Unforgivable Blackness - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
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Actor: Adam Arkin, Ed Harris, Keith David, Philip Bosco, Samuel L. JacksonBrand: Paramount
Cinematographer: Stephen McCarthy
Cinematographer: Buddy Squires
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 220 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: PBS Paramount
DVD Reviews of Unforgivable Blackness - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
DVD Review: Holds Your Attention From Start To Finish!!---The Definitive Documentary On Jack Johnson!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Being a fan of Ken Burns work since his revolutionary documentary series
"The Civil War" and owning that series on DVD as well as "Baseball", "Jazz",
"Mark Twain", "The War" and his brother Ric Burns' riveting series on the history
of New York City, I was very interested to hear back in 2004, that he was working
on a series chronicling the life & times of the long forgotten defiant, courageous
and always controversial first african-american heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson.
The two nights that this series aired on PBS, I found myself glued in my seat in
amazement as I watched Jack Johnson's story being brought to life in vivid detail!
Ken Burns always uses a great synergy of visuals (picture stills and archival footage),
music (from Ragtime to Jazz to Spirituals), and brilliant narrations by various actors
and actresses to bring his subjects vividly, and in some cases, painfully to life!
Jack Johnson was an anomoly of his times to say the least...
The son of former slaves from Galveston, TX who was born in the late 1870's.
He was a very articulate, proud, strong, defiant, confident black man in a time when
that alone could get you killed for sure!
The climate of racism was so virulent back in his times that blacks couldn't
even look a white person (man or woman) in the eyes or walk on the same sidewalk
as they walked by, for fear of it being percieved as uppityness or defiance to the
strict Jim Crow social order of white supremacy!
Burns uses actual writings of prominent white figures of the times who express
the most ugly hate-filled racial tirades right out in the open and nobody thought
it to be reprehensible or offensive in the least!
It was just the general consensus of the times. He also uses cartoons published
in newspapers of the times along with printed articles to paint a picture of how it was
in the late 19th and early 20th century, when Jack Johnson's story unfurls.
Blacks were being lynched and burned left and right all over the country weekly in
untold numbers and nothing was being done about it by the laws or any other
institutions of the day. Blacks were considered one the same level as animals.
Enter into this suffocating stew of racial hatred, a tall, athletic, well-built,
bald-headed, gold-tooth-wearing black man out of Texas who was good with his fists
and equally adept at expressing his mind verbally!
He dressed to the nines in the high fashion of the times, drove the newly invented
automobiles like a bat out of hell, looked any white man or woman in the eye when
he addressed them, and most unbelievable and offensive to white sensibilities of the times,
he had the nerve to date, embibe, carouse and even MARRY white women who were beuatiful
and desirable to white men!---In other words, Jack Johnson was a full on SPORTIN' MAN,
who did & said just what he wanted without any fear of white retribution!
He was like an alien lifeform to both whites (who reveiled him and yet were
strangely intigued & amazed by his nerve!) and submissive blacks who lived their
whole lives in fear and had been beaten down in their spirits by the system of the times,
who saw Johnson as a loud, obnoxious, selfish peacock and a troublemaker who brought
down the wrath of the whites on them! You either loved Jack or hated him!--No middleground.
And he didn't much care which!--So Jack Johnson was man who stood alone, which was
both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.
I could go on and on about the brilliance of this documentary and the unprecented
details and dynamic highs and lows of Jack Johnson's journey, but I wouldn't want
to spoil the experience for those who haven't seen it yet!
Bottomline, this is stellar documentary work and one of Ken Burns' best ones so far!
If you don't have it already, get it, because this will be an enriching and educational
addition to your DVD collection for you, your children and grandchildren to enjoy,
irregardless of race or socio-economic background.
This is TRULY an American Story!
DVD Review: unforgettable and smooth
Summary: 5 Stars
The video describes jack johnson from his days of poverty to his rise to fame. It also looks at the prejudice that roared back in the 1900's. This is a great story not only about jack johnson life but also about the american living and influences in those segregated times. DVD Review: Just A Few Points
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a remarkable documentary and I'm grateful to Burns for introducing a new generation to the astounding Jack Johnson. It's an amazing American story, reminding us of how virulent, overt, and institutionalized racism was during this era (most of the film focuses on the peak years of Johnson's career, around 1910-1911). The footage is fascinating.
The other reviews have said it well. Here are just a few comments:
1) Many voice-overs seem to be Johnson's own words. If so, Johnson was not only a brillant pugilist, but a wonderful, eloquent philosopher as well. Late in the film Burns mentions Johnson's autobiography rather ironically, characterizing it as a poor-seller in which Johnson seeks to show himself in an unrealistically positive light. So I do wonder where the voice-over verbiage comes from. The autobiography? Was it ghost-written or Johnson's own hand?
2)As you watch the film, you can't help but feel that Johnson is a great man. As a matter of fact, several commentators talk about Johnson as being the epitome of 'a man': he's the whole man, the paragon of manliness, defines masculinity, etc.' They do not stint in their admiration, and given the context of the film it's hard not to agree with them.....EXCEPT for one big issue.
