THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505030041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 137 lines
``HISTORY IS WRITTEN by the winners,'' Mario Van Peebles was saying as he pushed a stack of mimeographed copies of FBI letters into my hand.
If so, he may well make a believable claim that the history of the Black Panther Party, organized in 1966 and largely invisible by the late 1980s, has not yet been written.
The party, which initially claimed to be organized for ``self-defense,'' sank in a whimper of inner conflicts and power struggles.
``Panther,'' a movie that purports to chronicle the party, opens today in 700 theaters across the country, including several locally. Directed by Mario Van Pebbles (``New Jack City'') and written by his legendary father, Melvin Van Peebles, the film, according to its creators, is an effort to inform a new generation about a group of black activists who ``made a difference'' in the 1960s.
The film, like the Black Panthers themselves, is awaited with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. Already, it has sparked national debate, complete with the renewed sale of ``Power to the People'' buttons, posters of upheld fists, and theaters hiring extra security guards to head off potential trouble.
Mario Van Peebles, the handsome actor who starred with Clint Eastwood in ``Heartbreak Ridge,'' seems surprised by the uproar.
``I screened the film in Oakland for former Panthers,'' Van Peebles said. ``I'll admit, I was nervous. I figured it was the toughest audience we'd have. It got a standing ovation.''
Loudest of the film's critics is David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, based in Los Angeles. He has branded the film ``a two-hour lie.'' Horowitz's organization claims the film glorifies a group of ``drug-addicted thugs.'' He contends, ``It portrays the Panthers as idealists and all the police as Nazis. It's an incitement to inner-city blacks.''
More damning, perhaps, may be statements from former Panthers themselves. Bobby Seale, one of the party's co-founders, claims that ``90 percent of everything in the film never happened. It's a bootleg fiction.'' Seale, however, may be biased; he's made a deal with Warner Bros. to create a Panthers movie.
Mario Van Peebles, though, is quick to fall back on the usual crutch taken by filmmakers. ``It's not a documentary, it's a drama,'' he said.
Van Peebles spent nine years preparing the film and fought hard battles to preserve his vision.
``At one time, they wanted someone like Tom Cruise or Bridget Fonda to be in the film - to put a white character in it to make it mainstream,'' he said. ``I've been down that road often enough to see where it leads. It is true that there were many white people who supported the Panthers - including some famous movie stars. We acknowledged their existence, but they were not the major part of this story.
``It seems that the story of the Indians would not have been told on film if Kevin Costner hadn't been in the middle of `Dances With Wolves.' And `Mississippi Burning' had to have two major white stars to get an audience. In `Glory,' they got fine black actors and then had them follow Matthew Broderick around. I didn't want that to be the case here.''
The script begins with the formation of the party in 1966 and ends before its demise. A postscript, flashing in letters across the screen over the final scene, makes the film's most blatant claim - that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI allowed cheap drugs to infiltrate Oakland and other black, inner-city neighborhoods in what turned out to be a successful campaign to ``neutralize'' the Panthers.
The film, in it's most frightening claim, blames the current drug epidemic, and the possible downfall of America, on the fact that the drugs, particularly heroin, got out of the targeted black neighborhoods and spread across the nation.
``Isn't it ironic,'' Mario Van Peebles asked, ``that cigars from Cuba were taxed, yet, suddenly, drugs could be imported into black neighborhoods? Isn't it unusual that the entry of drugs came at the same time as the growth of the party?''
The movie contains a scene in which FBI agents are shown making a deal with organized crime warlords to allow the drugs. One unit of the FBI is pictured as the nemesis of the Panthers.
Van Peebles, though, admits he has no definitive evidence. Upon close examination, the letters he supplied reveal only what is generally known, that the FBI was involved in an all-out war against the Panthers.
The film, though, pictures the Panthers as something more than gun-toting radicals who frightened most of America in the late '60s while also thrilling a few. The film emphasizes the fact that the Panthers collected money to provide breakfasts for children, test for lead poisoning, battle sickle cell anemia and build free health clinics.
``The film is fiction,'' Van Peebles admits. ``There are composite characters, but there is also a great deal that is true. The court testimony is directly from transcripts. In fact, we were concerned that some of the dialogue would sound too '60-ish.
With new Panther buttons for sale and a national telephone line offering Panther history, is Van Peebles pushing the rebirth of the party? (Promotional material for the film includes pamphlets screaming ``The Panthers Had a Calling. Now, So Do You.'')
The director states, flatly, that ``the same conditions exist today that brought about the formation of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. In the last election, we were told that the angry white male was heard in the results. I would like to point out that 100 percent of our presidents have been white males, yet only 32 percent of our population are white males. These guys would play golf while Rome burns.
``Yes, we may be headed toward a civil war, but that's not what the Panthers were promoting. Oakland was one of the few cities that didn't have riots when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Panthers went out and said, `That's not a revolution, that's a riot.' ''
Van Peebles claims that ``the usual viewpoint is that the Black Panthers were bad guys carrying guns. This was what was sold to a naive America. J. Edgar Hoover was a paranoid, old-school rightist who got more paranoid when the white radicals began joining the Panthers. Attorney General John Mitchell said the Panthers had to be wiped out by 1969. They lasted much longer than that.''
Horowitz, who has bought ads in newspapers to denounce the film, claims that it ignores the Panthers' descent into drug dealing and crime in the mid-1970s. He is the co-author of the book ``Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the '60s.''
Most of the cast members were mere children when the Panthers walked the earth. Courtney Vance, who plays Bobby Seale, said, ``If I had been 18 at the time of the Panthers, I can't, really, say whether I would have joined or not. I found, in research, though, that guns were really just an attempt to get attention.''
Marcus Chong, whose father is half of the Cheech and Chong comedy team, is cast as Huey Newton. He says he tried to find a pair of Newton's shoes to wear during filming. ``I agree with the principles of the party,'' he said. ``I was raised in the gutter and alleys of Seattle. Dirt was my toy as a child. I still don't think it's smart for people to bare their throats to the aggressors.''
Chong filmed ``Vanishing Son,'' the TV-drama series, in Virginia Beach.
Van Peebles made the classic ``Sweet Sweetback's Baadassssss Song,'' about a street hustler who became a revolutionary. It turned out to be one of the most profitable independent films in history and began the rash of black films turned out in the 1970s. ``Yes, `Panther' is fiction,'' he said, ``but I hope the message will be more heard than the messenger.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Marcus Chong stars as Black Panther founder Huey Newton in the new
film ``Panther.''
by CNB