King: A Filmed Record, From Montgomery to Memphis 1970, 2013
Distributed by Kino Lorber Edu, 333 West 39 St, Suite 503, New York, NY 10018; 212-629-6880
Produced by Ely Landau and Richard Kaplan
Directed by n/a
, b&w, 181 min.
Jr. High - General Adult
Civil Rights, History, Law, African American Studies, American Studies, Multicultural Studies
Date Entered: 08/01/2013
Reviewed by Anne Shelley, Music/Multimedia Librarian, Milner Library, Illinois State UniversityOriginally broadcast on television in 1970, this film that consists primarily of raw footage of notable events in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is available on DVD for the first time. A Filmed Record—on the National Film Registry since 1999 and recently restored by the Library of Congress—contains no narrations and very little editing. It lets viewers be flies on the wall, not only allowing them to come to their own conclusions, but also to feel like they were at the riots, the speeches, the marches, and the funeral.
From the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, from King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four girls, from the March on Washington to the Montgomery-to-Selma marches, from the signing of the Voting Rights Act to the vicious reactions by Chicago whites to the March in Marquette Park, from King’s assassination in Memphis to his massive, public funeral procession in Atlanta, the footage is remarkably complete in its coverage of Dr. King’s journey. Particular highlights include King’s delivery of the entire I Have a Dream speech, King giving a media interview just after being attacked by white anti-marchers in Chicago, his reading of Letter from a Birmingham Jail dubbed over newsreel clips, and multiple performances by the fabulous Mahalia Jackson. The footage is broken up only by a handful of scripted monologues in which celebrities introduce new sections of the documentary; Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Paul Newman, and Harry Belafonte are among the distinguished readers. At times, the footage of King’s resistors is more poignant than the scenes featuring him, such as interviews with Dallas County, Alabama Sherriff Jim Clark, one of the officials responsible for brutal police treatment of demonstrators during the Selma to Montgomery marches. The film does not include closed captioning or any special features. A Filmed Record gives students an opportunity to view a wealth of clips from a critical time in U.S. history in one publication, and the film is presented in such a way that the footage speaks for itself. Highly recommended.
Awards
- Nominated for Academy Award, Best Documentary Feature, 1970