By Alex Simon
"Wrapped in the sweet, false escape of dreams, I hear the unmistakable sounds of meat being beaten by blackjack, of bootfalls, yells, curses; and it merges into the mind's movie-making machine, evoking distant memories of some of the Philadelphia Police Department's greatest hits--on me. "Get off that man, you fat, greasy, racist, redneck pig bitch muthafucka!" My tired eyes snap open; the cracks, thuds, "oofs!" come in all too clear. Damn. No dream. Another dawn, another beating on B-Block, another shackled inmate at Pennsylvania's Huntingdon prison pummeled into the concrete by a squadron of guards." -Mumia Abu-Jamal "B-Block Days & Nightmares"
Stephen Vittoria is that rare commodity in Hollywood today: a filmmaker with a conscience. To be more precise, a filmmaker with a strong political conscience. After making two feature films, Black and White (aka Lou, Pat & Joe D., 1987) and Hollywood Boulevard (1996), as well as three feature documentaries: Save Your Life--The Life and Holistic Times of Dr. Richard Schulze (1998), Keeper of the Flame (2005) and the award-winning art house hit One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern (2005), a portrait of the South Dakota senator who tried to unseat Richard Nixon from the White House in 1972.
For his latest exploration into America's socio-political landscape, Vittoria joins forces with radio producer Noelle Hanrahan to bring Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal to the screen. Born Wesley Cook in Philadelphia, Abu-Jamal made his name as a tireless writer and journalist during the racially-charged 1970s that often portrayed the City of Brotherly Love as anything but. With his intense coverage of the M.O.V.E. organization, a black empowerment group whose ongoing battle with the police and city hall came to a fiery end in 1985, Abu-Jamal become a constant thorn in the side of the city's powerful establishment. Things came to a sudden head for Abu-Jamal himself on the evening of December 9, 1981 when he was accused of murdering a Philadelphia police officer. He received a death sentence the following year, and has been on Pennsylvania's death row until early this year, when his death sentence was commuted to a life sentence in December, 2011. Abu-Jamal's case remains one of the most controversial and heatedly debated in American legal history, with participants on both sides either protesting his innocence in the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner or his absolute guilt with equal passion and more often, great vehemence.
Abu-Jamal's exile behind prison bars did anything but silence him, but caused his voice to become more widespread as a result of his incarceration, which is how Noelle Hanrahan originally met the man whom she now considers a close friend. In 1992 while producing Pacifica Radio's award winning national coverage of the first execution in California in twenty-five years (Robert Alton Harris), Ms. Hanrahan discovered Mumia Abu-Jamal's work. Although a national reporter for NPR prior to incarceration, Abu-Jamal had not recorded for broadcast since his arrest in 1981. In July of 1992 Hanrahan traveled to Pennsylvania's Huntingdon State Prison and death row to record Mumia Abu-Jamal's first recordings in more than a decade. Once again, his voice reached a national audience.
The film features appearances from a disparate group of Mumia supporters, including Dr. Cornel West, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Rubin Hurricane Carter, Tariq Ali, Ruby Dee, Dick Gregory, Peter Coyote, Giancarlo Esposito, M-1, and Amy Goodman. Eddie Vedder sings "Society." Long Distance Revolutionary is produced by Katyana Farzanrad, Noelle Hanrahan, and Stephen Vittoria and is
written, directed, and edited by Stephen Vittoria.
Stephen Vittoria and Noelle Hanrahan sat down to discuss Long Distance Revolutionary, which is headed for major film festivals this spring.
How was this film brought to life?
Stephen Vittoria: You wake up in the morning and you realize that the insanity of Manifest Destiny is still alive and well, complete with the slaughter and economic rape courtesy of The Empire. So as a storyteller, you look for an antidote and for me that antidote was the literary work of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As a filmmaker , you feel the need to search for some sanity that might counterbalance some of the murder and mayhem. And the irony of it is here's a political prisoner who is writing, creating amazing pieces of political literature and revolutionary work from a dark, dank hole on death row. In the film, the celebrated activist Dick Gregory talks about how years from now, historians are going to talk about how Mumia was, in fact, the voice of America, because up until now, the voice of America has been a fraud, a fraud to its own myths of liberty, of justice and of freedom. For me, Mumia is the great equalizer to the gibberish emanating out of Washington. That was the essence of the film for me. And the more I tunneled into his work, his writing and his life, the more of a joy it was to make this film. In many ways, Mumia's writing and revolutionary thought reminds us of a 20th and 21st century Frederick Douglass.
