Criterion Blu-Ray of the Day : Jeffrey Wright on the phenomenal film RIDE WITH THE DEVIL

Like the war it pivots around, Ang Lee’s RIDE WITH THE DEVIL, is a troubling property.

A box office failure on its release in 1999, the film came and went from theaters, virtually unseen. The release of the movie on Blu-ray, from respected Blu-ray Boutique label Criterion, finally gives audiences a chance to (most for the first time), see and explore what may be the most challenging film, from a director known for taking on eclectic and challenging material.

It is not an easy film, filled as it is with absurdities, and contradictions and stupidities reflective of the time. However stick with it, as it is a rewarding film, as much for what it says about the mistakes this nation has made, as it is prophetic and timely about the mistakes this nation is currently making.

Is it a great film? It has moments of greatness, and is never quite what you think it is.

It is ultimately a film I bought simply upon Jeffrey Wright, mentioning it as one of his favorites; and one I am very glad I bought. The beautiful criterion release offers a great interview with Jeffrey Wright, snippets of which I have provided below. However, please watch the film before indulging in the full special features.

In an age of streaming, this Criterion release of RIDE WITH THE DEVIL makes a case for physical media just in the gorgeousness of the gestalt. From the striking and handsomely designed packaging, to the overflowing with special features director’s approved and remastered release, to the eye-catching booklet filled with informative essays on the film; in every way this film is as much a tactile and dimensional experience, as a visual one.

A must own release. Grade: B+.

 

“I think that’s what separates this film from other films about the civil war, and other films that deal with historical racial dynamics in this country, that Ang was open to the complexity of it. That war is a seminal event in the character of American history, and it continues to inform who we are today, and who we will become. The story is a non-conventional look at historic race relations in this country. “

“I understood the attack they had planned, and I understood the subtlety of the character they had drawn. Holt, the character I played, that Ang described as an emerging character, and I thought it worked on multiple levels, relative to the film. Interestingly that was the first role I got, not having had to audition. Ang said that he had seen my work, he had seen Basquiat prior to that and maybe some of my stage work and said ‘There was something in your eyes that I saw, that was right for the character.’ That as well gave me a lot of confidence in the way that he worked, and  the way he understood what acting was.”

“Black folks in the south, in the years before the civil War did not have a voice. Holt, is reflective of the nature of Black folks relation to society at that time. And ultimately as he emerges out of that silence, what he does say is all the more heightened, and all the more powerful.”

“I think it has gained a core audience since then — an expanding audience, it’s a film that’s going to survive. RIDE WITH THE DEVIL is the last film about the Civil War of the 20th century, and I think the arc from BIRTH OF A NATION, at the beginning of the 20th century to RIDE WITH THE DEVIL is an evolution of our ways of portraying this critical and defining point in our history, through cinema.”

Get your copy here!

WORD OF THE DAY: ANTINOMIAN

Antinomian- The mad idea that a religion (typically Christian) is exempt from moral law, by virtue of being that particular religion/God’s grace, and therefore can undertake any and all actions without respect to morality or moral law.

I’m relatively well read, but I must admit to never having come across this Latin derived word with its roots in 16th century Germany.

Historical examples would be Slavery and Manifest Destiny under Christianity in the Americas, and the Holocaust under Nazi ruled Germany.

Modern examples of this theology in practice would be the continuing apartheid in Palestine under Zionism/Judaism, or the modern day crusades that a ‘Christian/Roman’ America is embroiled in throughout the world.

Religion should elevate humanity not debase it. Raise our morals, not lessen them. Keep us from murder, not push us to revel in it.

Antinomian.

A word.

We must be vigilant against such words.

