By Dennis Leroy Kangalee

Meditations on Russia, Paul Robeson, the morality of a camera, and the embryo of a wobbly cinema

Christmas.  Moscow, 1992.

Had Michael Jackson’s “Stranger in Moscow” existed then, perhaps I might have been listening to that on my walkman instead of Velvet Underground; Nico’s gothic crooning blowing out the bass on my headphones, lower the bass and raise the treble.  Not much difference as we trudge through snow and the lacerating cold…and eventually make our way to the Hermitage Museum. Afterwards, we boarded the bus. Soon, later - gypsy children, a flea market…a mall. I remember proprietors would always offer us vodka. 

Why am I thinking of Russia today? Is it because of the obvious agitation in the headlines?  The atrocities being committed?  America’s petitioning on behalf of Ukraine?  Maybe because it’s a Russia that even I know - no longer exists and one that would no longer welcome Paul Robeson. I can’t imagine traveling to Putin’s Russia and learning about myself in 2022.  In fact, I declare that there is very little left for me to learn about myself anywhere now in a world that is increasingly corporate, fascist and homogenized mentally/culturally.  Today, the worst hip hop is perfunctory anywhere you go (they’re certainly not blasting Blackstar or Dead Prez), style, pop culture, slang are innocuous, sports are not fooling anyone…and everywhere you go on this planet - the only thing people may seem to be interested in is how much money you have.  This is surely not a world, but a nightmare.

I do remember, however, when everyone wanted to be “America” and when America was the place you loved to hate and hated to love.  It was always a conflict for Eastern Europeans and especially Russians.  Too much history.  But it was still once an alien, new world.  One where the actors asked what it was like to be in New York and if we were going to Hollywood while I declared - even at 16 - that it was far wiser to stay in Russia and champion their legacy in the Moscow Art Theater (which was already drying up, unfortunately, once perestroika began).

I remember the journey to what was once a “new world” –  through the air, the airplane was massive - and we smoked cigarettes on the flight.  Every so often Marat Yusim, our Russian high school acting teacher/chaperone would lean over an aisle to see where I was on the plane…he was always curious to see what I was up to or who I was trying to flirt with. It was he who said I was “more Russian” than he was due to my volatile nature and melancholia.  When I told him the doctors inferred I was “manic depressive,” he scoffed and said: “No such thing.”

Most of what I recall from that trip during my sophomore year in high school was the cultural and political impact it had on me.  If I had been radicalized as a citizen because of the televised Rodney King beating (that fall I had attended the march in Washington D.C.), I had surely pushed the needle on the scale a little further after my return from Moscow, January 2nd 1993.

Some Black people travel to the African continent to get to the bowels of their identity.  I had to travel to Russia. In that cultural Siberia I came face to face with an aspect of myself.  An artistic ancestry and a political kin that was already embedded in my DNA. 

It was on this trip that I discovered: Pushkin was a Black man (the statue of him in Moscow is a site to see) and that Jean Genet was a dazzling surrealist master, I had witnessed Roman Victuc’s visceral staging of Genet’s The Maids and instantly realized what a revolutionary theater experience could be, I had discovered Melvin Van Peebles’ Story of a Three Day Pass, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin,  Mikhail Kalatazov’s I am Cuba, and first came in contact with the writings of Maxim Gorky, whose play The Lower Depths I would study in depth as an actor at Juilliard. I played Luka, the old nomadic philosopher.  It’s a role Paul Robeson could have played in some imaginary alternate universe where great actors could express the great roles of dramatic theater on screen. 

1992: Bush Sr. was still president and he had just left the hotel that we arrived at. Arrested Development’s debut album was still kicking on the charts…I was 16 – and it was the moment I discovered Paul Robeson en route from our pilgrimage to the Moscow Art Theater.

Our Russian guide, Natasha, was bowled over and embarrassed that we did not know that Alexander Pushkin was a Black man. We learned that Pushkin was quite proud of his African ancestry, even wrote about it.  It was known during his time and it was obvious in his appearance.  My favorite Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov beautifully, and subtly - as it is simply a matter of fact - grants us a slice of life momentary peek at Pushkin in the ballroom sequence in the St. Petersburg Winter Palace in his mesmerizing the Russian Ark. It’s obvious who he is without being told: he is the only African Russian there.

