If you get all your information from American outlets, the Black Panthers movement only ever appears to be a domestic terrorist group. Thankfully, Agnès Varda crashed one of their peaceful demonstrations in 1968 and shot a short doc with a French eye. In terms of documentary film making, it's nothing too special. A couple of shots are interesting beyond the norm, I needed subtitles on some of that mono sound, and Varda's narration takes sides (which I don't mind). That's the form. In terms of content, it really lays out what the Black Panther party is really about, and has the same rousing revolutionary vibe found in, say, Malcolm X. The demonstration aims to have a party leader freed from jail, and inflames the destructive passions of cops (which in 2021, should be no surprise, sadly). Varda is political, but also an ethnologist, and interested in the culture behind the movement as well. Interesting, but at 20 minutes, merely a primer.
Note that the above stream is NOT the Agnes Varda film. I just watched it by mistake...very interesting, but it's not in the ICM database and doesn't even seem to have an IMDB page!
No subtitles for Varda's narration and French voiceover for the English speaking parts. I also watched the black and white short on Youtube that's credited to Varda by mistake and unlike this one is actually 31 minutes.
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Siskoid
If you get all your information from American outlets, the Black Panthers movement only ever appears to be a domestic terrorist group. Thankfully, Agnès Varda crashed one of their peaceful demonstrations in 1968 and shot a short doc with a French eye. In terms of documentary film making, it's nothing too special. A couple of shots are interesting beyond the norm, I needed subtitles on some of that mono sound, and Varda's narration takes sides (which I don't mind). That's the form. In terms of content, it really lays out what the Black Panther party is really about, and has the same rousing revolutionary vibe found in, say, Malcolm X. The demonstration aims to have a party leader freed from jail, and inflames the destructive passions of cops (which in 2021, should be no surprise, sadly). Varda is political, but also an ethnologist, and interested in the culture behind the movement as well. Interesting, but at 20 minutes, merely a primer.Ebbywebby
http://www.ubu.com/film/varda_black.htmlNote that the above stream is NOT the Agnes Varda film. I just watched it by mistake...very interesting, but it's not in the ICM database and doesn't even seem to have an IMDB page!
monoglot
https://archive.org/details/black-panthers-huey-agnes-varda-1968-dvdrip-dualDreCosby
(mod-edit: dead link removed)No subtitles for Varda's narration and French voiceover for the English speaking parts. I also watched the black and white short on Youtube that's credited to Varda by mistake and unlike this one is actually 31 minutes.