MLK/FBI (2020)

Straightforward and satisfying, Sam Pollard’s narrow-focus documentary on Martin Luther King, Jr and the ‘60s Civil Rights Movement doesn’t put blinders on, larger social justice issues are also caught in his net, but concentrates on J. Edgar Hoover’s misuse of F.B.I. resources to harass King as organizing principle, giving a new take on an old story.  Not that much of what’s in here hasn’t long been inferred/assumed, but with new declassified  documents, Pollard is able to confirm the difficulties & pressure Hoover used against King.  Told largely using recent audio interviews on the soundtrack and ‘60s archival footage on screen, the story remains riveting as ever though much still remains missing.  Not only from secretly recorded tapes (many of them ‘bedroom tapes’) due out in 2027, but in knowing how much Hoover believed of his own motivating story.  Did he truly think the Civil Rights Movement was some sort of Communist Front?  Was it unprincipled expedience?  Or pure & simple racism?  And we really need more on the close relationship between King and friend/confident/advisor Stanley Levinson, white, Jewish,  card-carrying Communist back in the day.  With hardly a photo on the relationship and even less film footage.  Yet it’s this relationship, along with King’s serial infidelities, that was seen by the FBI as his two major Achilles Heels/points of attack.*  All pretty fascinating . . . and more than a little depressing.   Not only on the FBI side of things as the fast fallout between LBJ and MLK once King could no longer keep silent on Vietnam, equally dramatic, especially as heard in a blunt taped phone conversation with LBJ and Hoover.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *JFK, LBJ and MLK had more in common than being known by three initials, they also were all drawn to the danger of extramarital affairs.  The film’s fourth leading figure, J. Edgar, had sexual proclivities of a different nature.  Still, lots of sex going on under the radar here.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: A tour de force on stage for Bryan Cranston,  Robert Schenkkan’s pageant play ALL THE WAY (about LBJ pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 thru Congress) became noticeably less involving as a film in 2016, but does provide a different angle on this story.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/09/all-way-2016.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In a great archival shot, the uniformity of tall, fit, white, black-suited FBI agents seen walking thru ranks of equally uniform well-coiffed, neat, white secretaries seated at desks in an immense office space looks like something from Alien Planet Earth, circa 1962.