Natasha lost a bit of respect for us that day. I can only imagine what she must have been thinking (“These ignorant capitalist Americans!”)  I was thoroughly embarrassed as being one of the only two Black students on that trip who hadn’t ever even considered the possibility of a Black Russian - or rather an African Russian!  Then, the jawbridge shut completely when we said “Who’s Paul Robeson?” when she proudly proclaimed that it was near Pushkin’s statue that Robeson once gave an impromptu concert to the street vendors. 

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In my early participation, cultivation and present advocacy of a Leftist, political cinema - one I simply refer to a ‘protest cinema’ (“visual liberation”) – I always try to infer the connections between American protest singers and outlaw musicians who, despite any stylistic changes or how their music became later identified, always aligned themselves and their musical point-of-view with the oppressed.

Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Odetta, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday.

When I mention these American artists what do you think of?

Now, let’s think in terms of a specific form of movies.

The aesthetic and ideological foundation of Oscar Micheaux, Charlie Chaplin, Shirley Clarke, Fronza Woods, Julie Dash, Pasolini, Menelik Shabazz, Michael Roemer, Melvin Van Peebles, Robert Kramer, Ivan Dixon…underlying all of this is Paul Robeson.

The spirit of Robeson insists you have to be on one side of oppression or the other.  The artist to him was a rebel who had to especially fight against systemic abuse, poverty, genocide, and rape.

Last year Maryland artist and publisher Rosalie Gancie, had shared a lovely facsimile on social media -  of a program circa 1954 of an announcement declaring a Calypso band at a gathering in support of Paul Robeson who had lost his passport and the supporting fundraiser – happily endorsed by Charlie Chaplin - made it clear that where Chaplin initially had befriended D.W. Griffith in the early halcyon days of Hollywood's silent era, he had absorbed the empathy of his own tramp character and was radicalized.  He became so passionate about human rights that he obviously was ashamed of his early ignorance. 

Robeson and Chaplin both had their battles with the United States government and deeply admired each other. Two geniuses that have eclipsed just about everything else that followed them.  In many ways both are misunderstood and taken for granted.  In Robeson’ s case,  however, the situation is so complex that one had to tread lightly.  Because although he was one of the greatest performing artists of the twentieth century, and a towering figure of the Left, and one of the most conscientious Black individuals the world had ever seen – he became, unintentionally, one of the worst ambassadors to motion pictures.

Tragically, Robeson was one of The White Man Movie Industry’s grossest accidental accomplices for the stereotypes and derogatory projections of Black actors in film.

A prisoner of the white gaze, while knowing full well – in the end, that his revolutionary desires in cinema had been hijacked and betrayed by his trust and belief that most of the white people he worked with in film would enable what he wanted to do for the common man, the working man…and especially the person of African descent. He never came off the way he wanted to in a movie.  There is nothing more devastating for a physical performer than this. (He made too many films to broach here, but of the decent ones and most accomplished - I suggest Oscar Micheaux’s Body and Soul which is one of the only movies I can watch him in. And for a deeper exploration of his cinema travails I highly suggest you read Susan Robeson’s book about her grandfather’s struggle Paul Robeson).

THE CURSE & BLESSING OF A CAMERA:

Taking, Capturing, & Shooting A Creature, Idea or Feeling:

Because there is very little revolutionary spirit and dignity in many of the motion pictures he acted in, it’s hard to watch Paul Robeson at all, frankly, in many of the dramatic movies he made.  He is wondrous and haunting and insightful in interviews, but embarrassing in movies. Part of this reason is because it is a political and moral choice and specific vulnerability to perform in front of a camera and allow another human being to “capture” a part of you through a lens.  Think about it:  it’s a take.  And with that take there must be trust.  As there must be confidence when one loses their virginity…

"Let's do a take."

"Can I take your photo?"

