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Arts
Wednesday, February 17, 2021 — 5
‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ says screw the neoliberals
There’s a quote from a 1964 speech
by Malcolm X that Fred Hampton,
played by Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”),
recounts to the future mother of his
child, Deborah (Dominique Fishback,
“The Hate You Give”):
“Sometimes, when a person’s house is
on fire and someone comes in yelling fire,
instead of the person who is awakened
by the yell being thankful, he makes
the mistake of charging the one who
awakened him with having set the fire.”
Fred Hampton was murdered
in his bed after an FBI informant
named Bill O’Neill, the eponymous
Judas played by Lakeith Stanfield
(“Sorry to Bother You”), drugged him
so that he would be unable to wake
when the FBI raided his apartment.
Artist Kerry James Marshall would
later depict the night of his execution
in “Black Painting,” illustrating the
darkness of Hampton’s bedroom,
evoking the truth that this eerie
place was meant to be a safe place for
Hampton, Deborah and their unborn
child. It’s dangerous enough to be in
a house on fire, but what they did to
Fred Hampton reminds us that you
have to be awake to know the fire’s
even there.
The film follows Bill’s infiltration
of the Black Panther Party on behalf
of the FBI in return for immunity
from his past crimes. It’s difficult to
try to sow suspense with historical
narratives in film when the ending
is already cataloged in collective
or digital memory, especially for
Black people like myself, who know
the story fairly well. Likewise,
director Shaka King (“Newlyweds”)
sometimes struggled to avoid the
associated cliches of the genre.
FBI Agent Roy Martin Mitchell
(Jesse Plemons, “I’m Thinking of
Ending Things”) has a moment of
reckoning with the cause he realizes
he’s fighting for, not saying verbatim
but still evoking a revelation of, “Wait,
you’re telling me that the FBI is r-r-r-
racist?!”
Stanfield’s portrayal of Bill’s struggle
not to blow his cover at times seems
more like a closeted kid trying to fit
in with the football players by talking
about how hot the popular girl is, than it
does a blackmailed man worried for his
life. At one point in the movie, Deborah
has a moment when she becomes
worried for Fred’s safety. It seemed
shoehorned in, like something that a
white wife of a white activist would
say to remind the viewers that the film
considers the female perspective, but
maybe I’m being harsh.
The cuts to Fred and Deborah’s
romantic development felt like an
attempt to level with people who
might think the Panthers were too
radical. More and more people have
been re-educated on the work that
the Black Panther Party did for
community health, food and welfare,
but the bigger picture has sometimes
been watered down. Shaka King’s
refusal to shy away from the
Black Panthers’ denouncement of
capitalism and encouragement to
keep people armed dares the viewer
to consider that these ideas might be
new, but not unforgivable.
The opening montage sews together
clips from Agnes Varda’s (“Cleo from 5
to 7”) 1962 documentary on the Black
Panther, b-roll news footage and
reenacted performances by the cast
— most notably Kaluuya as Hampton,
in a scene where he promises not to
“fight capitalism with black capitalism,
(but) fight it with socialism.” In the
age of the imperialist girlboss and
carceral feminism, it’s brave to show
that the Black Panther Party was more
successful in bringing people together
than any corporate activists of today.
I’m inclined to be a little cynical
and think that any success that
films like this have is based around
an obsession with Black pain. That
films like this are nothing more than
high-budget
blaxploitation
films.
But “Judas” goes beyond that. It’s not
an easy film to watch, but there are
glimpses of Black joy that make you
keep watching. Even knowing it was
all going to end badly, I still felt warm
when Fred would feed Deborah or
when he was embraced by his friends
upon returning from a stint in prison.
I’m begging people to see this
movie as a moral text. Not just
something to observe but something
to live by. To reject the individualism
that O’Neill favored by sacrificing his
friends for his own betterment and
instead embrace the collectivism that
the Party stood for. I struggle with
the push and pull between wanting
to decentralize the viewer, to focus
on what the art is trying to say rather
than always looking for something
to relate to. Then again, seeing this
as only relevant to the ’60s would be
like looking at Japanese kaiju films as
monster movies and not reactions to
nuclear warfare.
