WEBVTT

00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:14.540
This is a handful of pictures
from a film we made on Jack

00:00:14.540 --> 00:00:17.270
Johnson, the first African
American heavyweight champion

00:00:17.270 --> 00:00:20.240
called "Unforgettable
Blackness, the Rise and Fall

00:00:20.240 --> 00:00:21.140
Of Jack Johnson."

00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:23.504
We peppered the
available footage,

00:00:23.504 --> 00:00:24.920
which which we
were lucky to have,

00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:26.795
with these still images
in a way that I think

00:00:26.795 --> 00:00:28.040
is pretty compelling.

00:00:28.040 --> 00:00:30.000
Normally, I'd be sitting with
the editor at the editing

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:31.610
Normally, I'd be sitting with
the editor at the editing

00:00:31.610 --> 00:00:36.410
machine going through a
bin, a sort of digital bin

00:00:36.410 --> 00:00:39.140
of all the available photographs
from the Jefferies fight.

00:00:39.140 --> 00:00:42.440
And it might be divided
into pre-fight preparation,

00:00:42.440 --> 00:00:45.390
post-fight reaction and then
all of these fight footages.

00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:48.050
But for this purpose, to put
out some of the more compelling

00:00:48.050 --> 00:00:51.350
images and talk about the way
we do it-- this can give you

00:00:51.350 --> 00:00:54.890
a little bit of a sense of
how we were integrating still

00:00:54.890 --> 00:00:59.660
photographs into an event that
took place on July 4, 1910

00:00:59.660 --> 00:01:00.000
in which there's
tons of footage.

00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.580
in which there's
tons of footage.

00:01:01.580 --> 00:01:05.690
Boxing was the pay per view of
that day as it is in our day

00:01:05.690 --> 00:01:06.380
now.

00:01:06.380 --> 00:01:10.820
So we had the luxury of having
almost every part of the fight

00:01:10.820 --> 00:01:13.410
covered by footage,
which was terrific.

00:01:13.410 --> 00:01:17.030
But again, keeping with our idea
of the power of a single image

00:01:17.030 --> 00:01:20.150
to convey the most
complex information

00:01:20.150 --> 00:01:22.400
and to arrest that
information and permit

00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:24.440
us to do a deep
dive, you can see

00:01:24.440 --> 00:01:25.910
the kind of range
of things we can

00:01:25.910 --> 00:01:30.000
do to utilize these photographs
in the midst of the dynamism

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:30.500
do to utilize these photographs
in the midst of the dynamism

00:01:30.500 --> 00:01:31.850
that is the fight footage.

00:01:31.850 --> 00:01:35.090
So you know, here's the arrival
of people in Reno, Nevada.

00:01:35.090 --> 00:01:36.590
It's the fight of the century.

00:01:36.590 --> 00:01:39.110
It's between Jim
Jefferies, the white--

00:01:39.110 --> 00:01:41.490
great white hope, the
greatest of all white hopes

00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:44.180
who has come out of
retirement, everyone is sure,

00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:47.630
to defeat the African American
heavyweight champion who's

00:01:47.630 --> 00:01:48.449
there by accident.

00:01:48.449 --> 00:01:49.490
He should have never won.

00:01:49.490 --> 00:01:50.570
It's not his place.

00:01:50.570 --> 00:01:52.520
And this is a battle
between the races.

00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:55.220
And so you've got
some long establishing

00:01:55.220 --> 00:01:57.350
shots in a few places
that we might use.

00:01:57.350 --> 00:02:00.000
I'm particularly
fond of this one.

00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:01.220
I'm particularly
fond of this one.

00:02:01.220 --> 00:02:05.970
You can see a photographer's
booth shaded from the sun.

00:02:05.970 --> 00:02:08.000
You've got the sense of
people with bald heads

00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:11.990
soon to be bright red, hats
around, and then the action.

00:02:11.990 --> 00:02:14.090
And what you could
do is then cut

00:02:14.090 --> 00:02:17.030
to this shot which would
be another angle, not

00:02:17.030 --> 00:02:18.980
a complete reverse
angle, but a way

00:02:18.980 --> 00:02:21.890
of moving in and getting
the details of the hustle

00:02:21.890 --> 00:02:25.130
and bustle as the two
camps arrive at ringside

00:02:25.130 --> 00:02:29.510
and do their, you know, bench
jockeying and their insults

00:02:29.510 --> 00:02:30.000
and all of that sort of stuff.

00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:31.050
and all of that sort of stuff.

00:02:31.050 --> 00:02:35.180
And so that's how
we would use that.

