Maya Angelou and Still I Rise – first look review | Little White Lies

Festivals

Maya Angelou and Still I Rise – first look review

28 Jan 2016

Words by Ed Gibbs

Smiling woman in sweater seated at table, ornate lamp on side table.
Smiling woman in sweater seated at table, ornate lamp on side table.
The African-Amer­i­can icon’s rich­ly tex­tured and often trau­mat­ic sto­ry is unpacked in this near-defin­i­tive doc­u­men­tary for PBS.

Poet, singer, actress, activist and author, Maya Angelou casts a vast shad­ow over half a cen­tu­ry of Amer­i­can his­to­ry. From her dirt-poor begin­nings in the seg­re­gat­ed south – between her moth­er in St Louis, Mis­souri and her grand­moth­er in Stamps, Arkansas – to an adult life lived in the pub­lic eye, and made all the more colour­ful by a live­ly pri­vate one, Ms Angelou remains an inspi­ra­tional tour de force for gen­er­a­tions of Americans.

While the film itself – billed as the first com­pre­hen­sive look at her life – rarely strays from the tra­di­tion­al TV doc­u­men­tary for­mat, it explores her remark­able life and career with a clear sense of pur­pose, even flair. Take, for instance, her his­toric read­ing at Bill Clinton’s 1993 inau­gu­ra­tion, which the for­mer pres­i­dent admits will be read a hun­dred years from now” in schools and col­leagues across the nation. It is reliv­ed here via sev­er­al sources and devices, which per­fect­ly makes the point. Some addi­tion­al, cin­e­mat­ic flour­ish­es would have tak­en the idea even further.

As an inher­ent­ly Amer­i­can sto­ry, the film must also – per­haps inevitably – remind us of the shame­ful his­to­ry of slav­ery, pre­vi­ous­ly ref­er­enced in her work. We see the grim gaols where African-Amer­i­can slaves were held in Ghana (where Angelou lived in the mid-’60s), pri­or to them being sold. It is one of many sober­ing moments in a film that also high­lights her activism with Mal­colm X and Mar­tin Luther King, Jr (whom, she points out, was hor­rif­i­cal­ly mur­dered on her birthday).

Direc­tors Bob Her­cules and Rita Coburn Whack (a for­mer radio pro­duc­er of Angelou’s) have evi­dent­ly worked close­ly with both Angelou and her estate since her pass­ing in 2014, aged 86. The lady her­self is inter­viewed on sev­er­al occa­sions in more recent times, and there is plen­ty of vibrant archive footage – both rare and unseen – which helps keep the piece feel­ing vital, even as Angelou’s health vis­i­bly declines. Many of her ordeals have been revealed via her mem­oirs over the years – begin­ning as a dare to an edi­tor, with her 1969 best-sell­er I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ (six more fol­lowed). These include almost los­ing her son in a car acci­dent in Ghana, being an absent moth­er while on tour with Por­gy and Bess, her rape at aged sev­en (by her mother’s boyfriend) and becom­ing a pros­ti­tute at 18. With such a bru­tal­ly hon­est sub­ject and source mate­r­i­al, Angelou’s sto­ry is both shock­ing and inspiring.

Typ­i­cal­ly, even in lat­er life, she still had plen­ty of fire in her bel­ly. She duet­ted with Ash­ford and Simp­son, fea­tured in John Singleton’s Poet­ic Jus­tice, and even rapped with hip-hop star Com­mon – while not afraid to set the lat­ter straight on the mis­use of the N word, a demean­ing term that she loathed with a pas­sion. Nor did she blink at cor­rect­ing a young audi­ence mem­ber who made the mis­take of address­ing her by her first name. She even con­fess­es in one of her final inter­views to reduc­ing a foul-mouthed Tupac to a blub­ber­ing mess. And Amer­i­ca loves her for it.

There are nat­u­ral­ly talk­ing heads to empha­sise Angelou’s lega­cy in Amer­i­can pop­u­lar cul­ture, although not too many. Both Bill and Hilary fea­ture. Oprah appears lat­er on. Friends, includ­ing her pub­lish­er and her edi­tor, also offer insight. Her son is emo­tion­al­ly frank, often tearful.

Ulti­mate­ly, though, it is Angelou her­self who tells much of her own sto­ry, as she did so elo­quent­ly on paper. With that for­mi­da­ble dic­tion (helped by her tow­er­ing six-foot frame), her voice remains a bea­con of strength, as we are guid­ed through the highs and lows of a bold and often treach­er­ous life lived to the full right to the end.

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