“Nobody’s fault but mine
Nobody’s fault but mine
I had a mother who could sing
I had a mother who could sing
If I die and my soul be lost
nobody’s fault but mine”
—Nina Simone

The Very Best Of Nina Simone, 1967-1972 : Sugar In My Bowl

Enemies of the State, Young Alexanders and Multi National Corporations

Ohhhh

theres got to be more
on this
road of life
there’s got to be more
than this
horror and strife
oh hhhh
there’s got to be more
On the
Road of Life

oh
there’s got to be more
than this
horror and strife

oh
there’s got to be more
than this
horror and strife

Ohhh
there’s got to be
Mooooore
on a
Road called life

–copyright 2011 HT & this blog

So I lit into Microsoft a post or so back, and deservedly so. But, while they are one of the more egregious examples of power corrupting, there is culpability enough to go around,

President Obama and the FBI- earn my unhappy face for an administration that unfortunately differed from his predecessor’s only in eloquence. In the real nuts and bolts of what he signed into law, he continued the rape of the American citizen in the interest of big business, and the expansion of both the domestic and global police state, and the dismantling of civil liberties.

Sweeping into office on the dreams and quotations of better men, men who fought FOR civil liberties, his administration, as I feared (go back to my pre-election posts) has been a staggering betrayal of every election promise, and every election speech.

But even I, am surprised to the degree, that he has utterly sold out the American people.

He is the living, walking embodiment of the talking android from Ishmael Reed’s seminal MUMBO JUMBO (get the audio book, it reorders the text and is actually an improvement). Something designed to speak the words, and have the appearance of the common man and liberty, but underneath serves those who would see the bulk of men in chains.

His latest betrayal, not just of America, but the world, is signing into law Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Which basically gives media empires sweeping, unmitigated powers to shut down anything or anyone, anywhere in the world, with the full military might of Herr Sam backing them. It’s a blank check for tyranny.

Another one.

God, seriously, I get the idea of money, I even get the idea of power, and I know Obama, and the various acronym-ed agencies, distant step-children of the Nazi SS, are but pawns for massive multi-nationals, but I don’t get the pawn part.

I mean, I don’t get the trade-off of power and money for liberty and justice.

I don’t see the value of much, if you have to give up those last two things to get it. I don’t see what good money and power does you, after you’ve betrayed every single thing and every single one.

I don’t know how you look anyone in the eye, your children, your family, when they ask you how your day was… and you have to dodge around the fact that you spent the day eliminating liberties.

Not seeing the upside to that.

To surrender one freedom, to back pedal on one liberty, to erase one right, is to spit on the sacrifice, and blood, and suffering of countless people. It is to make a mockery of every war fought, and every life lost, if the purpose of all that blood, is but more efficient tyranny.

Is that really the job you signed up for?

More efficient tyranny?

Be it warrantless wiretaps, warrantless isp, email, vehicle and cell phone monitoring. Even usage of social networks, such as the whole Cops twittering fiasco. Any liberty you think you have online, law enforcement is using as a weapon.

Every single one.

How is Nazi Germany wrong, if a Patriot Act America and an Apartheid Israel can be right?

How? What did we fight for, if we surrender everyone of our liberties to people who live and die, by every tide, and every atrocity, we fought to stem.

We fought Nazis, only to become Nazis? And we fought slavery, only to become enslaved?

Not acceptable.

Not if you wrap it in the red, white, and blue, not if you have trumpets blaring, not if you sanctify it in tales of Holocaust.

It is not acceptable.

If you came out of a Holocaust, only to become a holocaust, then you are not acceptable.

And you can call yourself the FBI, and you can call yourself America, and you can yourself patriots.

But what you are, are your grandparents betrayers, and your Grandchildrens slavers. What you are… is the problem.

Money, Power?

For this you sell your past and your future?

Money,Power?

But how much of either do you see?

You young recruit, I’m asking you. Hired to bark on command, hired to put down protestors, and spy on citizens, and kill enemies.

Is the money good? Is the power good?

Not good enough I think.

Because I think even paying lip service to liberty, and justice, you begin to know those words. And in some part of you, you seek more of the American Dream, then the tatters they are using you to make of it.

They are old. And scared. These tired dragons of Woodrow’s New World Order dream, that hire you to protect their money and their power.

But you are young, and somewhere not quite dulled by the programming, is the idea… that we can all be more, than pawns in an old game.

Money and Power.

Those are old ideas for old men. They are illusions of paper and pen. And Alexanders would have laughed at them, and put all these foolish old men to the sword.

All of them.

All the captains of Industry. The plotters of wars. The hoarders of wealth.

Alexanders would have laughed at them, and put them all to the sword.