Art is about connection. When I
read the ten-point program or watch
videos of Kathleen Cleaver talking
about her natural hair, I can’t help but
feel like they’re speaking across time.
You can’t view this as a race-blind
story of betrayal. O’Neill did what he
did because he felt like he had no other
option as a Black man in America. Not
some new idea of Trump’s America
but the America that has always
existed to maintain a plutocracy.
I wonder how producer Ryan
Coogler felt doing this film after
“Black Panther,” arguably one of the
performative expressions of Black
pride, that Hampton himself calls
out in a scene where he says, “That
dashiki ain’t gon’ help you when
they come in here with them tanks.”
Does he know that giving Disney
all that cash made him a part of the
capitalist machine? Does he know
that Disney is a part of the reason
why stories like Fred Hampton’s
are suppressed in favor of whatever
movie makes the most money or
can at least be paid for by the U.S.
military?
Still, Shaka King lives up to his
name. He dares pearl-clutching
viewers, who might think that the
cop-killing is too far, to leave their
judgment at the door. None of us were
there. To wince at the use of violence
by the Party because of our modern
ideas about gun control would make it
about us and not the story. This film is
about as close as we can get to looking
back in time, and as Hampton says in
the film, “It’s not a question of violence
or no violence, it’s a question of
resistance to fascism or nonexistence
within fascism.”
The filmmakers should get ready
for a whirlwind of press. Whenever
we have a new “Selma” or “12 Years
a Slave,” white critics come out of the
woodwork to bemoan how timely the
film is, how deftly it holds a mirror
to society — and it does. But these
movies are always timely. If you
really want us to stop thinking you’re
racist, just give Kaluuya the Oscar he
deserves.
MARY ELIZABETH JOHNSON
Daily Arts Writer
‘Sergeant Salinger:’ A masterful reimagining
of the author’s secret life during WWII
“What really knocks me out is a
book that, when you’re all done reading
it, you wish the author that wrote it was
a terrific friend of yours and you could
call him up on the phone whenever
you felt like it. That doesn’t happen
much, though.” — J.D. Salinger, “The
Catcher in the Rye,” 1951
“The Catcher in the Rye” is an
ode to angst through the hilarious
musings and reflections of Holden
Caulfield. Reading it is a teenage rite
of passage, and the novel’s themes of
innocence, identity and loss remain
with many long after their adolescent
years have passed. Though everyone
who
reads
it
feels
intimately
acquainted with Holden, few know
anything about his creator, author
and notorious recluse J. D. Salinger.
In his latest book “Sergeant
Salinger,”
Jerome
Charyn,
a
prolific author of historical fiction,
reimagines Salinger’s early life in
kodachrome detail. Charyn follows
Salinger’s path from his parents’
apartment on Park Avenue to the
battlefields
of
Normandy
and
beyond, ending in the Tarrytown,
N.Y. loft where much of “The
Catcher in the Rye” was written.
Grounded in biological fact and
topped with a generous helping
of imagination, Charyn’s novel
wonderfully recreates the war years
of J. D. Salinger.
Charyn sets the scene in 1942
New York, populating it with vibrant
characters and period-correct lingo.
The opening sequence, featuring
an acerbic Walter Winchell (the
famed New York gossip columnist)
and the “voluptu-u-u-u-os” Oona
O’Neill, is an intriguing, dramatic
accomplishment.
Here
we
are
introduced to a young J. D. Salinger,
“A tall yid, with big ears and olive
skin and a Gypsy’s dark eyes.” As an
upcoming young writer, Salinger’s
short stories published in the “slicks”
— magazines like The Saturday
Evening Post and The New Yorker —
had already accumulated a measure
of fame. Charyn acquaints the reader
to Salinger’s life in New York only to
rip them away with the arrival of a
draft letter.