Or "Let's take your photo." As if I have it already and will transfer it someplace else?

"We're gonna do another take. This time when you look at her, try not to blink."

The Actor has to now open himself up to...what?

Nothing perhaps. Maybe that's better. A take. Hmm.

As in..."take my soul" but leave my body intact? What is taken? The Chinese and the North American Indians specifically always thought a part of one’s soul was lost when their image had been… captured. Indeed.  Because then who does it belong to?

Is the Western conception of film ultimately about the taking and capturing? Is it essentially about taming the subject into a 'frame' and recording the death of the spirit; extinguishing the passion that cannot be contained? Taking is an aggressive act - as much as pushing someone or punching them.  As much as a kiss can be…or a bite on the neck. The aggression is as clean and simple as a bullet.

In photography, they say “Can I shoot you?”

I do not believe in the camera anymore than I believe in the gun.  I suppose, pushed into a corner, both have their merits.  And both have the capacity to save or destroy a life. Because of my background as a performing artist in the theater - my relationship to expression and freedom is felt and known in real time; to live in the moment, like in jazz, is to liberate oneself from the imposed chains of society’s worst features. Whether dancer, tragedian, clown, or musician – the stage performer has always possessed their own lens in which they are being viewed.  The gaze is owned and cast over the audience the same moment the performer takes their stands on stage.  The power of this, when transmitted by just a competent actor, can be moving and sometimes even holy. 

(An aside: An interesting example of this as a lone performer is Richard Pryor in his first two concert movies alone; there is absolutely no way Pryor can be castrated or “owned” by the camera so…it is forced to capitulate.  The only real place Pryor could tame the adversarial eye of the Hollywood camera was in his stand-up. You don’t even become aware of the camera in that regard. It’s all Richard.  In fact, the stand-up comic is now regarded as the only person in a public setting who is not a politician or authority figure - that can actually have power granted to them solely because of their rank in the arts and their definition as supposed truth tellers. More on this another time. For the performance space has now become as defiled as the motion picture image. I don’t believe for one second anyone is interested in freedom or dignity.  They are interested in improving their situation in capitalism and maintaining the status quo.)

The Western conception of film is about more than dominance, it is about conquest and colonizing a subject, a person, an event, a place and sticking a flag into its gut, while forcing the gardeners there to give up their seeds for the camera! The missionary zeal of the White movie camera must not be understated.  From Herzog to Coppola, the film director is the last talisman of the White Romantic Colonizer who sets out to dictate to others what he cannot create in his own home!

When the Anglo terrorists locked up and burned down the Shaman's vision quest - that ran the gamut of every emotion - it was because it scared the French, embarrassed the English, and made the German, Spanish, and Italians suspicious. To the former, language and behavior was about moving up and through a society; to the Latin languages and the more insistent Caucasian tribes -- it was about using language as both a strong greeting and even stronger goodbye; getting you into the boat and getting you out. Everything in between was tea. Only a Brit with a dumb camera around his neck ominously like a gun with a silencer could ask an Indigenous or African chief he'd just pounded into a deck of a boat after having raped his sister (out of sight, of course) - "Would you mind if I shot you?"

For a moment consider what Paul Robeson was up against. He was a massive loner. In nearly every respect.  And his obstacle wasn’t the people.  It was, ironically, other artists, certainly businessmen and obviously white assassins.  Sometimes those assassins had guns. Sometimes they had cameras.

Here was this brilliant man, tall, stately, athletic with an incredible voice who was a wonderful stage actor and an even better singer and orator.

(And a remarkable writer, by the way.)

He was light years ahead of himself – and his vision was greater than anyone around him could probably conceive; his wife certainly was a loving accomplice…and he was quite admired by the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, whom Robeson in turn, had respect for.Eisenstein endowed montage and editing with a revolutionary thrust, countering the demented genius of D.W. Griffith, who shall always be a spiritual guide for the Right (or simply the “racist.”)

Nationalism was not about dominating for Eisenstein, it was about liberating. Robeson and Eisenstein met in Russia and connected. Why didn’t they work together? They talked about it, but it never transpired.