Liberty and justice.

THESE are words to put air in your lungs, these are words to make your chin rise, and your heart swell. These are words to raise children on. These are the causes you were put here for young Alexanders.

You are not here to be a simpering old man’s dog, protecting his ip and movie rights, and his numerous illusions, you are here young Alexander, in this place, in this time, in this position… to make right the things that are wrong.

To make right, the things that are wrong.

And I so charge you, by a right and a duty that transcends multi-nationals and war machines and orbital weapons, I charge you by a higher duty, your own decency…. look at all this blood… and be moved.

And how you pleaseth God, whatever God you bend your knee to… how you pleaseth God, dispose the day.

This is why old men love wars, because it is a meat grinder for the young, so you can not rise against them, so you learn your place… in the game. Their game.

Be better than that my young Alexanders.

Be better… than them.

They speak of evolution as if it’s a dead thing.

It is not.

You are evolution.

Which is why they are in such a hurry to kill or corrupt you.

Evolve past them, and past their sad little dreams of power and money.

The day is coming, some would say it is upon us, when you will have to choose young Alexanders… what masters you follow and what masters, like rotting oaks, you fell.

Choose well, my lords.

Choose well.

And still she rises… Haiti and the 1st and 2nd occupations… And the turning of the world

My blood boils.

Mostly because beyond the bullshit in the media, it is the stupid things people say to me about Haiti.

“This Earthquake could be a good thing for Haiti because it will let America come in and set her up, and organize her.”

Here’s the thing.

The world isn’t a mess because bad people make bad choices.

The world is a mess because good people, accept bad choices and bad reasoning as gospel, accept lies as truths without examining them. And then pat themselves on the back for being openminded, and liberal, and helping the less fortunate.

When the truth is, everything about your life has led Haiti to her crucifixion.

Haiti doesn’t need your pity.

Haiti needs for you to read a book.

And know what the heck you’re talking about before you fall pro or against on an argument.

America and the UN, the West, has been “in” Haiti’s business since that lone island state changed the face of the western hemisphere in 1804, by giving a black eye to slavery.

Haiti has been repaid for that temerity of standing up, by bloody American occupations, to make Nazi Germany flinch, 1915-1934. Followed by period of UN economic “help” that left the most fertile land in the western hemisphere an arid desert through destructive farming procedures that raped the land. So now a country that prior to UN intervention could raise it’s own food, had to import food in order to keep its population alive.

And that leads into Papa Doc regimes, funded by US dollars, and crushing loans by the World Bank designed to keep poor countries poor, and years of nightmare dictatorships, which finally, finally after generations with the 2000 elections and a candidate, Aristide, poised to get them off the disastrous US/UN foreign “aide” that has kept the nation crippled, a candidate who is overwhelmingly voted in by over 90% of the population, when US elections can barely get over 50%, and what does America do, do we applaud this show of true democracy?

No.

It’s a non-US candidate.

We Invade.

We INVADE!

Where were all the ads to help Haiti then?

Hmmm.

Where was Dell? Where was the RED CROSS? Where were the marines? I can tell you where the marines were, the marines were in Haiti killing Haitians. And they’ve been there ever since.

They ousted a duly elected government, and they repeated the bloody occupation of 1915.

And like the war of 1915, no one said a word of it on mass media.

So the war didn’t exist.

Here’s the thing.

Nothing is forgotten.

Nothing is ever forgotten.

The occupation/holocaust of 1915 to 1934 happened, and the occupation/holocaust of 2001 is continuing to happen.

So no, I will not buy America as the cowboy on the white hat riding in to do Haiti any good. All America is riding in to do, is to finally after 200+ years make the island that first spoke to the western hemisphere of being free, give up… even the hope of freedom.

And that, my dear liberal, my dear conservative, my dear hypocrite… is a defeat for true democracy, and more… it’s a defeat for humanity.

And… it will not stand.

The spirit of Haiti will rise again, even if she must do so in the sons and daughters of her tormentors. Haiti will rise, through occupation, through holocaust, through mass murder, through acts of man and science, Haiti will rise. Be it in a year, be it in scores of years… Haiti will rise.

Just as surely as the turning of the world.