Trained within the shadowy
Counter Intelligence Corps, the
sensitive Salinger is molded into a
ruthless interrogator. The author
follows Salinger, cast as a reluctant
soldier but an excellent survivor,
through many of the most notorious
campaigns of World War II. From the
beaches of D-Day to occupied Paris,
he encounters prominent historical
figures, including Brigadier General
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Ernest
Hemingway.
He experiences the terror of the
Hürtgen Forest “where toes froze
off” and the nauseating liberation
of a Bavarian death camp “where
corpses were piled like cordwood.”
Inexorably scarred by the “stench,
the crippling acid smell of rotting
flesh,” a haunted Salinger drifts
dreamlike through the rest of the
war. Though Salinger’s lucidity
returns when necessary, his mental
deterioration by the end of the war
is alarming.
As only the finest protagonists
are,
Charyn’s
Salinger
is
wonderfully conflicted. Expertly
drawing out Salinger’s struggle,
Charyn demonstrates the dual
nature of a young soldier caught
between his humanity and his
survival. At once a killer and savior
of children, Salinger performs
admirably throughout the war.
Able to discern forgeries and sniff
out lies with the ease of a priest at
confession, Salinger struck fear
into the hearts of the Germans
and French Nazi collaborators.
Even as he became known for his
ruthlessness as an interrogator,
he showered refugees with GI
cigarettes and Hershey bars.
Rich
with
neither
narrative
nor scenery, “Sergeant Salinger”
succeeds largely through the strength
of its dialogue. Salinger’s steady voice
guides the many dialogue-heavy
scenes, evident especially during his
interrogations of suspected Nazis.
It’s a fast read and a blur of a story
toward the end, as Salinger’s mental
state fragments. The prose is fairly
minimalist, with adjectives picked
and placed sparingly.
Often, the novel reads like a tribute
to the literary lions of Charyn’s own
youth including Hemingway, Kafka,
Fitzgerald and, of course, Salinger
(Jerome Charyn is 83 years old). At
times, Charyn cannot resist throwing
in a reference; “He also admired the
lushness of Fitzgerald—Gatsby was
his favorite book.”
One of Salinger’s most famous
short stories, “A Perfect Day for
Bananafish,” is alluded to when
Salinger asks his sister, “Doris, do
you remember the bananafish?”,
after which she promptly questioned
his sanity. Charyn clearly draws
inspiration
from
writer
Kurt
Vonnegut;
“Sergeant
Salinger”
resembles
a
more
coherent
“Slaughterhouse-Five.”
Charyn’s
ability
to
create
dynamic characters is his other
great success. Bold in the way only
an older writer can be, Charyn
writes Hemingway in as a character.
Though
Charyn’s
Hemingway
is slightly exaggerated, many of
his mannerisms seem perfectly
emulated. From their first meeting
in
the
celebrity-dappled
Stork
Club to their reunion in war-torn
Nuremberg, Salinger’s interactions
with Hemingway are audacious
and memorable. Other characters,
such as Salinger’s sister, Doris, are
complex and fully realized — she
even narrates one of the last chapters
during his return to New York as
he struggles to readapt to civilian
life. From rabid SS commandos to
charismatic American lieutenants,
Charyn’s characters are capable of
inspiring both palpable loathing and
starry admiration.
If you’re looking for a classic
combat novel, “Sergeant Salinger”
may miss the mark. Yet, if you are
looking for a more nuanced war
novel, a story of World War II and
what it did to the young men forced to
fight it, this is the book for you.
Salinger entered the war with
a youth’s vitality and emerged
warped, his conscience twisted
irrevocably by the futility and
suffering he witnessed. Despite
some chronological irregularities,
the novel skillfully blends fact
and fiction. Charyn writes the
war
through
a
surreal
lens,
mimicking the experience of scores
of disillusioned young soldiers,
Salinger included. This is perhaps
one of Charyn’s broader points —
that the absurdity and trauma of
WWII eclipse even the wildest
fantasies of any writer. It doesn’t
matter whether everything in the
book is factually true: Salinger’s real
war experience could hardly have
been less extraordinary.