00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:38.780
NARRATOR: It's just people
pouring into the stadium.

00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:42.230
It's filling up.

00:02:42.230 --> 00:02:46.940
It's just the excitement just
keeps building and building

00:02:46.940 --> 00:02:48.620
and building.

00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:50.780
Once you get into the
fight, you obviously

00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:53.630
have a couple here
that are related

00:02:53.630 --> 00:02:56.150
that present a kind of
cinematic opportunity.

00:02:56.150 --> 00:02:58.640
We can extrapolate a
lot of that and find

00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:00.000
drama that may or may
not actually be there.

00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.010
drama that may or may
not actually be there.

00:03:02.010 --> 00:03:03.560
This is Jefferies corner.

00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:07.324
This is Johnson's corner,
Jack Johnson's corner.

00:03:07.324 --> 00:03:08.990
And they're sort of
taunting each other.

00:03:08.990 --> 00:03:10.330
And we intercut with that.

00:03:13.030 --> 00:03:15.430
NARRATOR: When he stripped
and his mighty body could

00:03:15.430 --> 00:03:18.490
be seen covered
with mats of hair,

00:03:18.490 --> 00:03:21.730
all the primordial adjectives
ever applied to him

00:03:21.730 --> 00:03:25.090
received their vindication.

00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:30.000
The Man of Iron, the Grizzly
Giant, was grim and serious.

00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:31.780
The Man of Iron, the Grizzly
Giant, was grim and serious.

00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:38.180
The man of summer temperament
smiled and smiled.

00:03:38.180 --> 00:03:42.450
The most important image for
me in all of these sequences--

00:03:42.450 --> 00:03:46.010
and this represents a fraction
of the still photographs that

00:03:46.010 --> 00:03:49.010
we had at our disposal
for this particular fight,

00:03:49.010 --> 00:03:50.660
let alone all the other fights.

00:03:50.660 --> 00:03:53.810
This is one of my favorite
photographs in the whole film

00:03:53.810 --> 00:03:56.870
because of what it tells in the
foreground, the middle ground,

00:03:56.870 --> 00:03:58.070
and the background.

00:03:58.070 --> 00:04:00.000
The one thing the newsreel
is not going to do

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:01.070
The one thing the newsreel
is not going to do

00:04:01.070 --> 00:04:02.600
is give you any closeups.

00:04:02.600 --> 00:04:05.570
There was something intimate
as if we, the viewer,

00:04:05.570 --> 00:04:07.030
were suddenly down at ringside.

00:04:07.030 --> 00:04:08.840
We had the best
seats in the house

00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:12.330
and we're now witnessing
the imminent defeat

00:04:12.330 --> 00:04:16.250
of Jim Jefferies that wasn't
supposed to be that way.

00:04:16.250 --> 00:04:19.790
As you pan him up, you
see his knees are bruised.

00:04:19.790 --> 00:04:22.430
There's blood splattered
from the blood that's

00:04:22.430 --> 00:04:24.500
flowing from his face.

00:04:24.500 --> 00:04:28.020
And he's obscured and the
attitude of it is of defeat.

00:04:28.020 --> 00:04:28.520
And

00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:30.000
So you don't really
have to say anything.

00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:30.760
So you don't really
have to say anything.

00:04:30.760 --> 00:04:32.510
The picture is doing
all the work for you.

00:04:32.510 --> 00:04:36.380
And the fact that you've got
this ref with his rear end

00:04:36.380 --> 00:04:39.440
to you also in a
some way, as much

00:04:39.440 --> 00:04:42.050
as that is sort of
distancing, it actually

00:04:42.050 --> 00:04:45.590
has an intimacy that brings
you closer to the photograph.

00:04:45.590 --> 00:04:48.440
And then we cut wide and
I think a dramatic thing--

00:04:48.440 --> 00:04:50.970
the referee sort of
parses this division.

00:04:50.970 --> 00:04:53.600
But you can see just
the physical confidence

00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:54.320
of Jack Johnson.

00:04:54.320 --> 00:04:59.420
Now, some of this stuff is
possible to see in the footage.

00:04:59.420 --> 00:05:00.000
But our ability to take a still
image and arrest that moment

00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.140
But our ability to take a still
image and arrest that moment

00:05:03.140 --> 00:05:05.090
allows us to focus
and concentrate

00:05:05.090 --> 00:05:08.450
to begin to do the kind of
respiration, the breathing

00:05:08.450 --> 00:05:10.250
in and out that we
want in a scene.