Johnson beat his wife.
One wife (and he had several wives, and concurrent girlfriends) was beaten so badly she was put in the hospital for a week. This is the wife who is socially isolated and sequestered (confined to rooms above Johnson's club), because she was "unstable." In fact, she eventually killed herself. Burns talks about her loneliness. He says her life cannot have been easy. But every mention about her situation seems to follow soon with words about her poor mental state.
Seems kind of like a "chicken or egg" scenario: maybe she was unstable because of the abuse.
After the severe beating that put his wife in the hospital, we hear about Johnson's pain and repressed anguish. After his wife kills herself, we hear about how Johnson cries.
It's so easy to want to make excuses for Johnson who is fabulous in many ways. But I was really put off by how the context and sequencing of the film totally soft-pedals Johnson's abuse of his wife.
You should still see this film - it makes Don King and crew seem tame. But shame on Burns for his relativism. As punishment, he should have to make a documentary on women's emancipation.
DVD Review: A PBS documentary
Summary: 5 Stars
I found this to be a very powerful true story.
I was familiar with the movie "The Great White Hope."
The movie was based on Jack Johnson, a colorful figure
in his time. If you like to watch documentaries, that
are well crafted, I would recommend this one.
DVD Review: An American Idol, Jack didn't Fall he only Rose
Summary: 5 Stars
This needs to be a thousand stars!
Jack Johnson was an individual and a true American hero. He didn't care what whites or blacks thought about what he should do. James Earl Jones said it best, "he was a person that was self defined. He didn't let no one define him." Therefore he was a man and that's all everyone desires anyway. MLK later said in his dream speech "that he wanted blacks to be defined by the content of their character." But there are lessons to be learned. He didn't let not one tell him what he could or couldn't do. Most people back then would say" okay I am black therefore I will never have a shot at the title. But Jack followed Tommy Burns all around the world for a chance at his dream and he conquered it! He did the immposible the unthinkable.
First of all I am shocked that he didn't get killed by a white person. Boxing was more important than baseball back then. It was so important that when he beat (Jefferies former champ who Johnson could have beaten a decade ago) riots broke out over the country. Today in classroom history books you will hear about race riots breaking out because of the death of MLK. But you will never hear about the race riots because Johnson(black) beat Jefferies (white). Then on top of that being the True American he was, allowed him to think for himself to marry white women. Unheard of, this boldness in the face of KKK, and Jim Crow.
The film by Burns is great and accurate more accruate than "The Great White Hope" (Which is a great film as well). But it puts everything in the proper context. It shows how racist America was and still is on this subject. White America still has a problem with Miscegenation. It's sad how the first movie that appeared in the white house was the "birth of a nation" which was blatant racism that everyone in Washington thought was so great. What a racist upper society! I thought it was interesting Landis, the guys responsible for not permitting blacks to play MLB was on the scene during Johnson's trial. The person responsible for the fight in Reno Nevada, helped Johnson in jail to have all kinds of freedom (funny). Also how President Wilson lied when he said he would help blacks and enforeced jim crow. How the WWI didn't allow Johnson to fight and make money in Europe which was true.
Burns did a great job. I love how he uses the contextual words at that time to create the chapters. Love the old boxing video and photo footage. Funny how they cut off that heavyweight championship fight in the 14th round in Australia for the world to see history. Love the white people telling the truth in this film.
The Mann Act, its' funny they are doing the same thing to Barry Bonds. They are trying to get him after the fact when everyone else does it. The situations has it's simularities.
Description of Unforgivable Blackness - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 09/30/2005Ken Burns's documentary style is so unencumbered; the subject matter is effortlessly presented. His regular mix of photos, subtle sound effects, excellent musical score, and actor readings of historical text hasn't changed since his breakthrough of The Civil War. And it doesn't need to. Even though this 220-minute production is a biography--on heavyweight champion Jack Johnson--the film resonates about the how race was dealt with in the early part of the 20th century. Four decades after the Emancipation, the American black was still struggling to find elementary terms of equality. Along came a strong and headstrong man who took on sport decades before Jackie Robinson and became the key figure in heavyweight fighting, a champion against the longest odds.
Samuel L. Jackson voices Johnson's words with great verve and helps create an absorbing picture of Johnson along with various historians and boxing experts laying down the tale of the tape. Here's a man so smart and patient in the ring who took great liberties in his day-to-day life, unafraid to showcase his success, and ruffle the morals of the time (including, most scandalously, marrying a white woman). Viewing film of his prizefights, the amateur eye can understand Johnson's style and bravura. Burns's certainly takes his time and, as usual, has a vast awry of facts of how the world reacted to news of Johnson's success and the conspiracy which led to his downfall. The highlight, natch, are two of Johnson's epic fights near the end of his reign as champ (and the search for a "Great White Hope"). The appearance of James Earl Jones (who won a Tony for his portrayal of Johnson in 1959) and Wynton Marsalis's musical score are grand touches. --Doug Thomas
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