Customer Reviews

Biography - Martin Luther King, Jr. [VHS]

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This was an interesting documentary, but the directorial artsy stuff was quite curious. Filters (?) on the camera lenses gave the skies wierd hues and landscapes were odd colors, too. And that "turn the camera sideways" thing was in most of the still shots.

Those nuances almost drew my focus away from the story of King's life, which was not what the director intended, I'm sure.

This is one of the first documentaries I've seen on King where it freely discusses the whole FBI-King wire tapping incidents and the skirt chasing episodes. Also discussed the fact that Daddy King (MLK's Dad) rose up from abject poverty and his own children grew up in relative affluence - compared to most of the black community.

But if you want to learn more about the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., I'd recommend "Eyes on the Prize" put out by PBS.

It's longish - but I guarantee you can't watch one episode without weeping tears of joy and gratitude at the price that was paid by MLK and others to buy freedom for men and women of color.

Eyes of the Prize is still the definitive series on the history of civil rights.

But this documentary on MLK is a good one - just not the very best.

This intriguing video covers a lot of ground in 60 minutes or less and does so in classic A & E quality.

The story begins where it should, in the beginning. The early years of Martin's life are significantly impacted by his dad. "Daddy" King is painted as a culturally elite and powerful black leader. This did some harm to my limited understandings of the elder King but were necessary to establish the reason for some of King Jr's college aged decisions.

The video revealed some hidden truths about Pastor King's life. Secrets I had never heard of or imagined possible. The delivery of these secrets is believable due to the testimony of the involved parties. A few shocking facts are also revealed from the politics of the day.

In short, this video is almost too concise to do justice to the legend and fame of Dr. King. On the other hand, much can be learned and appreciated from this "short story".

Sure, as the other viewers pointed out, this movie does indeed provide some insight into the personal life of King and it shows a side of him that we aren't really familiar with. The problem is that this is the only material shown about King. It's always a sad story or a pathetic reality about him. Rarely do these people emphasize what actually made the man decent, instead they focus exclusively on what his personal problems were. To me this movie honestly seemed more like an E! Hollywood Story rather than a balanced biography. I don't recommend this movie to anyone with a serious interest in learning about the life of King as the only new [to the general public-revealing]information provided here can be summed up in a few statements: -He admitted he may have slept around -He used to be saturated with pride and insecurity during his 20's -He was imperfect.