Let the Fire Burn

I was really wanting to go to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute's screening of the new documentary, Let the Fire Burn, about the conflict between the group, MOVE, and the Philadelphia police, but when Francisco told me it was made by the same people who made the Bill Cunningham documentary (only my favorite movie of all time) and the Hannah Arendt movie (which I still haven't seen! gasp!), it sealed the deal. Even though the screening was on a school night.

MOVE is a really interesting group that I'd only previously heard about in passing--founded by John Africa (born Vincent Leapheart; all of the members of move took the surname Africa) in the 70s, it praised getting back to nature (while remaining in an urban environment) and eschewed technology (while accepting certain technologies like telephones and cars). It was primarily black and settled in various homes in West Philly. Here are some of John Africa's own words from a closing statement defending himself:

"I'm not a guilty man. I'm an innocent man," he said. "I didn't come here to make trouble or to bring trouble. But to bring the truth. And, goddamn it, that's what I'm going to do.
"I'm fighting for air that you've got to breathe. And I'm fighting for water that you've got to drink, and if it gets any worse, you're not going to be drinking that water. I'm fighting for food that you've got to eat. And, you know, you've got to eat it and if it gets any worse, you're not going to be eating that food.
"Don't you see? If you took this thing all the way, all the way, you would have clean air, clean water, clean soil and be quenched of industry. But, you see, they don't want that. They can't have that.
"I've been a revolutionary all my life. Since I could understand the word revolution, I have been a revolutionary, and I remain a revolutionary because, don't you see, revolutionary simply means to turn, to generate, to activate. It don't mean it should be evil and kill people and bomb people. It simply means to be right. If this world didn't revolutionize, everything would stop. If your heart didn't revolutionize, you would stop. If your lungs don't revolutionize, you would stop.
"Monkeys don't shoot people, but people will shoot monkeys. Yet monkeys are seen as unclear and people are seen as intelligent. You can go as far as you want in the forest and you won't find no jails. Because the animals of the forest don't believe in jail. But come to civilization, that's all you see."

After police barricaded MOVE headquarters for 15 months in the late 70s, an officer was killed in a shootout. MOVE went quiet for a time. Then it made an Osage Avenue home its new headquarters and built a bunker on top. The house was boarded up, and a load speaker facing the black working class neighbors broadcast obscenities and revolutionary rhetoric. Once again, the police and MOVE began to shoot each other (the chief of police began talking to them through a load speaker with something like, "MOVE, this is America..."). After ten thousand rounds of fire and all of the police's plans falling through, someone suggested that the police drop a bomb from a helicopter. They did. When a fire resulted, instead of putting it out, the police made the call to "let the fire burn." 11 people, including 5 children died, and 60 neighborhood houses burned down.

The documentary was quite good--and afterward there was a Q&A with a police officer who had darlingly helped the one child who made it out of the fire alive (one adult also made it out) and with the man who wrote the book on which the documentary was based. It was fascinating to hear their own takes on the events, as well as on the shortcomings of the documentary.

The documentary was made exclusively from news footage of the event and footage from the inquiries and commissions afterward. This was an interesting way to tell the story--the only authorial voice was in text superimposed on the film. The impositions of text made the film similar to a book: the transitions in the documentary were chapters dividing the film; there was an epilogue at the end. The film was dialogic in character--it let the different sides' voice be heard. Clearly, the clips were chosen to tell a specific story, a story that was sometimes oversimplified by its telling through film, but the documentary seems honestly attempting to show the wrong that was done on both sides.

One complaint that I have is that I didn't learn much about MOVE from the documentary. I would have been very interested in learning more about what they believed and what the important writings of their movement were. Perhaps it wasn't possible--perhaps the most you can say about MOVE's philosophy is what is articulated through their lifestyle. (It certainly isn't possible to download an online copy of John Africa's purportedly 300-page "Guidelines.")