369-373 Paul Robeson: Portraits of an Artist

[Gregory]

Anyone interested in deeper exploration of Paul's life would do well to pick up Martin Bauml Duberman's classic Paul Robeson: A Biography.

There's also an interesting Duberman article here (and in his book Left Out) on how the feud developed between himself and Paul Robeson Jr. The piece also says a lot about the typical struggle among people involved in a biography (and even readers and reviewers) to have it reflect their own views of who the subject was and how to handle his or her peccadilloes, real or rumored.

[Polybius]

Good find. I read this first when they had it out in the letters colum of The Nation.

I have huge admiration for both men, but I tend to think Duberman has the better of the argument.

[tryavna]

Just watched Borderline... this is one of the most difficult to understand Criterion movie I have watched so far...

Felt like a complete idiot.

I don't understand this comment. I found the film to be perfectly comprehensible as a narrative. It has some daring editing, and peculiar montages, but these don't interrupt the story, which remains pretty straightforward.

I can understand the OP's comment if he's talking about how the movie starts in media res. There's obviously a very complex back-story to the various overlapping relationships of the four main characters that only becomes clearer as the film continues. By the time you reach the half-way point, however, the narrative has pretty much filled itself in. Still, I'd suggest that anyone watching this movie for the first time ought to read Ian Christie's short piece on the movie in Criterion's booklet. It contains a couple of spoilers, but this isn't the kind of movie that you watch for plot.

Body and Soul is an odd film (Micheaux definitely has some Ed Wood moments, as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, but thoroughly enjoyable. I liked the score a lot, too. The score (by the same composer) on Borderline, however, was totally inappropriate, I felt. As soon as I turned it off the film opened up to me in incredible ways. I think this is a mini masterpiece.

I agree with you about Borderline's score being inappropriate, but it was not composed/performed by the same group that did the one for Body and Soul. Two totally different composers at work there. Just look at the credits.

By the way, Borderline didn't really begin working for me until about the final third, where it became truly fantastic. I wonder if it was partly because the score works against the film so awfully...? I ought to give it another shot with a different CD or perhaps silence.

[filmnoir1]

Has anyone listened to the score on Body and Soul as of yet? Is there only one or like Pandora's Box is there an option? I am asking because a friend of mine said that the score detracts from the seriousness of the film.

[tryavna]

Has anyone listened to the score on Body and Soul as of yet? Is there only one or like Pandora's Box is there an option? I am asking because a friend of mine said that the score detracts from the seriousness of the film.

There's only one score available for each of the two silents in the set. Denti mentioned that he liked the score for Body and Soul in the part I quoted just above. I think it's merely OK, but I wouldn't say that it detracts from the movie. It's certainly not as problematic as the score for Borderline. Like many of Micheaux's films, Body and Soul is heavily melodramatic, so composers can get away with quite a lot. The fact that it was recorded live (during a showing of the film?) gives it an interesting quality. Overall, I'd say that it works, but it's probably not everyone's cup of tea.

[lubitsch]

The Robeson set was the last pre-1960 Criterion I hadn't bought (or where I have a DVD from another label). Expensive, films of moderate reputation, the artist itself not a household name for me. Finally I couldn't stand the gap.
Is it worth it? I think very much because it offers a wide selection of different film types. You get early black filmmaking, experimental film, British colonialism, social problem films, political documentary, drama adaptation. This varied array of films broadens a viewers horizon with any racial questions being only one aspect. So it's certainly not only a set for blacks or those interested in their representation in film.
The first film is the biggest stumbling block. To compare Micheaux with Ed Wood might be an injustice to the latter. Lifeless staging and blocking, sloppy continuity, atrocious acting, sentimental story line, it doesn't get much worse than that. Then Borderline didn't quite live up to its status as forgotten gem. MacPherson is far too eager to intercut like Michael Bay everybody and everything into a big salad without ever penetrating into the characters. It's still an intelligent film, a visually stirring one, but not really good.
The second disc offers us Emperor Jones which has serious problems to develop into a story or to put it more exactly to create an interesting lead-up to the play itself. Then it becomes stagy and talky. I was beginning to doubt my choice but things picked up from here. I must say I thought Sanders of the River not too bad. Robeson's role is also not too uninteresting or demeaning, after all he plays a cunning and powerful chief and has a major part of the story line. The colonialistic framework aside it's a very reasonable adventure film. Jericho is even better despite its sloppy structure (Robeson's songs tend to push his films towards musical territory) and the rushed ending.
But the real high point is the final disc. I liked Proud Valley a lot, bearing all the hallmarks of Balcon's Ealing films with its relaxed, slightly sentimentalized portrayal of simple British people. I don't think the film was ever intended as a leftist manifesto or the changes made necessary by WWII were really great. The Native Land could lose a bit of roughly shot interior scenes in the union spy story, but its intervowen structure of lyrical documentary and reenacted scenes is interesting, the actors are unmistakebly real and Robeson's commentary is a beauty.
All told you don't get eternal classics, but a wide range of interesting approaches to film and stirringly filmed parts. It's worth a look.

