Jade Sacker’s new documentary, “A House Divided,” will explore the story of two brothers interracially adopted at birth by a white Morman family, who grew up to become bitter ideological rivals during the Trump era presidency.
The examination of how the ties that bind can be severed at a time of hyper-partisanship emerged after Sacker met brothers John and James Sullivan on opposing sides of a police barricade. They were there to protest on behalf of their respective political champions at the vice presidential debate at the University of Utah.
“They were initially surprised that I wanted to make a film about their relationship with a family member who each saw as their own worst enemy,” Sacker says. “But I told them it would be a fair reflection.”
“I wasn’t interested in doing a documentary about political figures,” she adds. “I wanted to tell a human story at...
The examination of how the ties that bind can be severed at a time of hyper-partisanship emerged after Sacker met brothers John and James Sullivan on opposing sides of a police barricade. They were there to protest on behalf of their respective political champions at the vice presidential debate at the University of Utah.
“They were initially surprised that I wanted to make a film about their relationship with a family member who each saw as their own worst enemy,” Sacker says. “But I told them it would be a fair reflection.”
“I wasn’t interested in doing a documentary about political figures,” she adds. “I wanted to tell a human story at...
- 1/5/2023
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
What all this nostalgia is about for 1970s Harlem drug lords is hard to say, but Universal will release American Gangster, a fictionalized portrait of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas, just days after Magnolia comes out with Mr. Untouchable, Marc Levin's documentary on the original black Godfather, Nicky Barnes, from that same era. Barnes himself, now in the Witness Protection Program, tells his story, assisted by a talking-heads squad of lawyers, DEA agents, informants, journalists, hustlers, his ex-wife and members of Barnes' drug council, whom he ratted out after he was sent to prison.
It's undeniably fascinating, but you might want to take a shower after hanging out with this unsavory bunch. Boxoffice looks weak, with possibly better results in DVD and cable.
The problem is that Levin provides no real point of view. Indeed, he seems much too taken with all the surface gloss and displays little interest in the socioeconomic background that gave the rise to this particularly odious Mr. Big. Levin perhaps can claim that he lets people hang themselves with their own words. And ironies like the '70s black youth who sees Barnes, not Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, as his "hero" are duly noted, then the movie moves on.
The real irony is that it was not a cop, informer or DOJ attorney who tripped up Barnes but a magazine article. When the New York Times put Barnes on its magazine cover in 1977, dressed like a superstar, with the headline "Mister Untouchable", he was a sitting duck. President Carter himself ordered the all-out effort to change his wardrobe to prison stripes.
Barnes and his fellow gangsters all read Machiavelli's The Prince from cover to cover while serving prison stints in the late '60s and absorbed that system to power. It worked for a while, though the film is light on details. Eventually, Barnes -- an ex-junkie, as were many of his lieutenants -- wallowed in jewelry, clothes, women and champagne as heroin brought in $72 million annually. The Italian Mafia trained and trusted him. In turn, Barnes modeled his organization along traditional Mafia lines, creating his own black crime family known as the Council.
Levin shot interviews with Barnes for several days in an undisclosed location. (He has a $1 million contract out on his life.) His face is in shadows, and the camera mostly focuses on his hands, featuring a gold watch and one large diamond ring. On the table are props: champagne in one shot, a single bullet in another and a pile of money or (probably fake) heroin in others.
Those few members not incarcerated for life, which includes ex-wife Thelma Grant and Council member "Jazz" Hayden, tell their versions of the story of crime, punishment and revenge. The theme from "Superfly" and other appropriate music of the era plays in the background. Usage of archival footage is mostly unimaginative, and the repetition of photos further testifies to the film's visual dullness.
Key points pass by too quickly. That these gangsters called themselves Muslims is not further explored. Nor is Barnes' inability to answer whether he was a tool for white men. Jazz makes the outrageous claim that when the Barnes family handed out money or food to the community, "these guys cared about Harlem." What they cared about was enslaving the community to their drugs.
