“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
– Martin Luther King's “I Have A Dream” speech (August 28, 1963)
This program about Martin Luther King doesn't do justice to the great civil rights leader …
This program has many of the ingredients needed for a great film about the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. It has photographs, newspaper headlines, and even actual footage of the period being depicted. It interviews people who knew him, and many others who lived through these times. These interviews are compelling, and have a great potential to tell the story. But this film is also missing some essential elements needed for a good documentary. Most importantly, it is missing any kind of narration; and thus has no narrative to hold the story together. They have to make some awkward transitions from one interview clip into another, without any narrations to ease these transitions. This is a major weakness in a documentary about history, and it is more the sort of thing that I would expect from a news network than from an educational network like PBS. Indeed, this program feels more journalistic than historical; and lacks the epic scale needed in a history film.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
This program focuses exclusively on the last five years of Dr. King's life …
Part of the reason that this program lacks this “epic scale” is that it focuses entirely on the last five years of his life. The program's opening credits describe it as going from 1963 to 1968, the year that Dr. King was murdered by an assassin's bullet. Extraordinary insights could have come from covering his early life, and showing how he came to be the person that he was. Who were his family, for example? Where did he go to school? How did he become a reverend? How did he get involved in the civil rights movement in the first place? These are all fascinating questions that I think would have yielded great insight into the man. But alas, this documentary begins only in 1963; and thus starts at the period when he was already becoming “larger-than-life.” The documentary attempts to “humanize” him, of course, and this is a worthy goal. But this feels more like a documentary about a marble statue than about a real flesh-and-blood human being like Dr. King. The real Dr. King was more interesting than that, but this is not to be found in this film. Thus, one concludes that filmmaker Orlando Bagwell failed in his goal of “humanizing” Dr. King. He wisely mentioned the prominent role of the black church in Dr. King's life, and in the civil rights movement in general. But I nonetheless leave this film not really knowing who Dr. King was. It would be as if I had read nothing but news articles from the time about him, and seen only the interviews on the television news. I would hear the persona that is manifested in the news media, but I wouldn't really get into the heart and soul of the man the way that I would need to in a documentary. This is one of the greatest weaknesses of the documentary, in my opinion, and compromises its quality considerably.
Dr. King being arrested in 1963, for protesting the treatment of blacks in Birmingham
… which is something of a weakness
In fairness, filmmaker Orlando Bagwell said in the special features that two hours wasn't “long enough” to do justice to one's entire life. It never is, but I think one could do his life more justice than is being done here. PBS's documentary about Alexander Hamilton was two hours long, for example. This latter film gave the traditional cradle-to-grave kind of biography for its subject. Obviously, this isn't as in-depth as a book like Ron Chernow's; but it's a good primer on an interesting subject nonetheless. It helps you to know some basic information about the man, which is more than you would have had if you had never watched the film about him. It's certainly better than the Wikipedia article about Mr. Hamilton, although this is also quite good despite its brevity. But to get more information about Dr. King, you'd have to go to some other source like a book or another documentary. You could probably find out more about Dr. King's early life from a Wikipedia article than from this film, which is really sad – I would expect better than this from PBS.
Dr. King giving his “I Have a Dream” speech – August 28, 1963
This program has no narration of any kind, which is another weakness
The lack of a unifying narration is another weakness. As I mentioned earlier, this film has no narration whatsoever (and no analysis). This makes it harder to have smooth transitions between the interview clips, because you have to rely on natural coincidence of subject – which seldom happens in the documentary world, even when they're all talking about the same person. One person is talking about one part of his life, while another person is talking about another part of his life. One person is talking about a particular aspect of that same part of his life, while another person is talking about a different aspect of that same part of his life. This makes the transitions somewhat jarring, and harder to follow in many ways. As mentioned earlier, this feels more like something from a news network than from PBS. A narration would be excellent at giving basic information, and would also give the context needed to appreciate these various interview clips more. The interview clips have enormous potential to tell the story, of course, because they interviewed the right people in the right way. The same goes for the real footage used, and for the photographs and newspaper headlines. But although their editing is not entirely bad - it does, after all, observe a chronology - nor does it allow the film to get the maximum benefit from these helpful ingredients, because they're spliced together in a (sometimes) haphazard way. In short, the necessary ingredients are there, but they are in need of an organizer to put them together into a unified whole. Instead, they feel more like a random collection of primary sources, without much organization to unify them together. This is a sad state of things, which makes it harder for the viewer to organize the information internally.
Dr. King at the 1963 Civil Rights March in Washington, D. C.
This documentary is honest about both his flaws, and how his accomplishments transcended those flaws
Some have criticized this documentary for pointing out his flaws, such as his cheating on his wife and his flirting with communism. This is ironic, given that the documentary's coverage of these things is actually fairly minimal. They only cover the revelations of his adultery as a hardship of negative publicity that he had to overcome. Dr. King's honesty in admitting to these things was admirable, although somewhat embarrassing to his wife nonetheless. To omit these things would be dishonest, although I agree that the coverage of them doesn't need to describe them in much depth – a brief mention will suffice, before moving on to other topics. I also agree with the filmmakers that his accomplishments truly transcend these flaws, and are not “tainted” in any way by them. Some of his strongest supporters seem to think that the civil rights movement would be “tainted” if any acknowledgment of his foibles were made, but they seem not to have enough confidence in their causes. The causes stand unblemished, even if the weaknesses of particular champions (even great champions) are revealed. I shudder to think at what would happen if we concluded that we “couldn't support a cause” without a perfect champion.
Dr. King speaking to an anti-Vietnam-War rally at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, 1967
Conclusion: The definitive television biography of Dr. King has yet to be made
Because of these things, I would have to conclude that this film is something of a disappointment. The film's subject is obviously very important, which is part of why I sought it out in the first place. But it doesn't really do justice to the man, and the definitive television biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. has yet to be made. This film will give you some reasons that there is a holiday named after him in the United States, of course, but it will not really tell you much about him (or even about the civil rights movement), or why he was so good at his work. That being said, if you know of a good Dr. King biography in the television world, I invite you to recommend it below, so that I may learn more about him from some other source.
A quote from Dr. King:
“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!' ”
– Closing lines of his “I Have A Dream” speech (August 28, 1963)
DVD at Amazon
If you liked this post, you might also like:
Frederick Douglass: The forgotten antislavery leader
A review of “The Abolitionists” (the movement to abolish slavery)
A review of Steven Spielberg's “Lincoln” (passage of the antislavery amendment)
A review of Ken Burns' “The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson” (a famous boxer)
A review of Ken Burns' “Jackie Robinson” (the great baseball player)
Part of a series about
American history
The Civil Rights Movement
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