Far more than a biopic of the
enigmatic man who began writing
of Holden Caulfield during scattered
moments in bunkers and foxholes,
“Sergeant Salinger” is an homage to
what might have been and possibly
was. Though we’ll never know all
the true details of Salinger’s life,
contenting ourselves with Jerome
Charyn’s masterful reimagining will
have to do.
SAM MATHISSON
Daily Arts Contributor
No strings attached: Sphinx
Virtuosi’s ‘This is America’
Orchestral music has always felt
like a commitment. Listening to
Mozart, Bach or Brahms is not for
enjoyment, but rather a more serious
soundtrack for getting my work done
(without wasting an hour dancing
to Megan Thee Stallion). Maybe it’s
the lack of lyrics or the high-brow
nature of classical music, but Western
string instruments never gave me the
excitement I crave in music.
But, what if orchestras were more
than the sum of their boring parts?
What if orchestras could create music
that engaged an audience rather than
lull me to sleep?
Chamber orchestras around the
world have tried their best to capture
the height of human emotion by quite
literally rubbing strings together, yet
few have caught my heart. Classical
music has had one foot in the grave
ever since Lady Gaga’s “Chromatica,”
but that doesn’t mean orchestras are
six feet under just yet.
Sphinx Virtuosi is a perfect
example of that, breathing life into
their orchestra with new work from
underrepresented voices in music. As
a Detroit-based, not-for-profit social
justice organization, Sphinx uses
the arts to uplift underrepresented
musicians
through
education,
leadership and performance. Each
pillar of their mission is seen through
one of Sphinx’s professional chamber
orchestras, Sphinx Virtuosi.
With an orchestra of Black and
Latinx musicians, Sphinx Virtuosi’s
program “This is America” was free
to the public with truly no strings
attached.
“This is America” is a six-
piece presentation that highlights
the work of Black and Latinx
composers. The program clocked
in at barely over an hour making
it feel more like listening to your
favorite no-skip album and less like
a marathon. With recent trends
showing less than five percent
of orchestral musicians as being
Black or Latinx, organizations like
Sphinx Virtuosi are crucial spaces
for
underrepresented
identities
in orchestral music. Providing
performances ranging from solo
commissions to lively, full-length
orchestra recordings, each of the
program’s songs pack a punch and
provide a worthy introduction to the
stunning talent of Sphinx Virtuosi.
A highlight of the “This is America”
performance came toward the end
with Sphinx Virtuosi’s performance
of “Delights and Dances” by Michael
Abels. The dissonant joy of the piece
was exemplified through the quartet’s
viola performance by Celia Hatton.
Hatton’s performance was rich,
robust and personified the heightened
emotional presence of a prima donna
singing their heart out.
In a killer ensemble, Hatton’s phrasing
was matched by the fellow members of
her quartet — Rainel Joubert (Violin I),
Melissa White (Violin II) and Thomas
Mesa (Cello) — with each member
offering a wavering pull into the handoff
of every phrase of the song. Together, the
piece captured the wonderful ebb and
flow of bittersweet joy that comes with
Abel’s work. You might have heard his
music before in “Get Out” or “Us.” Abel
is known for working in the more eerie
sectors of music. Yet, this piece felt like a
requiem of hope for the history of Black
music in America.
Although most programs and
live events have struggled to keep
up during COVID-19 times, Sphinx
Virtuosi, with the help of Four/Ten
Media, was able to create a more
engaging chamber orchestra than
that of their predecessors.
Using individual recordings of each
musician, Four/Ten Media created an
inventive visual collage of musicians
performing each piece. The visual
collection of members recording
their part shifted throughout each
performance, focusing on fast runs of
the violins one moment and the deep
plucks of the double bass the next.