MR. UNTOUCHABLE
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films in association with Damon Dash Enterprises and Blowback Prods.
Credits:
Director: Marc Levin
Producers: Mary-Jane Robinson, Alex Gibney, Jason Kliot, Joanna Vicente
Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Henry Adebonojo
Music: Hi-Tek
Editors: Emir Lewis, Daniel Praid
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
It's undeniably fascinating, but you might want to take a shower after hanging out with this unsavory bunch. Boxoffice looks weak, with possibly better results in DVD and cable.
The problem is that Levin provides no real point of view. Indeed, he seems much too taken with all the surface gloss and displays little interest in the socioeconomic background that gave the rise to this particularly odious Mr. Big. Levin perhaps can claim that he lets people hang themselves with their own words. And ironies like the '70s black youth who sees Barnes, not Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, as his "hero" are duly noted, then the movie moves on.
The real irony is that it was not a cop, informer or DOJ attorney who tripped up Barnes but a magazine article. When the New York Times put Barnes on its magazine cover in 1977, dressed like a superstar, with the headline "Mister Untouchable", he was a sitting duck. President Carter himself ordered the all-out effort to change his wardrobe to prison stripes.
Barnes and his fellow gangsters all read Machiavelli's The Prince from cover to cover while serving prison stints in the late '60s and absorbed that system to power. It worked for a while, though the film is light on details. Eventually, Barnes -- an ex-junkie, as were many of his lieutenants -- wallowed in jewelry, clothes, women and champagne as heroin brought in $72 million annually. The Italian Mafia trained and trusted him. In turn, Barnes modeled his organization along traditional Mafia lines, creating his own black crime family known as the Council.
Levin shot interviews with Barnes for several days in an undisclosed location. (He has a $1 million contract out on his life.) His face is in shadows, and the camera mostly focuses on his hands, featuring a gold watch and one large diamond ring. On the table are props: champagne in one shot, a single bullet in another and a pile of money or (probably fake) heroin in others.
Those few members not incarcerated for life, which includes ex-wife Thelma Grant and Council member "Jazz" Hayden, tell their versions of the story of crime, punishment and revenge. The theme from "Superfly" and other appropriate music of the era plays in the background. Usage of archival footage is mostly unimaginative, and the repetition of photos further testifies to the film's visual dullness.
Key points pass by too quickly. That these gangsters called themselves Muslims is not further explored. Nor is Barnes' inability to answer whether he was a tool for white men. Jazz makes the outrageous claim that when the Barnes family handed out money or food to the community, "these guys cared about Harlem." What they cared about was enslaving the community to their drugs.
MR. UNTOUCHABLE
Magnolia Pictures
HDNet Films in association with Damon Dash Enterprises and Blowback Prods.
Credits:
Director: Marc Levin
Producers: Mary-Jane Robinson, Alex Gibney, Jason Kliot, Joanna Vicente
Executive producers: Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban
Director of photography: Henry Adebonojo
Music: Hi-Tek
Editors: Emir Lewis, Daniel Praid
Running time -- 90 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/26/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARK CITY, Utah -- Art imitates life and life imitates art. In Marc Levin's "Slam", art attempts to rehabilitate life. The thin line between art and life, between documentary and fictional filmmaking, is examined in the winner of the grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Renowned for his award-winning documentaries, Levin explores familiar territory in "Slam" with new navigational equipment: a script which is something like a map. This film wasn't scripted in the traditional sense. Levin, it appears, merely chose the territory to be covered and the explorers, and then turned the camera on.
Real actors play prisoners and real prisoners play actors in this movie about a talented black poet who gets arrested in Washington for possession of marijuana. Brace yourself for a slam-dunk of a movie, in an in-your-face cinema verite-style that makes Godard's "Breathless" seem like a cartoon.
The story behind the story is as interesting as the cinematic story itself and further evidence of the incestuous relationship between art and life. Bonz Malone, who plays a prison gang leader in "Slam", has served time in prison but is now a regular columnist for several national magazines.
