Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2012)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Angela and All Political Prisoners is a documentary film which premiered in 2012.

 

The topic of this film is Angela Davis and left-wing politics in the US during the 1960s and the 1970s, with special focus on the Black Panther Party and the time when she was a political prisoner in the US.

 

In this film, the story of her life is told by herself, by people who know her, and by people who were involved in some of her controversial cases.

 

Here is some basic information about this film:

 

** Writer, producer and director: Shola Lynch

** Presenter: Angela Davis (born 1944)

** Available on tubi tv

** Language: English

** Subtitles: English

** Run time: 101 minutes

 

Several people are interviewed in this film. Here are the names of the participants (listed in alphabetical order):

 

** Deacon Alexander – section leader – BPP

** Bettina Aptheker (born 1944) – childhood friend

** Richard Arnason (1921-2015) – he was the judge when Angela was on trial in 1972

** Lowell Bergman (born 1945) – class mate – reporter

** Stephen Bingham (born 1942) – a lawyer

** Leo Branton (1922-2013) – a lawyer

** Margaret Burnham (born 1944) – childhood friend – Professor, School of Law, Northwestern University

** Earl Caldwell (born ca. 1939) – reporter

** Fania E. Davis – Angela’s sister

** Howard Moore, Jr. (born 1932) – a lawyer

** Stephen Shames (born 1947) – a photographer

** Doris Brin Walker (1919-2009) – a lawyer

** Charles E. Young (born 1931) – Chancellor of UCLA 1968-1997

 

Archive footage is used between the talking heads. Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the talking heads. 

 

Archive footage allows us to see some old clips of Angela Davis and some of the people around her. 

 

Most archive footage is in black-and-white, but some clips are in colour.

 

THE PLOT

Angela Davis was (and still is) a controversial character in the US. Some people love her, while other people hate her. She has received a lot of hate mail.

 

Apparently, she was never a member of the Black Panther Party, but she was a strong supporter of this party.

 

Since she was African American, she was told to “go back to Africa.” Since she said she was a communist, she was told to “go back to Russia” or to “go back to China.”

 

Actually, she was born in the US. She is just as much an American as the people who wanted her to leave the country.

 

In this film, the story of her life is told by herself and other people. Many facts and opinions are presented by the participants who are interviewed. More details are provided when archive footage is used.

 

I am not going to tell you what they say. I am not going to discuss the controversial cases. I do not wish to spoil the viewing for anyone.

 

If you want to know what the participants say about Angela (and what she says about herself) you will have to watch the film all the way to the end.

 

RATINGS AND REVIEWS

What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of three review aggregators:

 

70 percent = IMDb

73 percent = Meta

83 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)

93 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)

 

On Amazon there are at the moment more than 300 global ratings and more than 100 global reviews. The average rating is 4.8 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 96 percent.

 

Here are the details:

 

5 stars = 85 percent

4 stars = 10 percent

3 stars = 2 percent

2 stars = 2 percent

1 star = 1 percent

 

As you can see, the ratings are good. They are, in fact, surprisingly good.

 

A film about a controversial person will often get mixed reviews, with almost 50 percent positive and almost 50 percent negative. But in this case almost all reviews are positive.

 

CONCLUSION

I understand the numerous positive reviews and I agree with them. As far as I can see, this film is what I call an ABC-product:

 

** Accurate

** Balanced

** Comprehensive

 

I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).

 

REFERENCES

 

Books by Angela Davis

 

** An Autobiography (1974)

** Women, Race and Class (1981)

** Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (1999)

** Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003)

** Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire (2005)

** The Meaning of Freedom and Other Difficult Dialogues (2012)

** Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (2015)

** Herbert Marcuse: Philosopher of Utopia (2019)

 

Books about American history

 

** A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (first edition 1980) (second edition 2003)

 

** A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis (2018)

 

** Set the Night on Fire: LA in the Sixties by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener (2020) (2021)

 

** Freedom: The Story of the Black Panther Party by Jetta Grace Martin and Waldo E. Martin, Jr. (2022)

 

Documentary films

 

** Freedom Riders (2010)

** Freedom Summer (2014)

** The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015)

** I am Not Your Negro (2016)

 

A historical and biographical drama

 

** Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

 

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A poster 2012

 

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DVD cover

 

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 A poster 2012

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Angela Davis 

A photo from 2014

 

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