Well, you can certainly bet the USA would never have allowed THAT to happen.  And yes, it was that bad and YES they do have that power (namely cause we give it to them).

The forces that be will always make sure that highly talented, gifted or brilliant people (in any capacity) NEVER work together, collaborate or commune.  They will always try to separate them.

Robeson’s dynamism - the divine province of his face and expressions evident in these portraits alone - had never been fully applied to cinema. What a wonder it must have been to see him live on stage.

I hope that if any narrative filmmakers are reading this, especially if you are Black or Indigenous, and you have an inkling as to how to reveal and liberate a powerful talent on screen - that you follow your instinct to do so; that you not kill off your survival proclivity.  It is your duty to meet the demands of the greatness around you, of the talent around you.  Do not be overwhelmed by any brilliance within or around you.  The shining star on the stage before you may just be a reflection of who you are.  Go towards the light - not to capture it - but to share it.

Mankind has never recovered, in the age of cinema, for what we did to Paul Robeson.  And a greater pity that he was just another eagle surrounded by those who were unwilling to learn how to fly.

And now I leave you with this:

CODA

“On the Willful Ignorance of Andrei Tarkovsky”

Mikhail Romm (1901-1971) was a Soviet Film Director and Teacher. His film Dream (1941) - about spiritual crisis and poverty - was supposedly deemed by FDR as being one the greatest films ever made. I have not seen it.  In 1956, his student Andrei Tarkovsky made his first film, The Killers. It was a student thesis movie. Based on an abysmal (and informally racist) Hemingway short story, Romm admonished Tarkovsky for having the lack of imagination and sensitivity for shamefully employing an actor in blackface in the movie (Sam “the Nigger Cook” in a brazenly stereotypical sequence)!  Romm told Tarkovsky - who had previously been studying Arabic (!) - that he had learned nothing about humanity and that he had no imagination. Why the need to don blackface?  It was enough through the dialogue to know that the gangsters were referring to a Black man.  (In the original text Hemingway refers to Sam as “the nigger” so many times you’d have thought Tarantino wrote it). Romm decried that the young director had defiled the memory of the greatest Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin - who was Black!

The film certainly reveals the casual racism of the White world via the young and ignorant Tarkovsky, who appears as a guest in the diner. Ironically, he whistles “Lullaby of Birdland” in the film.  A song about an establishment named after a great artist…who is African-American.  Wow.  It's very telling that such an "innocently racist" young man would become a deeply compassionate and humane filmmaker a few years later. In any event, Romm would have none of it, he chided Tarkovsky for being influenced by American racism and deemed him counter-revolutionary. In the next two years, the young Tarkovsky did a lot of soul searching. Later, Paul Robeson visited Romm after one of his 1959 concerts at Lenin Stadium (Khabarovsk) when the USA's ban on his passport had been lifted. Romm refused to introduce the young Tarkovsky for fear of Robeson wanting to see the lad's first film. I assume somewhere in all this...The great Tarkovsky had learned a valuable lesson and came to understand in the words of King: that there is nothing "more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

This anecdote is completely made-up.  It is my idealization of what I would have liked to have happened.  But I am granting willfully ignorant white men more credit than they deserve.  It is factual – but not actual.  Romm had actually praised Tarkovsky’s ridiculous film, Robeson as far as I know never met with Romm (Russia by then was completely infected with American style racism in the midst of Krushchev’s temporal liberalization - on the heels of Stalin’s death - American culture was being imported, foreign films, etc.) and Tarkovsksy may have done soul-searching (I’d like to think he did) - but I have no clue what his opinion on Robeson was or if he ever had an iota of shame about his cinematic racism.  But wouldn’t this be an interesting film in itself?

The grass ain’t greener, but the world grows meaner, folks.  And cinema should be used as a healing agent.  And if sides are chosen, I believe it is healthier for filmmakers of all stripes to be honest about their inclinations. 

And to the Paul Robeson’s of tomorrow: never trust a filmmaker who has not walked in your shoes.  Or doesn’t care to learn about your footfalls.

Peace.