[skuhn8]

The first film is the biggest stumbling block. To compare Micheaux with Ed Wood might be an injustice to the latter. Lifeless staging and blocking, sloppy continuity, atrocious acting, sentimental story line, it doesn't get much worse than that.
Then Borderline didn't quite live up to its status as forgotten gem.
Emperor Jones ... has serious problems to develop into a story or to put it more exactly to create an interesting lead-up to the play itself. Then it becomes stagy and talky.
I must say I thought Sanders of the River not too bad. Robeson's role is also not too uninteresting or demeaning

Hmmm...haven't plopped down for this one yet, and following this review I'm not any more eager to do so.

[lubitsch]

The first film is the biggest stumbling block. To compare Micheaux with Ed Wood might be an injustice to the latter. Lifeless staging and blocking, sloppy continuity, atrocious acting, sentimental story line, it doesn't get much worse than that.
Then Borderline didn't quite live up to its status as forgotten gem.
Emperor Jones ... has serious problems to develop into a story or to put it more exactly to create an interesting lead-up to the play itself. Then it becomes stagy and talky.
I must say I thought Sanders of the River not too bad. Robeson's role is also not too uninteresting or demeaning

Hmmm...haven't plopped down for this one yet, and following this review I'm not any more eager to do so.

LOL. Very successful promotion on my part it seems.
I'm usually pretty harsh in my reviews detesting a wide range of classics. But I think it's already clear from the previous discussion that you won't find Citizen Kane or The Third Man here. Still I wanted to point out that this is not only a set for those interested in the social history of blacks. It is interesting for a wide range of reasons and covers a wide range of moviemaking collecting representative works of different threads of filmmaking. It's not in the "historically significant, but dull as dishwater" category or merely a guilty acknowledgement of black oppression in the USA giving every white American to atone for the sins of their fathers by watching the whole set.

[zedz]

I'll second lubitsch's support for this set. It practically defines 'greater than the sum of its parts' in terms of DVD box sets. I wouldn't call any of the films great (and for me Sanders of the River is the worst), but the range of material is fascinating, as is Robeson himself. The patchiness and disparity of the films is a big part of Robeson's story, and the way he deals with those qualities from film to film is extremely interesting.

[domino harvey]

I actually found the Paul Robeson biography in the stack of cheap books at a B+M B+N and having the boxed set to pull from alongside it is a great treat

[manicsounds]

But until someone releases James Whale's "Showboat"....

[MichaelB]

For those who can handle PAL video (and probably Region 2), Optimum brought out a standalone edition of Proud Valley last month. (This was Robeson's own personal favourite of all his films, incidentally).

That said, I'm a big fan of the Robeson set - as Zedz says, it's considerably more interesting than the sum of its parts, not least for the supplementary documentaries. The films mostly aren't great, but there are often specific reasons for this, and these are very well contextualised indeed.

[Yaanu]

Criterion just announced that the box set is going OOP at the end of the month.

[movielocke]

unrelated to the OOP announcement, but LA will have two separate one man shows on Robeson in 2014

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ar ... 9433.story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jindianajonz]

That's kind of surprising. As obscure as these films are, I can't imagine the rightsholder will get any more money by moving them away from Criterion.

[Drucker]

That's kind of surprising. As obscure as these films are, I can't imagine the rightsholder will get any more money by moving them away from Criterion.

They didn't sell well enough for Criterion to want to renew when rights came back up for renewal?

[MichaelB]

I wonder whether the fact that at least one of the films (the Ealing-produced The Proud Valley) is owned by Studio Canal is a factor here?

One of the curses of box sets fuelled by multiple rightsholders is that if just one item proves impossible to renew, the whole thing has to be withdrawn. If I remember rightly, a single extra on the BFI's original DVD of The Adventures of Prince Achmed led to that going prematurely OOP, although they did at least reissue it (without said extra) on Blu-ray not long afterwards.

[knives]

There are a few Studio Canal films in the set.

Edit: what MichaelB said

[ShellOilJunior]

A titan sleeps. Our Paul Robeson box set is going out of print at the end of the month.

Get it while you can: http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/443-pa ... the-artist" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;?

Supplies should last a while (unless they didn't print many).

[domino harvey]

Your link's bad. Try this: http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/443-pa ... tocomplete" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[giovannii84]

Amazon temporarily out of stock. Hope they can get some more in before supply has run out.

[EddieLarkin]

Apparently, Cohen have plans to release 6 Robeson films on Blu-ray, some of which are from this box set. I don't know if they actually announced this or if the details in the link were just extrapolated from the list of apparent Cohen acquisitions found here. Several Robeson films are listed there, but so is a lot of stuff they apparently have no rights to at all.

[domino harvey]

This'll be back in stock at Amazon on 12/18 for $68, a little under a third off MSRP. Not bad considering it'll go for twice that at least within six months

[Drucker]

From Criterion's Facebook, just as an FYI:

FYI, for those who were getting whipped up: It's not Canal. It's Cohen Media that pulled their rights. Let's hope they do something good with them. These films deserve to be seen, studied and celebrated.

[jindianajonz]

What other rights to Cohen have that are currently in the collection?