Huey P. Newton may not be as well known to people from 'my' generation- meaning those who grew up in the majority of time after his death (1989). He was one of the co-founders of the Black Panter party. According to Wikipedia, he became the head of the 'Ministry of Defense' by a coin toss with Bobby Seale, and then there were some ups and downs... mostly downs, and a lot of them (though not all) brought on by 'The Man' and screwing with him and sending him to prison for a murder he didn't commit, and then spent the 70's in the wake of the Blank Panther party to do... well, to try and figure out what kind of responsibility he had as a "leader", a term that, if one believes this live performance/mixed media film, he wasn't very comfortable with, certainly not as a Socialist.
Since my knowledge of him going into it was not very wide-reaching, I had to judge the work by its own terms, as theatrical presentation all-around. It's a theater piece that, like other times Spike Lee has done, is caught on film with vivid colors and light and a camera that is either constantly on the move or in an angle that seems to be too unusual to be filmed all live, plus edited-in newsreel footage either cut in or screened behind the actor.
I have to wonder if this was filmed like like other productions like Freak or Original Kings of Comedy. It might make sense that he stopped the performance to get another angle, or that, because it's being taped, Roger Gueneveur Smith would have stopped for the director. Or it's all just really planned out and to-the-T timing on Lee's part. There's not a fault on his part I could find.
As for Smith, his performance is something different. I was always feeling on edge with how he did Huey Newton, and it was a strange edge. I have to take it on the basis of the performance, which is at the least convincing of being full of passion and paranoia, that this was how Newton was. Smith makes Newton into an equally charismatic and scary figure, one whose eyes have that cold-dark stare like someone at war (or, more approximately, a revolutionary who sometimes scares himself "like an onion, crying at the present" he says). Sometimes this did work for me, and his rapport with the audience, whether they were for real or planned by Lee, had a good genuine up-beat quality transforming it a little past a usual theater-monologue into a shared theater work.
Other times... I don't want to say Smith is not talented, because it's completely clear he is. But it's such a FAST performance, with words flying faster than an Aaron Sorkin script on uppers, that it's hard to keep up, and with an accent out of one of the side characters from JFK or something: real New Orleans creole sound. Again, this isn't to denigrate the performance, but a few moments I just heard my head screaming "Just QUIET for one second!" And yet just as I would think that, the performance would slow down, and something wonderful would occur.
Huey talks about the savage nature of a circus geek and how a geek has to be cunning and quick with the chicken and toss out just one bone to remind everyone else looking in they are the geeks; an analogy for black repression in America. It's a chilling passage, but even better is what comes after as he gets up and does a groovin' dance to Bob Dylan's "Balad of a Thin Man" (some of it, not all of it), cigarette flying.
The mood is tense and taut, but the material Smith delivers, with the kind of intensity of a professional who never loses for an instant his own conviction and stamina for the real person and the themes, is absorbing. You want to know more about him after it ends, as it feels oddly enough as though this just scratches the surface about the movement and history. At the least there is a sense of this man, who had a biting, sardonic sense of humor, bitter at those around him and somewhat at himself, and just at a society that doesn't see how its in revolution always.
It's a radical little production and direction for a radical who was as vulnerable as he was vicious and, indeed, kind of crazy, and its only liability is some repetitiveness in its performance and (by nature of its location) some of the shots. And it gives some great references to Macbeth ("ghetto gangster, Act V Scene V) and Black Orpheus as a bonus.
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