If I had a time machine, that is the place where I would point it first. After I had that visit, I would come back to the present, watch another Ken Burns documentary and then pick the next trip.
There's a kind of elegaic and beautiful inevitability in the wind-up of Ken Burns' part one of Unforgivable Blackness, the documentary of Jack Johnson's life. It has been so long since I've seen one that I had forgotten the pace, and the tingly feeling I get when the narrator says something frank about race that fits neatly into the right bucket. It's a lovely entertainment, the recieved wisdom of Burns, and it stirs up a passion for the bad old days in very much the same way a horror film makes you glad you don't live in Amityville.
I had forgotten what a lovely character was Jack Johnson, but I recall it from watching another film in which he played a peripheral character. Perhaps the film was even about him, I don't remember. What I do remember was this vision of an immaculately dressed man who was both mentally, physically and aesthetically sharp. He was in Paris, he behaved as if the world belonged to him, so clearly it did. Burns take on Johnson was that (at least on the way up) he was a man of remarkable self-possession. Wisely taking the commentary of Burt Sugar and Gerald Early among others expert, Burns has wrapped this story with just the right flavor, so Johnson's shines through.
Some of the quotes from this documentary are just dripping with butter. I simply cannot get this bad boy on DVD soon enough so that I can transcribe them. Many of the quotes were from Johnson himself.
In many ways, Burns take on the intricate curiosities of race in America is redemptive. Bringing up things forgotten with his fresh eyes are a comfort, and a lesson in humanity. I find myself wanting people around the world to know this very story, just as he tells it.
What I am liking most about this story is the curious way it circles around Johnson's life as a 'Sport'. I think it's a tale worth telling on its own.
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