Prior to becoming aware of Mumia, was there a person, or group of people, whom you believed to be the "voice of America" who turned out to be false prophets?
SV: You mean besides the pantheon of so-called American heroes? It was always such a negative search, I never found anyone I gravitated toward or turned me on enough. As a teenager and because of the murder spree in Southeast Asia, George McGovern turned me on a lot, which is part of the reason I made a film about him and wanted to challenge the prevailing thought that he was a loser, which he most certainly was not. But McGovern later in my life didn't have the gravitas as a revolutionary thinker and revolutionary person, which is what this corrupt system needs to turn it around, instead of the same milquetoast bullshit we've been getting for years, especially from the alleged liberals of this country. Phil Ochs wrote a song years ago called "Love Me, I'm a Liberal," which sums that all up for me.
Remember what Phil said on his infamous "Gold Suit Tour" in '72: "What the country needs right now is a combination of Elvis Presley and Che Guevara"?
SV: (laughs) And I think Mumia might be just that.
Do you see Mumia's background being a major factor in terms of why he's on death row, as opposed to writing for The New York Times, or serving in the senate? Did the fact that he was born poor and black with his amazing intellect doom him in a sense?
Noelle Hanrahan: What kept Mumia Abu-Jamal from having a wider public stage in contemporary America was . He would not, and could not, stray from the truth. We demonstrate many times in this movie the American media did not want to hear this alternative take on American society. Mumia was doggedly determined to tell his own story. He just told the truth, whether he was interviewing Jimmy Carter, members of congress, or local officials. It cost him a lot in terms of losing jobs before he went to prison and after he went to prison, his material was so good, it was chosen by NPR to be featured regularly as a national commentator. Bob Dole got up on the senate floor and told NPR that if they ever considered doing something like that again, he'd go after their funding.
SV: In fact, in the film, historian Tariq Ali says that "they have moved heaven and earth to silence Mumia in this country." It's one reason he's much more well-known overseas, especially in Europe, than he is here.
NH: Whenever Mumia reaches a mainstream media source in this country, be it Vanity Fair, "20/20," HBO, NPR, even when we reached Pacifica Radio, they lost something like 2/3 of their stations after they broadcast Mumia's commentaries. So Mumia really hits a nerve. He spoke about and exposed, first-hand, the rise of this incarceration nation, this culture of incarcerating more people than any other western nation right now. That one in forty-seven Americans will do time in their lifetime. That there are more black men in prison than there were during slavery. That's what Mumia was saying from death row, for National Public Radio and what the mainstream did not want to hear.
Before he was arrested, Mumia was already being extremely inflammatory from the POV of the establishment, in terms of the material he covered. What were some of the issues he tackled as a member of the media that scared people so much?
NH: Here's a perfect example: Mumia was in the audience at a press conference, and asked Jimmy Carter some very straightforward questions about Three Mile Island and other things. Mumia's news director came up to him and was furious. A few moments later, they're riding down in the elevator with President Carter, who turned to Mumia and said "Young man, you asked some very intelligent and probing questions. Thank you." They got off the elevator, and the news director turned to Mumia and said "The president just saved your job." Another example, Mumia wanted to do a story about gentrification, about areas where black families still couldn't buy homes in an area of Philadelphia. He couldn't get the editor to do the story. He was just pushing the boundaries they didn't want covered.
SV: He also conducted some great interviews with people like Bob Marley, Dr. J., various theater groups and music acts...covered the Phillies winning the World Series in 1980. He did a lot of mainstream things. In '79, the Pope came to Philly, and Mumia along with other staffers at the NPR affiliate did a story on the visit that won them an Armstrong Award from Columbia University as one of the best pieces of the year.
NH: Yeah, they went to a black barbershop in Philadelphia and talked to the people about what the Pope's visit meant to them.
SV: I think his coverage of MOVE were the stories that caused him the most grief with the mainstream media in Philly, who as journalist Linn Washington says in our film "were lapdogs then as they are now."
Much like the Black Panthers, MOVE was portrayed in the mainstream media as a group dim-witted, Cro-Magnon thugs bent on the violent overthrow of white America, when in fact they were high-functioning intellectuals who had some very lofty, and humanistic, goals and ambitions. They just wanted to be left alone.