The stars, Saul Williams and Sonja Soh, were discovered at a "Slam" -- where urban poets perform -- and created much of the poetry in the movie. Many of the extras are actual prisoners in District of Columbia jails. Even D.C. Mayor Marion Barry -- in a moment that is only comic because of his own real-life conviction on drug charges -- plays a judge who, at the arraignment for Ray Joshua, lectures about the evils of drugs. With its documentary style and topicality, "Slam" hits uncomfortably close to home.
During its expedition across the urban jungle, "Slam" wrestles with D.C.'s demons, from overcrowded jails to the demise of the black male. From these struggles, art emerges via poetic performance as an amoral compass by which one can escape the social ills that stalk society.
Performing at a Slam saves the "reel" fictional Ray Joshua from despair in the face of his upcoming trial and rewards the "real" actor Saul Williams as one of the country's premiere performance artists.
One of the film's producers, Richard Stratton, as well as Bonz Malone, found art to be salvation from a life of crime. "Slam" could very well become the poster child for Sundance inasmuch as independent filmmaking could find no higher ground than a film with an innovative style and social conscience that delivers the message: art redeems life.
SLAM
Trimark
Producers: Henri M. Kessler, Richard Stratton, Marc Levin
Director: Marc Levin
Screenwriters: Marc Levin, Richard Stratton,
Saul Williams, Sonja Sohn
Director of photography: Marc Benjamin
Editor:: Emir Lewis
Music: Paul Miller
Black-and-white/stereo
Ray Joshua: Saul Williams
Lauren Bell: Sonja Sohn
Hopha: Bonz Malone
Jimmy Huang: Beau Sia
Running time -- 100 minutes...
Renowned for his award-winning documentaries, Levin explores familiar territory in "Slam" with new navigational equipment: a script which is something like a map. This film wasn't scripted in the traditional sense. Levin, it appears, merely chose the territory to be covered and the explorers, and then turned the camera on.
Real actors play prisoners and real prisoners play actors in this movie about a talented black poet who gets arrested in Washington for possession of marijuana. Brace yourself for a slam-dunk of a movie, in an in-your-face cinema verite-style that makes Godard's "Breathless" seem like a cartoon.
The story behind the story is as interesting as the cinematic story itself and further evidence of the incestuous relationship between art and life. Bonz Malone, who plays a prison gang leader in "Slam", has served time in prison but is now a regular columnist for several national magazines.
The stars, Saul Williams and Sonja Soh, were discovered at a "Slam" -- where urban poets perform -- and created much of the poetry in the movie. Many of the extras are actual prisoners in District of Columbia jails. Even D.C. Mayor Marion Barry -- in a moment that is only comic because of his own real-life conviction on drug charges -- plays a judge who, at the arraignment for Ray Joshua, lectures about the evils of drugs. With its documentary style and topicality, "Slam" hits uncomfortably close to home.
During its expedition across the urban jungle, "Slam" wrestles with D.C.'s demons, from overcrowded jails to the demise of the black male. From these struggles, art emerges via poetic performance as an amoral compass by which one can escape the social ills that stalk society.
Performing at a Slam saves the "reel" fictional Ray Joshua from despair in the face of his upcoming trial and rewards the "real" actor Saul Williams as one of the country's premiere performance artists.
One of the film's producers, Richard Stratton, as well as Bonz Malone, found art to be salvation from a life of crime. "Slam" could very well become the poster child for Sundance inasmuch as independent filmmaking could find no higher ground than a film with an innovative style and social conscience that delivers the message: art redeems life.
SLAM
Trimark
Producers: Henri M. Kessler, Richard Stratton, Marc Levin
Director: Marc Levin
Screenwriters: Marc Levin, Richard Stratton,
Saul Williams, Sonja Sohn
Director of photography: Marc Benjamin
Editor:: Emir Lewis
Music: Paul Miller
Black-and-white/stereo
Ray Joshua: Saul Williams
Lauren Bell: Sonja Sohn
Hopha: Bonz Malone
Jimmy Huang: Beau Sia
Running time -- 100 minutes...
- 1/26/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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