Uptight (1968)
Directed by: Jules
Dassin.
Written by: Jules
Dassin & Ruby Dee & Julian Mayfield based on the novel by Liam
O’Flaherty.
Starring: Julian Mayfield (Tank), Raymond
St. Jacques (B.G.), Ruby Dee (Laurie), Frank Silvera (Kyle), Roscoe Lee Browne
(Clarence), Janet MacLachlan (Jeannie), Jax Julien (Johnny), Juanita Moore
(Mama Wells), Dick Anthony Williams (Corbin), Michael Baseleon (Teddy), John
Wesley (Larry).
Watching
Uptight now, in 2019, it’s amazing to think about how quickly the film must
have come together back in 1968. It opens with footage of Martin Luther King’s
funeral – in April 1968 – and the film was released by the end of the year. It
feels urgent and angry and passionate, like the filmmakers just had to get it
out of there system. The film is set in Cleveland in the aftermath of the
assassination of King, and centers on a group of black revolutionaries – and
how one of them betrays the rest. It is based on the novel by Liam O’Flaherty,
that John Ford turned into the Oscar winning The Informer (1935) – the novel,
and film, set in 1922 Ireland, about an Irish rebel, who betrays his friend to
the British. The screenplay was co-written by the great Ruby Dee and Julian
Mayfield – two of the stars in the movie. In his introduction to the film on
the Criterion Channel, director Barry Jenkins says that Dee considered
directing the film herself as well – but didn’t quite feel up to it at that
point in her career. The director, then, is Jules Dassin – the blacklisted
American director, who made a career for himself in Europe after the blacklist,
and only came back to America later in his career (like here). It is a largely
unknown film – which hopefully its presence on the Criterion Channel, and
championing by the likes of Barry Jenkins can help change. It’s hardly a
perfect film – but it’s a fascinating one, - an angry one. And it has an almost
entirely black cast – except for the cops we see, and one white guy who is hurt
when the black rebels tell him he is no longer welcome in their movement. They
have to do it on their own – or die trying.
The film
works on a number of levels. It is a fascinating portrait of this revolutionary
group – who in the wake of King’s death are angry. Yes, they are angry that
King was killed. But they are also angry at King for not pushing hard enough,
not going as far as they are willing to go into violence if necessary to get
their way. The main character is Tank (Mayfield) – who has always been an
outlier in the group. He’s middle aged, a little older than the rest, and was a
supporter of King’s non-violent ways. He’s a convict – one who lost his job and
went to jail for fighting with white steel workers who were harassing the black
workers like himself. Since getting out, he’s been unemployed, and become an
alcoholic. He loves his girlfriend Laurie (Dee) – but cannot support her, or
her kids. His best friend is Johnny (Jax Julien) – who he is supposed to help
with a robbery. But Tank is too angry, too drunk to go along on the robbery –
they are supposed to get guns to help in the revolution. The robbery goes
wrong, and while Johnny isn’t arrested, the cops do figure out who he is – and
he has to become a fugitive. The group blames Tank for this – and this makes
Tank angry.
Tank is a
fascinating character in many ways – one full of contradictions. He is the most
well-rounded, and most sympathetic of any character in the film. He does
something that everyone else in the film finds to be unforgivable – but white
audiences in 1968 may well have seen it differently (hell, some audiences today
would see it differently – Johnny isn’t innocent after all, he is guilty of
what the cops think he did). But even while the film is clear that what he did
was wrong, he is still the most sympathetic character here – a man who doesn’t
seem to fit in anywhere. He’s too old to be a revolutionary, and yet his
criminal record (and alcoholism) makes him pretty much unhirable. He loves his
girlfriend, but she has other things to worry about – and kicks him out. All he
really wants is to be accepted – and he cannot be accepted anywhere.
In some
ways, I think you could remake Uptight now, set in the present day, and not
change a whole lot (okay, you would definitely have to change the character of
Daisy – which crosses the line into a pretty offensive gay stereotype). I don’t
think it’s Dassin’s best directed film – this is the filmmaker behind the
masterful Rififi (1955) after all, among some other great films, and nothing
here comes close to that level of filmmaking. He tries, a little, to be too
stylistic – when something grittier would have been better. It doesn’t derail
the film by any means. Because Uptight is a gritty film – an angry film – and
one that doesn’t back down, doesn’t chicken out, doesn’t seek to comfort the
audience. It has largely been forgotten – and as imperfect as it is – it
doesn’t deserve that fate. It deserves to be seen and debated.
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