Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther
Screening on Film
Directed by William Klein.
France, 1970, 35mm, color, 75 min.
France, 1970, 35mm, color, 75 min.
While in Algiers to document the Pan-African Festival, Klein encountered Eldridge Cleaver, the exiled "Minister of Culture" of the Black Panthers. Over the course of three days and three nights, Klein filmed Cleaver indulging in drugs, fiddling with a menacing-looking knife, and presenting his plans for the overthrow of the U.S. government. The finished work is a wrenching piece of direct cinema, a too-close encounter with the rhetoric of revolution and the casualties of America’s struggles.