FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The Spook Who Sat By The Door

Sam Greenlee, who wrote the screenplay for The Spook Who Sat By The Door - the very first revolutionary Black Power film - can be considered an accomplished poet! Some would now remark that the cinematic realisation of Greenlee's script is a bit clumsy. A little convincing melodrama. But what does that matter, given the brute force of the urgency of this message! The Spook Who Sat By The Door seems like a prophecy. Prejudice + reaction. Back in 1973, the film was awarded by the venerable United Artists. Unfortunately, the film was only shown in the cinema for a short time. Greenlee put on record that his work would have been suppressed by the FBI because they did not want people to hear the core message of the armed black resistance. Today, after the police murder of George Floyd, 15,000 people demonstrated at the Alex in Berlin. The city did not burn, unlike American cities. Not until now. But if you understand Greenlee correctly, you know he's all about rioting. Not about a silent remembrance of a black man who was brutally murdered by police officers. After his film disappeared from theaters, it remains an underground phenomenon. One could organize coarse-grained versions on VHS - recorded somewhere. I once asked the Videodrom about it. Nothing. And if the film doesn't exist there, it doesn't exist anywhere in West Berlin! Only in 2004 a version was released. The cover of the DVD is enclosed (not the original cinema poster).  If you watch the film on YouTube stream now, remember: "If you accept it as the message movie it was meant to be, as the protest film it was intended to be, I think a lot of people will enjoy" (Wickham).

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