William Greaves's 1972 documentary Nationtime gets the 4K restoration it deserves, to November 12
The Cinematheque streams it alongside live-theatre screenings of the late director’s subversive Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
The recently restored Nationtime captures the 1972 National Black Political Convention.
The Cinematheque presents Nationtime online until November 12, and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One in-theatre on November 4, 5, 8, and 10.
The late director William Greaves made an unbelievable 100-plus documentary films in his lifetime, with the majority capturing African American stories, culture, and politics.
His Nationtime, which covered the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana, in 1972, was deemed too militant for television during its own era. And at this timely moment, a new 4K restoration is giving the public another look at the historic event and its call to action.
Jesse Jackson, Dick Gregory, Amiri Baraka, Charles Diggs, and Isaac Hayes are just some of the black voices that gathered at the convention. Extra star power comes in the narration, shared by Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte,
The Cinematheque is complementing the online streaming of Nationtime with a live, in-theatre revival of Greaves's most famous film. Shot in 1968, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One is best described as an experimental documentary inside a documentary inside a documentary, presented in the cinéma vérité style--but also turning it on its ear. It it, Greaves gathers his cast and crew to shoot a film, but manipulates it all into an elaborate game in which the director himself plays the fool and sews the seeds for real-life dissent. Like Nationtime, it fell into obscurity; later it gained a well-deserved cult following among devoted cinephiles.
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