This virtual enhancement allowed
me to observe each musician working
at their craft and appreciate the tactical
ability that comes from being a virtuoso
by the likes of Nicki Minaj or Taylor
Swift. Although at times the virtual
setting was punctuated by hearing the
musicians breathe, in a way, it made
me feel as though I was breathing
with them through each phrase in the
music.
So, maybe not all orchestras are
that boring. Sphinx has simply cut
inequitable ties that have persisted
in the orchestral field and the music
industry as a whole. Sphinx has no
strings attached and no, I’m not just
saying that because it’s a bit of fun
wordplay, but because they aren’t
trying to tie their audience down in
the details.
Sphinx Virtuosi is no strings
attached because they offer up “This
is America” as a free experience to
uplift Black and Latinx musicians for
communities who usually don’t have
access.
No strings attached because
the stories they tell are authentic
and capture your heart. No strings
attached because they let the
musicians speak for themselves —
and it is magnetic.
MATTHEW EGGERS
For The Daily
Sphinx Virtuosi
There’s nothing more beautiful
than seeing a friendship blossom
between two women in a powerful
pact, especially when the characters
are entirely different. It embodies a
connection in which we all dream of
experiencing in our lives. Hollywood
has done an amazing job with its
representation of female friendships
in television from characters like Issa
and Molly in “Insecure” to Blaire and
Serena of “Gossip Girl.” Although
these relationships may sometimes
seem to focus on superficial aspects,
the
focus
on
positive
female
friendships is so important for young
and female-identifying viewers.
Based on the novel by Kristin
Hannah, “Firefly Lane” is one of
the most accurate representations
of
female
friendship
witnessed
on-screen. It isn’t as powerful as “The
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” but
there’s something lovable about this
series that keeps you glued to the TV
as it dives deeper into the history of the
two main characters.
Tully
Hart
(Katherine
Heigl,
“Suits”), the daughter of a drug-
dependent hipster mom with a troubled
past, moves to Firefly Lane where
she meets her next-door neighbor,
Kate Mularkey (Sarah Chalke, “Rick
and Morty”). Kate, although nerdy
and quirky to the extreme, captivates
Tully, and they eventually become the
best of friends. The series explores the
friendship between Tully and Kate
from youth into adulthood, portraying
the finer and not-so-fine things in life.
Maggie Friedman, the show’s
creator, skillfully portrays both the
positive and negative aspects of
female friendships. Think of it as
the “Woman’s Saga.” It explores
everything from happiness to anger,
jealousy and life’s growing pains.
While the show is set up to
encourage viewers to root for either
character in their personal storylines,
it still portrays how codependency
can take shape in friendships. It
illustrates
what
happens
when
two friends are so invested in their
friendship with one another, they
begin to ignore their own personal
problems or, even worse, ignore the
ill-treatment of one party all for the
purpose of having a friend. We get
insight into an unspoken tension that
lies closely beneath the surface. So
close that in every new episode, you
expect it to eventually blow up in
their face.
The series doesn’t shy away
from the difficult issues that girls
go through. It feels authentic and
familiar, which is what these types
of television shows need. It’s what
one would call a “Bildungsroman,”
illustrating how the main characters
rely on one another for moral growth.
They ultimately begin to learn more
about themselves, albeit at different
paces. “Firefly Lane” is a positive
representation of friendship in its
entirety. The life of a friendship
is capable of sustaining longevity
through an understanding of self and
the situation, through thick and thin.
This show is for the softies. It
makes me want to call up my best
girlfriends for a night out or a Friday
night slumber party. Everyone needs
a best friend simply to share thoughts,
feelings and triumphs that they can
relate to one another with. That
emotional support develops a strong
bond that is extremely hard to break,
and life could be really detrimental
without it.
But what happens when one
party crosses the line? Granted, no
friendship is perfect. But that doesn’t
mean differences that occur in a
friendship gives the right to end it.
Things happen. Life happens. But
friendship is forever.
‘Firefly Lane’ proves that
friendship is forever
JESSICA CURNEY
Daily Arts Contributor