00:05:10.250 --> 00:05:13.342
If it was just the footage,
the footage, the footage,

00:05:13.342 --> 00:05:14.300
something would happen.

00:05:14.300 --> 00:05:15.300
Something would be lost.

00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:16.980
Attention would be squandered.

00:05:16.980 --> 00:05:19.520
And we felt that
attention had to be paid--

00:05:19.520 --> 00:05:22.190
to borrow from Arthur Miller
in "Death of a Salesman"--

00:05:22.190 --> 00:05:25.730
to certain moments, the
drama of of their clutch

00:05:25.730 --> 00:05:28.550
and coming together,
the taunting beforehand

00:05:28.550 --> 00:05:30.000
as the scene is being set, even
the establishing shots that

00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.700
as the scene is being set, even
the establishing shots that

00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:33.950
tell us where we are,
and finally the end

00:05:33.950 --> 00:05:37.010
the Cleveland leader
saying Jim Jeffries

00:05:37.010 --> 00:05:38.390
suffers a sting of defeat.

00:05:38.390 --> 00:05:41.800
It's not Jack
Johnson's triumphant.

00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:44.120
NARRATOR: But Johnson's
sharp, accurate punches

00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:45.590
were taking a devastating toll.

00:05:49.830 --> 00:05:54.330
By the end of the 14th round,
Jefferies' nose was broken.

00:05:54.330 --> 00:05:56.870
His eyes were
swollen nearly shut.

00:05:56.870 --> 00:05:59.270
His face and
shoulders and thighs

00:05:59.270 --> 00:06:00.000
were splattered
with his own blood.

00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:00.830
were splattered
with his own blood.

00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:06.443
And he was desperately weary.

00:06:06.443 --> 00:06:13.180
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:06:13.180 --> 00:06:17.370
This is a really
important artifact.

00:06:17.370 --> 00:06:21.560
This is our archival board,
our original archival board.

00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:23.780
And what we would do
before the digital

00:06:23.780 --> 00:06:26.750
age when you could
download a photograph

00:06:26.750 --> 00:06:29.690
or take it off the internet
or scan something and put it

00:06:29.690 --> 00:06:30.000
in your system--

00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:30.780
in your system--

00:06:30.780 --> 00:06:33.980
we went and filmed by
hand with a 16 meter

00:06:33.980 --> 00:06:36.650
motion picture camera
the various archives.

00:06:36.650 --> 00:06:40.250
And then I would move a camera
with a prime lens-- that's

00:06:40.250 --> 00:06:41.030
not a zoom lens.

00:06:41.030 --> 00:06:42.080
It's a fixed lens.

00:06:42.080 --> 00:06:43.730
I would move it up
and move it back

00:06:43.730 --> 00:06:46.160
on the tripod to get closer,
to get a medium shot,

00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:48.740
to get a wide shot, to
get an extreme close up.

00:06:48.740 --> 00:06:50.630
And then we might
order a copy print

00:06:50.630 --> 00:06:53.690
as we did in the case of this
remarkable photograph also

00:06:53.690 --> 00:06:54.980
of Jack Johnson.

00:06:54.980 --> 00:06:56.990
Because we found in this--

00:06:56.990 --> 00:06:59.390
we called the film
"Unforgivable Blackness."

00:06:59.390 --> 00:07:00.000
And it was a phrase that
the great black scholar

00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:02.480
And it was a phrase that
the great black scholar

00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:04.880
and activist W.E.B.
Du Bois said,

00:07:04.880 --> 00:07:07.340
that boxing is in
great, great disfavor

00:07:07.340 --> 00:07:09.020
and the cause is Jack Johnson.

00:07:09.020 --> 00:07:10.970
But Jack Johnson
hasn't done anything

00:07:10.970 --> 00:07:14.180
that other boxers and
other sportsmen and even

00:07:14.180 --> 00:07:18.050
other senators have done, that
is sleep with other women,

00:07:18.050 --> 00:07:21.110
sleep with white women,
marry white women,

00:07:21.110 --> 00:07:22.880
sort of live the
free life that he

00:07:22.880 --> 00:07:24.750
thought he was entitled to do.

00:07:24.750 --> 00:07:26.690
And he said, so it's
not really boxing.

00:07:26.690 --> 00:07:30.000
It all comes down to his
"Unforgivable Blackness."

00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:30.440
It all comes down to his
"Unforgivable Blackness."

00:07:30.440 --> 00:07:32.330
And as he is giving
this quote, we

00:07:32.330 --> 00:07:35.510
are zooming in to this
extraordinary physique

00:07:35.510 --> 00:07:37.160
of this amazing human being.

