Page 10
April 25, 2018
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
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The documentary “The Jazz Ambassadors”is a fascinating story about how mixed-race bands and
African American jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong (center, pictured in Africa) were recruited
during the Cold War to help win a propaganda war against the Soviet Union and curb the spread of
communism.
New Documentaries Worth Watching
c ontinued froM p aGe 4
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Although I did not experience this
as a particularly critical examina-
tion, it does convey a sense of his
significance; Jackson is royalty in
the black community, and the film
makes a case for why that makes
sense. His first wife and the moth-
er of three of his children speaks
of him with notable appreciation,
despite having experienced the
challenges of being somewhat left
behind in Jackson’s push to make
Atlanta great; his second wife
and his children similarly speak
of him with genuine admiration,
even while conveying a sense of
loss over his absences. The film
grounds Jackson’s achievements
as mayor in the time periods when
he served, conveying a sense of
how hard he had to fight to lead in
a context where leadership from a
black man was neither wanted nor
trusted. One cannot help admire
Jackson’s single-minded and af-
fable determination. This feels
like essential history, and you can
follow the film here: https://www.
facebook.com/maynardmovie/.
“America to Me” is a docu-
mentary series that will air this
fall on the Starz network. Director
Steve James (“Hoop Dreams” and
“Abacus: Too Small to Jail”) em-
bedded in an Oak Park, Ill. high
school that is recognized for its
racial diversity but which reflects
an achievement gap between
white students and students of col-
or. The film seeks to interrogate
the forces that can lead students
of color to lag behind even in a
resource-rich school; I thought,
after watching the first two of 10
hours of the series, that so much
time and access (and good edit-
ing) did yield some suggestions
of systemic racism, but wondered
if James is the right person to tell
that story. In questioning the film-
maker after, his answer did not
suggest that he and his crew un-
dertook anti-racism training that
would have helped them ask the
right questions of what they were
seeing. Still, James knows how to
tell a story, and here he has col-
lected an interesting window into
the current state of race relations
in America.
“América” focuses on a fam-
ily in Mexico providing care to
an elderly grandmother, Améri-
ca. Her three adult grandsons end
up serving as her caretakers after
their father (her son) is jailed for
elder abuse; the film takes the time
to observe the family over many
months, as the young men strug-
gle with how to care for Améri-
ca, who is frail and exhibits signs
of dementia. There is love, and
frustration, and some windows
into Mexican life, along with a
carefully observed family portrait
that earned the film’s directors an
emerging artist award.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on
the Oregon Court of Appeals and
the first woman of color to serve
in that capacity. Her movie review
column Opinionated Judge ap-
pears regularly in The Portland
Observer. Find her movie blog at
opinionatedjudge.blogspot.com.
Troops on Linwood Avenue in Detroit, during a July 1967 uprising.
The new documentary “12th and Clairmount” examines the history
of the civil rights turmoil through the lives of those who lived
through it.