'Cry Freedom:' Patronizing and shallow

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Cry Freedom, a new film directed by Sir Richard Attenborough (recipient of an Oscar award for "Gandhi" in 1982).

"Cry Freedom" is billed as a dramatization of the murder of Steve Biko, who died in police custody in 1977. The film's narrative, however, seems far more devoted to Donald Woods, the liberal South MOVIE REVIEW African newspaper editor who befriended Biko.

Biko comes across as a caricature-a walking cliche. He seems to have the correct political rhetoric in response to Woods's questions about the nature of Black Consciousness. But despite some promising moments in their discourse, we don't get a sense of a live person and a real political movement.

Steve Biko was considered the leading spokesperson for the Black Consciousness Saths Cooper was one of the founders, with Steve Biko, of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. His close collaboration with Biko began in 1968. He was one of nine prominent Black Consciousness leaders charged with sedition and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in one of the scenes depicted in "Cry Freedom." Cooper served a nine-year term on Robben Island. He is the past president of the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO). Socialist Action contacted Cooper to get his impressions of "Cry Freedom."

Socialist Action: What did you think of "Cry Freedom?" Was it an accurate portrayal of Steve Biko?

Cooper: I think the movie is going to have a certain impact on the uninitiated, on the people who don't know about the situation back home. But it is a movie that has been done under extremely false pretenses, and because of this it is the ultimate "dis-tribute" to Steve Biko.

Attenborough presents Steve through the liberal eyes of Donald Woods, whose knowledge of the situation is restricted and who is out of his depth. Woods's friendship Movement in the early 1970s. He defined Black Consciousness as "in essence, the realization by the Black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression-the blackness of their skin-and to operate as a group in Peter Magubane order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.

Empowering and reclaiming pride was one aspect of the movement. For example, one of the projects the movement took on was the creation of the Zanempilo Community Health Clinic, which was staffed by Black doctors and nurses. The clinic is shown in the film, but the full political significance of Black Consciousness is not explored.

Biko's death earned five to 10 minutes of the film in comparison to Woods's escape from South Africa-which occupies the remaining half of the film. For a film that was alledgely billed as a dramatization of Biko, it seems somewhat patronizing that his death appears almost as an afterthought.

It is a pity that Attenborough felt compelled to present the issue of apartheid through the eyes of Donald Woods. By doing this, Attenborough only dilutes the rich life of Steve Biko and modifies the powerful ideas of the Black Consciousness Movement. At the most, "Cry Freedom" succeeds in introducing Biko to the general public.

Attenborough has a fixation about filming epics of the demise of the old British Empire. But he presents stuff in his own fashion because this is what he wants people to see. In his epic on Gandhi, for instance, he even makes a martyr out of someone who was vehemently anti-struggle. This demonstrates the incorrigibility of the liberal.

S.A.: So Attenborough has therefore distorted the life and legacy of Steve Biko...

Cooper: Yes. Attenborough went so far as to tell the Boston Phoenix that Biko had lived a dull life. This is why he puts simple shibboleths, simple cracker-cookie sayings, in Steve's mouth. He is incapable of getting at the heart of what Steve represented, his role, the context of his struggle, and most important, his politica legacy.

But Steve's legacy is very much alive today. It's alive in what's happening everyday in the streets back home. Steve more than anyone else embodies this struggle.

Still, I think people will be struck by the power of Steve-even in the distorted way he is portrayed. The movie will undoubtedly resuscitate interest in the whole issue of apartheid.