The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 45
Fresh: 41 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 4/5
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Movie Info
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 mobilizes a treasure trove of 16mm material shot by Swedish journalists who came to the US drawn by stories of urban unrest and revolution. Gaining access to many of the leaders of the Black Power Movement-Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver among them-the filmmakers captured them in intimate moments and remarkably unguarded interviews. Thirty years later, this lush collection was found languishing in the basement of Swedish
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All Critics (45) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (41) | Rotten (4)
Broken into nine chapters -- one for each year -- the documentary isn't a rigorous work but a felt piece of vital, if flawed, art.
Top CriticThe Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is not your standard documentary dealing with racism in America.
The film is testament to the power of archival legwork in documentary-filmmaking.
From the fly-on-the-wall, cinéma-vérité style of the '60s to a more aggressive, advocacy approach in the mid-'70s, "Mixtape" is a wide slice of nonfiction film history.
A film that suffers from a surfeit of credulity.
You watch the material here and wonder whether most of the movies made about black people are meant to pacify general audiences, to distract them from demanding more of the movies.
The 'mixtape' designation is apt. This episodic movie doesn't really come together, but its highlights make it worthwhile. (Eldridge Cleaver earns laughs when he names 'the three pigs' running for president: 'Oink Nixon, Oink Humphrey, and Oink Wallace.')
Offers some amazing footage and a surprisingly cohesive narrative, considering that this was old film stock newly discovered and reassembled by contemporary Swedish filmmakers.
The result is a film that doesn't chart the rise and fall of the black power movement, and viewers unfamiliar with civil rights history will likely be lost. But it does give insight into the frustration and anger that sparked the movement.
...we see our parents and ourselves refracted through a cool if subjective lens, and it's easy to wonder exactly how we made it.
What is most impressive about the film is that it manages to put human faces -- not just caricatures -- on the key figures of the movement.
It's thrilling to hear from unrepentant revolutionaries such as Angela Davis and amusing to hear from their bell-bottomed white lawyers.
It may not add up to a narrative, but it's a fascinating compilation -- a mixtape you may want to hear more than once.
"Mixtape" is about a foreign country. And the foreign country is ours.
Impressively made documentary that paints a fascinating portrait of an important period in American history, not least because the perspective stands in stark contrast to the American media's coverage of the same events at the time.
This fascinating documentary brings together material shot by Swedish documentarists and TV journalists dealing with the African American civil rights movement...
The timing of this release is more than perfect. And the story behind the film is nearly as interesting as the stories it tells.
It is not a comprehensive history but the footage is an extraordinarily potent reminder that the stand taken by black people eventually bore fruit.
Interesting stuff, though it sometimes looks like a block of unedited raw material.
Blazing interviews with Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael supply stinging and unforgettable rhetoric: it simply can't fail with footage this wild.
Like the era it represents, there are highs and lows.
Like most mix-tapes, offers crackling content even when its contexts aren't clear.
While it assumes a fair bit of knowledge of the social changes exploding in sixties America, there's a wealth of fascinating material and punchy insights into an earth shaking movement.
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September 8, 2011:
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Foreign Titles
- Black Power Mixtape (DE)
- Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (UK)
On a personal level, what's sad for me is again looking to another country to learn about the history of the one where I live. Apparently in Sweden, they have no problem with those willing to think outside of the box on the left where the word radical is not a dirty word. On a less radical note, there is footage of Dr. King and Harry Belafonte being greeted by the King of Sweden. And then there is the Prime Minister of Sweden creating an international incident by comparing the bombing of Hanoi to Nazi war atrocities which while an exaggeration is still a war crime. So, Sweden gets accused of broadcasting anti-American propaganda by TV Guide, which if they had any knowledge of the publication they were dealing with, they would not be able to stop laughing.