The FBI spied on this 18-minute doc's subject—and the irony is *chef's kiss*.
In 1968, filmmaker Jules Dassin collaborated with Ruby Dee and civil rights activist Julian Mayfield on Uptight, a "politically radical" film noir about Black revolution, framed against the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Director, producer and co-writer Dassin, a blacklisted American exile, returns to his birth country after having gone into a second exile from his adopted country Greece, then makes a film that roiled the powers that be (or "powers that were") in the U.S. government. The material so upset the FBI that they closely monitored the production up until the eve of its premiere, recruiting crew members as moles. The irony is rich, as Uptight was a remake of John Ford's The Informer (1935) and dealt with a turncoat character who engineers the assassination of a revolutionary leader. How is Uptight both an outlier (or anomaly) as well as simultaneously integral to the career of Jules Dassin?
Editing
Dense archival weaving, zero fat.
Direction
Kremer treats 18 minutes like a heist film.
Director
Daniel Kremer
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Dassin was already Hollywood-blacklisted before Greece's military junta forced his second exile in 1967.
Uptight hit theaters mere months after King's assassination—Dassin filmed during the rawest grief of 1968.
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