• Stagger Lee

  • Stagger Lee

  • Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther

Stagger Lee

A powerful portrait of an exceptional man, Stagger Lee was filmed in the San Francisco County Jail where Black Panther cofounder Bobby Seale was held pending his extradition to Connecticut. In an expansive interview, Seale holds forth on cooking, poetry, intimacy, solitary confinement, revolutionary psychology, and Huey Newton. Director Francisco Newman succeeds brilliantly at his goal of “cutting through the static” of the media’s portrayal of the party as thugs as well as the Panthers’ own sometimes “reckless rhetoric” in order to document the reality of the person behind the party.

Kate MacKay
FILM DETAILS 
Cinematographer
  • Allen Willis
Print Info
  • B&W
  • 16mm
  • 60 mins
Source
  • BAMPFA
Permission
  • Allen Willis Archives - East Bay Media Center
Followed By

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther

William Klein, United States , 1970

William Klein met Eldridge Cleaver at the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algeria in 1969 and filmed this interview with the exiled Black Panther shortly thereafter. Embellishing Cleaver's profound discourse with graphic titles, archival film, and documentary footage of the freedom fighter’s daily life in Algiers, Klein achieves a singular portrait of black activism.

FILM DETAILS 
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 75 mins
source
  • Walker Art Center
permission
  • William Klein