Two new films prove the urgency, and inadequacy, of outrage.
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Television images of the 1965 Watts riots jolt across the screen toward the beginning of Stanley Nelson’s magnificent documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, as a baritone newscaster declaims the obvious: “Relations between police and Negroes throughout the country are getting worse.” Well, yes, assuming that “relations” meant the rise and fall of billy clubs in white hands onto black skulls, the forward swing of rifle butts from white shoulders into black chests. The archival montage goes on for only a few seconds—this time, at least—but it’s so awful that it feels like a year. Or 50, if you’ve been following the reports from Ferguson, Baltimore, Staten Island.