SV: I think that's the case and I think the Philadelphia media, who were in bed with (former mayor and police commissioner) Frank Rizzo and his administration in '78 and later on with (former mayor) Wilson Goode in '85. And Mumia was a thorn in the establishment's side... they didn't want anyone giving a voice to this so-called radical organization. But who's more radical? A back to nature group of citizens or a city government that decides to bomb and exterminate their own people - as the Philadelphia Police Department did in 1985 along with the help of the FBI. And Mumia was crucified by the local media for simply covering the other side. To me, that's not inflammatory or radical. That's just good, solid journalism.
Things came to a head for Mumia one night in December of 1981. Can we talk about what the record says happened, then what he and his defenders say happened?
NH: I think every murder is really complicated. It's really hard to ever determine what really happened. What we do know happened is that Mumia was shot along with a Philadelphia police officer, who was killed. We know that the police immediately grabbed Mumia and started framing him for the murder. I think it was clear from the record, both the current record and the original investigation, that there are serious questions about how the police handled Mumia, the crime scene and the witnesses. There are many contradictions that still haven't been addressed. Even though it's thirty years later, the courts and the Philadelphia courts and the D.A. have been very quick to stop any efforts for Mumia obtaining new evidence for an appeal. The judge who presided over the original case, Albert Sabo, was overheard by a courtroom clerk saying that he "wanted to help them fry the nigger." So this is the kind of situation Mumia faced. He went to trial within six months. He was sentenced to death over the July fourth weekend. They were holding the jury and told them they needed to come back with a verdict or they'd be sequestered for the entire weekend. So there are many, many questions as to whether he received a fair trial.
Since being incarcerated, he's almost developed a new voice.
SV: I think many people believe he found his voice after he was incarcerated. But if you look into the history of his life, the real history of his life, you'll find that his voice started to resonate long before he was ever incarcerated in 1982. When he was fourteen, fifteen years old, he became a writer for the Black Panther Party, left high school, travelled the country and was writing very serious pieces for the Black Panther newspaper. He absorbed a crash course in journalism from some very important mentors and before long he was contributing to a paper that was selling 250,000 copies per week, around the world, while he was still a teenager. So his voice, back in the late '60s and early '70s, wasn't really that different from his analysis today, except of course for his prose which is obviously more sophisticated now that he's in his late fifties.
SV: There are probably people out there who will say "Who the hell cares about hearing voices from behind prison walls?" I'd argue that we have an entire nation behind prison walls right now. From 1776-1992, the United States incarcerated one million people. From '92 to 2000, the U.S. incarcerated another million people. We literally have a nation behind bars - Mumia calls it the "prisonhouse of nations," and he's been this important voice exposing what the government is trying to pull off.
NH: And you can't say that what happens on the inside doesn't affect the outside. California spends more on incarceration than it does on its schools. It has a direct public policy impact. Whether it's a way to control voting rolls, because convicted felons can't vote in most states, whether it's the controlling of the unpaid labor force, whether it's a stop-gap valve for issues to do with employment, I'm not sure what all the economic reasons are behind it, but the mainstream media has not stepped up to address this crisis.
NH: We just recorded an amazing interview with Mumia this morning. He has been taken off death row, and put into the general population for a life sentence because his death sentence was overturned. He wrote a letter back to the death row inmates, talking to them in a really personal way, about how he missed them and how in their light and humanity, they were more than just "death row." He encouraged them to open their minds, and to study and to learn and to acknowledge that enough people have turned their lives around inside through education. Mumia, for example, is conversational in Spanish and German and fluent in French. He also taught himself to read music. He's got a five-octave range.
SV: When we talk about him finding his voice, from 1992 until now, the man has written and published seven critically-acclaimed books from death row. He has broadcasted more than two thousand essays from inside his cell, solitary confinement. He is handed a telephone, and from a hand-written pad of paper, usually in one take, he reads his essays. For years, he was only allowed to use the inside of a ballpoint pen, because the prison authorities were afraid he could use the hard plastic shell as a weapon.
NH: And all of his books were written by hand, except his last one, when he was finally allowed to have a plastic typewriter.
There's an old saying that there are no guilty men in prison. Everyone maintains their innocence. For many people, all they're going to see when they look at Mumia is a man who was lawfully convicted in a court of law for one of the most heinous crimes on the books: the murder of a police officer. What do you say to those people?
