30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Superb speaking, good clips, should have been more, March 24, 2000
This review is from: The Speeches of Malcolm X [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Malcolm X was as close as the 20th century gets to a master of all the aspects of rhetoric, from tight logic to raw power of delivery, and from shrewd audience analysis to deep pathos. These speech clips give you a chance to see why. Several major speeches are represented, and there are especially good clips from the Jesse Gray rally and from his probably-best-single speech, "the Ballot or the Bullet" (Audubon Ballroom March 29 1964). Editing is smooth and intelligent -- and excessive, because there could easily have been 20 instead of 10 minutes out of "Ballot or Bullet", and there is only one clip from one of his many speeches on Islam, where at least three would be needed to represent the major periods in his thought. His speech against the draft and against enlisting is excellent, also; for a good example of how fine he was at extemporaneous work, see his replies to television interviewers.
There are a couple of speeches overlaid with nostalgia footage, but those may have been ones for which no visual track was available; some background hiss and rumble suggests they were originally recorded on audio tape.
Clips generally don't suffer much from internal cuts and are usually clearly labelled. This would be a five star tape if there were just twice as much of it -- which there should have been. Bring out volume II!
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Material (short video), January 18, 2000
This review is from: The Speeches of Malcolm X [VHS] (VHS Tape)
For people looking for archival footage of Malcolm X -- this is a good start. The video features film and audio of the great leader Malcolm X -- mostly as excerpts from some of his famous speeches. While the video is great because it is packed solid with Malcolm X and no supplementary nonsense, it is very short, at 41 minutes -- the film will end long before you want it to. I can't say this video gives a great overview of Malcolm X, but it is definately good to have if you've never seen him in video or heard some (parts) of his speeches.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Could have just bought an AUDIO cassette!, June 21, 2001
This review is from: The Speeches of Malcolm X [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This video is very "skinny" on actual video footage of Malcolm. It's well done as far as the quality of the footage (audio and video), however, you could buy an audio cassette and in some ways get much more for your money. I was hoping for a series of full speeches and interviews but what I got was short clips disbursed between audio played over civil rights movement footage.
My suggestion: rent it from the library and decide for yourself whether it's worth buying.
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