Added this week to the Sag Harbor Cinema’s Virtual Cinema is Dawn Porter’s new documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a portrait of the civil rights activist and octogenarian Democratic congressman from Georgia who died on July 17. Lewis’ lifetime of fights for social justice are beautifully told through his own stories, archival footage, and interviews with Dem leaders whom he has inspired.
Lewis may have had over 40 arrests under his belt (including five since he began serving in Congress), but he never stopped fighting for social justice. In Porter’s documentary, she explores Lewis’ resolute political beliefs in making necessary trouble against what is not right or fair. The film is a beautiful blend of interviews with contemporary leaders that Lewis has greatly influenced like Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez, the Clintons, Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, and Ilhan Omar and superb archival footage from Lewis’ 60-plus years of social activism and legislative action on civil rights, voting rights, gun control, health-care reform and immigration.
Porter visits Lewis’ early years on his family farm in Alabama where he, as a young man, hoped to be a minister and tested his sermons on the chickens. Instead, by 1965, he was marching with Dr. King in Selma — even suffering a skull fracture from a police attack on Bloody Sunday.
“I’ve been beaten bloody, tear-gassed, fighting for what’s right for America. I’ve marched at Selma with Dr. King. Sometimes that’s what it takes to move our country in the right direction,” said Lewis.
SHC is also now offering on its website “La Traversée de Paris,” a 1956 film by Claude Autant-Lara (80 mins. in French with English subtitles).
Though its French title leaves it a tad mysterious, make no mistake that “La Traversée de Paris” is a one of the greatest black comedies of the ‘50s. Named “Four Bags Full” for the USA and “Pig Across Paris” for the UK, “La Traversée” teams beloved French cinema stars Bourvil and Jean Gabin as they attempt to deliver four suitcases of priceless pork to the black market in 1942 Paris.
The duo work to evade curfew and the German police as they cross Nazi-occupied Paris but, naturally, the challenge compounds in a series of outrageous obstacles and the film possesses a wit and shrewdness that is rare even 64 years later.
Finally, SHC has extended the run of “Tommaso,” Abel Ferrara’s critically-acclaimed latest provocation. The film, starring Willem Dafoe in the titular role inspired by the director’s own life, is as much an artistic triumph as it is a masterful feat in storytelling. In the words of RoberEbert.com’s Matt Zoeller Seitz: “If this film were a person, I would risk my life to save it.”
To access these films, visit sagharborcinema.org.
Staff Writer on Jul 21, 2020