NH: The American justice system has an incredible ability to convict the innocent. That's been exposed in detail over the past several years, most particularly in Illinois, when a journalism class, I believe from Northwestern University, investigated the cases of all the inmates on a state prison's death row, and based on their findings, fully half of those convictions were exonerated. That, plus the DNA projects, The Innocence Project, have shown that innocence issues are a huge structural problem in many states. I also wonder at some level if the American public is paying enough attention. Are they recognizing what's happening to themselves, even? The structure of the American criminal justice system is criminalgenic: it creates crime. There are things that people believe about the Constitution that are just not true. 90% of all crimes are pled, not taken to trial. That kind of pressure on the system, isn't about the weighing of justice, it's about creating a culture of incarceration.
Again, is it a matter of social class and race more than anything?
NH: I think so. I can find as many criminals and sociopaths on the campus of Stanford University as I can on a street corner in Philadelphia. There are only certain people who go to prison. You have to be a certain class and a certain type. And you get a gold card to get out if you have connections. I think at every moment, the color of your skin and your social class can determine if you finish high school and go to college, or whether or not you go to prison. At this point, in our culture, to have an expectation that one out of three young black men will end up in prison is obscene. I can't live in a culture like that unless I can do what I do, which is broadcast Mumia's voice and create an anecdote to this dream state that the rest of the country seems to be in.
On the flip side, there have been many cases of real animals being let out of jail on a technicality and then go out to commit more heinous crimes. So what would you say to a person like Bob Dole, who is always going to support the system, and for whom the system has always worked, unlike someone from Mumia's background, in arguing that sometimes the system makes mistakes.
NH: What I would say to Bob Dole is that he had a major role in defining American culture by being in the senate, that you need to look at the result of policing policies, that we have become a culture that is extraordinarily violent, that at the same time has a huge prison population, which at the same time is cutting funds for education. This is what Bob Dole should look at, as well as study cultures with less violence, more interest in free medical health care, education and less of an incarceration nation. That, I think, is what our national political leadership should aspire to. For some reason, this one is seriously broken, and he was the head of the whole thing for a long time as Majority Leader.
SV: If ever there was a case with a lot of gray area surrounding what actually went down, it was this case. One of the reasons I structured the narrative the way I did was because I didn't want to make Long Distance Revolutionary about Mumia's case. I wanted to make it about this man's life as a writer, as a public intellectual, and most importantly as a revolutionary. Until he has another chance to make his case in open court on a level playing field, there's really no point in talking about it in the context of a film. It's just too volatile and polarizing. It's kind of like if you make a film about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you're just going to have people on opposite sides of the fence hurling rocks at each other. Who the hell wants to watch that?
NH: The case, in many ways, obscures what Mumia is about and why he is such a lightning rod, and the really interesting things he's doing, who he really is.
SV: And it's that very thing which really interested me as a filmmaker. As far as his case goes, I wasn't there. I've heard both sides. The case is completely all over the place. The only thing we really know about the case, what really happened on December 9, 1981 is that this myth of American justice was nowhere to be found. That's the one thing I think we do know. We may not know exactly how the events transpired, but moments after this flashpoint, after Mumia was shot and clinging to his own life, he was beaten senseless by two or three Philadelphia cops, including a Captain. It was an utter and complete sham that the system, which people watch on fairytales like "Law & Order," they think this really exists. It's a con game summed up by the old adage "law is politics by other means." And that's why our film focuses so keenly on Mumia Abu-Jamal as a journalist, writer and revolutionary, because that's the heart of who he is.
What's the genesis of the film's title?
Dr. Cornel West came up with the title while we were filming his interview, so I have to give Brother West props for that. But "Long Distance Revolutionary" refers to a man who in the 1960s, not only cut his teeth and nurtured himself on the revolution that was taking place in the streets, but wholeheartedly believed in all its tenets. Flash- forward to over forty years later and he has never stopped believing, never stopped moving that revolution forward. Let me read you something that Mumia wrote recently. He's talking about the revolutionary movement of the 1960s, be it black or white, but he's talking now to the Occupy movement: "Nor could they imagine you, in their age-leavened arrogance. They thought their generation, the sixties, were the real rebels, even as they are blind to the betrayals that have marked them as enemies to the very thing they fought for as youths."
Is that the main thing you're trying to accomplish with this film, to get Mumia's voice heard on a larger scale?
SV: That and for people to understand for the last thirty years, there has been this myth heaped upon the public about this "deranged cop killer." Glenn Beck called him a "Communist cop killer." This film, not unlike the McGovern film in many ways, goes to great lengths to offer an alternative history of the facts, as if the great Howard Zinn was helping us out along the way... and in the final analysis I think Long Distance Revolutionary does that by not focusing so much on the case itself, but by focusing on the amazing achievements of this man, and his voice, from death row.
0 comments:
Post a Comment