00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:39.830
Before the zoom starts,
we have a picture

00:07:39.830 --> 00:07:42.290
and we understand some context.

00:07:42.290 --> 00:07:43.970
We're on a porch of a house.

00:07:43.970 --> 00:07:45.470
It's where he's training.

00:07:45.470 --> 00:07:47.720
He's got his suspenders down.

00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:49.760
There's something
really, definitely human.

00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:51.760
But the more you
look at it, the more

00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:55.380
you're first forced to
focus on what's going on.

00:07:55.380 --> 00:07:58.760
And by the time you get in, all
of that has kind of fallen away

00:07:58.760 --> 00:08:00.000
and the words unforgivable
blackness and the kind of pace

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.130
and the words unforgivable
blackness and the kind of pace

00:08:04.130 --> 00:08:07.310
that the W.E.B. Du Bois
quote has and then the way

00:08:07.310 --> 00:08:09.530
in which all of this
begins to abstract

00:08:09.530 --> 00:08:12.890
into muscle but by the
end just sort of shading,

00:08:12.890 --> 00:08:15.287
and there is light
and dark here,

00:08:15.287 --> 00:08:16.620
that's what we're talking about.

00:08:16.620 --> 00:08:19.730
And so one looks
for the opportunity

00:08:19.730 --> 00:08:22.820
to have these
images, this image,

00:08:22.820 --> 00:08:25.460
in the service of
something bigger

00:08:25.460 --> 00:08:27.740
than just the illustration
of here's Jack Johnson.

00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:29.780
It becomes something iconic.

00:08:29.780 --> 00:08:30.000
It becomes transcendent.

00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:31.980
It becomes transcendent.

00:08:31.980 --> 00:08:35.659
It is an equivalent to the
power of the first person

00:08:35.659 --> 00:08:38.030
quote we're hearing, that
it all comes down, then

00:08:38.030 --> 00:08:41.396
to his unforgettable blackness.

00:08:41.396 --> 00:08:42.770
NARRATOR: Of
course, some pretend

00:08:42.770 --> 00:08:46.420
to object to Mr.
Johnson's character.

00:08:46.420 --> 00:08:49.330
But we have yet to hear, in
the case, of white America

00:08:49.330 --> 00:08:52.260
that marital troubles
have disqualified

00:08:52.260 --> 00:08:56.450
prizefighters or ball
ballplayers or even statesmen.

00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:00.000
It comes down then, after all,
to this unforgivable blackness.

00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:05.660
It comes down then, after all,
to this unforgivable blackness.

00:09:09.930 --> 00:09:11.430
W.E.B. Du Bois.

00:09:11.430 --> 00:09:15.262
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:09:21.970 --> 00:09:25.420
And you're kind of left
without any resource.

00:09:25.420 --> 00:09:28.630
And that's what
you hope, at times.

00:09:28.630 --> 00:09:30.000
Art enables, but it also
ought to disable you

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:31.900
Art enables, but it also
ought to disable you

00:09:31.900 --> 00:09:34.090
at the same time,
at least disable

00:09:34.090 --> 00:09:36.910
the normal synaptical
connections that we make

00:09:36.910 --> 00:09:38.380
and the kind of
conventional wisdom

00:09:38.380 --> 00:09:41.590
that permits us to get through
our day about stuff like that.

00:09:41.590 --> 00:09:45.670
Oh yes, isn't that sad, another
black person killed by a cop,

00:09:45.670 --> 00:09:46.330
you know?

00:09:46.330 --> 00:09:47.850
And we're just
saying, no, this is--

00:09:47.850 --> 00:09:48.790
you can't do this.

00:09:48.790 --> 00:09:53.450
We're going to rub this
in your face a little bit.

00:09:53.450 --> 00:09:55.910
It is a bit presumptuous
for me, a white person,

00:09:55.910 --> 00:09:56.730
to be doing this.

00:09:56.730 --> 00:10:00.000
But I am concerned about
the health of my country.

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:00.170
But I am concerned about
the health of my country.

00:10:00.170 --> 00:10:02.990
And I know that it's original
sin, as historians like to say,

00:10:02.990 --> 00:10:05.480
is race and that
we are obligated

00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:08.504
not to sit there and permit
these things to happen but

00:10:08.504 --> 00:10:09.920
to say something
and do something.

00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:14.390
And rather than get involved in
the sort of impossible combat

00:10:14.390 --> 00:10:16.550
of the current
moment, it's better

00:10:16.550 --> 00:10:20.960
to realize that these past
moments rhyme perfectly

00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.500
with what's going on right now.