BBBB

(out of 5)

This searing documentary focuses on what is often considered by historians to be a strong impetus in the civil rights movement of the 1960s: the savage bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church and the deaths of four girls who were killed in the explosion. This film, directed with exceptional grace by Spike Lee, examines the lives of the four young women thanks to generous interviews by family and friends, none of whom seem to have to reach very far into their memory banks to recall either their lost loved ones or the savagely cruel times they lived in before ‘Jim Crow’ laws began to be dismantled. The interview segments are powerful and moving, not to mention also quite strange: the interview with a severely frail George Wallace exonerating his own involvement in the events by pointing out his black best friend over and over again belongs in a Twilight Zone episode.

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, Home Box Office

USA, 1997

Directed by Spike Lee

Cinematography by Ellen Kuras

Produced by Spike Lee, Samuel D. Pollard

Music by Terence Blanchard

Film Editing by Samuel D. Pollard

Film Festivals:  TIFF 1997

Cast Tags:  Albert Boutwell, Alpha Robertson, Andrew Young, Arthur Hanes Jr., Barbara Cross, Barbara Nunn, Bill Baxley, Bill Cosby, Billie Harris, Carole C. Smitherman, Carolyn Lee Brown, Carolyn M. McKinstry, Chris McNair, Coretta Scott King, David J. Vann, Diane Nash, Dianne Braddock, Doris Lockhart, Faye Davis, Florence Terrell, Fred Lee Shuttlesworth,Freeman Hrabowski III, George Wallace, Gerald Colbert, Gwendolyn White, Harold McNair,Helen Pegues, Howell Raines, James Bevel, Janie Gaines, Jesse Jackson, John Cross, Junie Collins, Lillie Brown, Mahalia Jackson, Maxine McNair, Morris Marshall, Nadean S. Williams,Nicholas Katzenbach, Ossie Davis, Queen Nunn, Reggie White, Rhonda Nunn Thomas, Ricky Powell, Shirley Wesley King, Taylor Branch, Tommy Wrenn, Walter Cronkite,Wamo Reed Robertson, Wyatt Tee Walker

Academy Award Nomination
Best Documentary (Feature) (Spike Lee, Sam Pollard)

National Society of Film Critics Award Nomination
Best Non-Fiction Film