed.

Williams ignores current studies which show that all else equal, race is still a major factor in who gets hired, who gets promoted, who even has the opportunity to interview in the first place (Helpful hint -try not to have a “black sounding” name on your resume.)

Black people don't get the same benefit (income) from education. 

Private decisions in aggregate can have a negative effect on a black person's ability to buy a home of his/her choosing. This also impacts future inherited wealth. (subject of a future post)

So is government always the solution? Are Black people perpetual victims? Does this mean that there aren't some Black people who need to get their behind in gear and get in the game?

OF COURSE NOT! No intelligent person argues that.

What's past is past and can't be changed. But the past has an impact on the present. Additionally some bad things are still occurring today.

Pretending that most problems arise from government intervention in the marketplace is just silly. It fits what I consider a loony libertarian view of the world but it doesn't match reality. It's a straw man which Williams has constructed in order to avoid confronting the limits of his ideology. Unsurprisingly he's no fan of Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, viewing it as unconstitutional and unnecessary.

  

So what's your take? Do you think the challenges black people face were primarily created or aggravated by government actions?  Does the federal government (or any arm of government) have the constitutional right to ban private discrimination?  Did the Great Society destroy the Black family? Is racism a thing of the past?