Product Description

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 09/30/2005

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28515 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2005-01-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 220 minutes

Amazon.com
Ken Burns's documentary style is so unencumbered; the subject matter is effortlessly presented. His regular mix of photos, subtle sound effects, excellent musical score, and actor readings of historical text hasn't changed since his breakthrough of The Civil War. And it doesn't need to. Even though this 220-minute production is a biography--on heavyweight champion Jack Johnson--the film resonates about the how race was dealt with in the early part of the 20th century. Four decades after the Emancipation, the American black was still struggling to find elementary terms of equality. Along came a strong and headstrong man who took on sport decades before Jackie Robinson and became the key figure in heavyweight fighting, a champion against the longest odds.

Samuel L. Jackson voices Johnson's words with great verve and helps create an absorbing picture of Johnson along with various historians and boxing experts laying down the tale of the tape. Here's a man so smart and patient in the ring who took great liberties in his day-to-day life, unafraid to showcase his success, and ruffle the morals of the time (including, most scandalously, marrying a white woman). Viewing film of his prizefights, the amateur eye can understand Johnson's style and bravura. Burns's certainly takes his time and, as usual, has a vast awry of facts of how the world reacted to news of Johnson's success and the conspiracy which led to his downfall. The highlight, natch, are two of Johnson's epic fights near the end of his reign as champ (and the search for a "Great White Hope"). The appearance of James Earl Jones (who won a Tony for his portrayal of Johnson in 1959) and Wynton Marsalis's musical score are grand touches. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Best Burns documentary in quite some time
After the adequate "Baseball" and downright disappointing "Jazz," some of the luster associated with the name of Ken Burns has worn off in the last few years. I couldn't help but wonder, when I saw that this documentary was in the works, if we were doomed to get more of the same from Burns, especially considering the involvement of Stanley Crouch in the project. Thankfully, it appears that Burns has returned to form with "Unforgivable Blackness."

Really, it is about time somebody did a documentary on Johnson. If he isn't the best heavyweight ever, there are only maybe two others that one could put ahead of him. Only Ali can rival him for mastery of the science of boxing, yet Johnson is comparatively obscure these days.

In many ways, this documentary spends relatively little time on the actual sport of boxing itself, which will be an annoyance to boxing enthusiasts. Personally, I would have enjoyed a more detailed discussion of just how great Johnson's defensive skills and the fact that he was rarely a slugger in the ring (Stanley Ketchel notwithstanding), but this might have been boring to a mainstream audience. Mostly, Burns returns to familiar territory --- race relations in an earlier era --- only with a dynamic personal & rebellious twist in the person of Johnson, who was utterly unconcerned with his critics, be they black or white, and who felt no compulsion to work for the betterment of anyone other than himself.

Even though I was relatively familiar with the government's persecution of Johnson via the Mann Act, it was still amazing to see just how many resources the government was willing to expend in order to bring one black boxer under its control. Laissez faire obviously is in the eye of the beholder.

To Burns' eternal credit, even though he clearly sympathizes with Johnson, he also points out that Johnson drew his own color line once he became champion. Burns has been notorious for serious omissions in past projects, and I fully expected to hear nothing about the fact that Johnson repeatedly refused to give Sam Langford (the greatest heavyweight never to become champion --- end of discussion) a shot at the title. However, Burns does discuss, albeit somewhat briefly, the fact that Johnson spurned other black boxers because there was a) no money in it, and b) the various White Hopes were much easier pickings. Thanks to Johnson, a whole generation of very skilled black boxers missed its opportunity to fight for a championship, and this is a fact that simply cannot be ignored. If Burns had omitted this, it would have badly tainted the documentary. Good for him!

The archival footage is especially splendid, even with the silly little sound effects added in. Also, kudos to Burns for including Bert Sugar in his cast of talking heads. One can listen to Stanley Crouch only for so long; better to have someone who has spent his whole career writing about the sport of boxing actually discuss the sport. The voiceover work is, as usual stellar. The music (provided in part by Wynton Marsalis, I guess) is decent enough.

All in all, this documentary represents the return of Ken Burns to his earlier form, and I hope continues to produce documentaries of this calibre, although it would be hard to find a story as fascinating as that of Jack Johnson.

Ken Burns at the top of his game
I purchased a copy of this DVD at Costco for $14.99, on 10 January, 2005. Kudos to PBS Home Video for making it available for public purchase before the PBS premiere of the film on January 17, and also for making it so affordable.

This is an important and necessary film, and overall, it is Ken Burns' best treatment of the subject of race yet. I have never been quite happy with Burns' classic northeastern liberal interpretations of race in some of his other documentaries, and I'm certainly no fan of Stanley Crouch, but Jack Johnson is such a compelling subject that even Burns can't mess this up. This is an extremely watchable and informative film whose strengths are incremental and long lasting. The film's biggest strong point, perhaps, its thorough basis in well conducted historical research. The performers, particularly Samuel L. Jackson and Billy Bob Thornton, also do a terrific job.

Wynton Marsalis' soundtrack, of course, is terrific as well.

I'm glad that the DVD contains a "deleted scenes" extra feature, something that is standard practice with DVD's these days, but not necessarily with Ken Burns films.

All in all, a superior product, one that deserves wide attention and acclaim.

Jack Johnson was a Man
I knew something of Jack Johnson before I saw this documentary, but Ken Burns tells his story with incredible detail. One of the many revelations for me was the astonishing level of accepted racism that was prevalent at the time. Supposedly reputable newspapers (e.g., The New York Times) and authors (Jack London) are quoted at length, with bigoted excerpts that border on inflammatory. One couldn't imagine hearing something of this nature from today's mainstream media. Just the very idea that a black man/African-American could defeat a white man seemed preposterous to many; so much so that boxers often refused to even fight one. It took Jack Johnson a long time to get a shot at the title; but once he got it, it took white America even longer to get it back. What stands out in this program is the towering figure of Johnson himself.

I couldn't help noticing that Johnson appeared to be the prototype for the modern American athlete. All the brashness, bravado, conceit and over-indulgence that we associate with the "headliners" of today...all this began with Johnson. He seemed to revel in flouting society's conventions. When you think of the arrogance of Ali, the controversy of Jim Brown, the bravado of Namath...Jack Johnson was all this before they were. At the same time, however, I can't help but remember Charles Barkley saying "I am not a role model." Jack Johnson wasn't either, as much as Black America wanted him to be. In the end, he was too loud, too defiant, too controversial. He was too much, really, for the times. But I came away from this program thinking exactly what he wanted his epitaph to be: Jack Johnson WAS a man. No doubt about that.

Five stars.