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by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Shirley Chisholm's adventures in presidential politics prove that the American electoral system fails even when it's working as planned–making me wish its unmasking in Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed were a little more cogently outraged. The film, like Chisholm herself, is as bluntly assertive as it is unfailingly polite, but the qualities that are refreshing in a politician cancel each other out in a documentary that wants to light a fire but can't seem to find a match. Nevertheless, it's far from a washout, at once a meticulous recounting of a quixotic but principled enterprise that rejected the cynical games of personality politics and a proud advertisement for an inclusive, no-bull dream that sadly never came true.
The New York-based Chisholm, the first black woman ever elected to Congress, established herself as a notorious refusenik in the world of back-scratching and camp-following. Though her bid for the 1972 Democratic ticket was greeted with derision by many, the point was not necessarily to get elected, but to say that a small black woman speaking for as many people as possible has as much right to run as the standard white men with better chances. She challenged the idea that you go with the person who will win as opposed to the person who should–and the film rightly backs her quiet defiance, even as we see that supporters black and white abandoned her leaky ship for surer things.
As reportage, the film has its virtues, shedding light on the absurd hypocrisy and blind chance that drives an election bid. In one corner, it shows Chisholm slightly bolstered by the surprise exits of two big players: the emotional self-destruction of early favourite Ed Muskie and the attempted assassination of later front-runner (and racist monster) George Wallace. But if the reshuffling gives her a boost, she's up against the debits of her race and sex, both in the form of overt bigotry and covert cowardice once it becomes obvious that her bid is doomed. She has to not only fight for TV debate time against the late-race big names but also challenge a rule that gives George McGovern all of California's delegates instead of his fair percentage. But Chisholm isn't just in it for herself–she wants a fair fight for everybody, and is willing to raise hell in order to get one.
Given Chisholm's understanding that playing the game only supports the people who fix it, you'd think Chisholm '72 would have a more heightened sense of urgency than it does. It's the kind of well-spoken thing you find on PBS, which partly funded it: Director Shola Lynch's heart is in the right place, but she knows to downplay its provocations despite the facts often calling for general strikes (if not full-scale riots). Yet although the film speaks too softly, Shirley Chisholm proves big-stick enough to carry it through. She's a woman who wanted to enrich a diverse electorate instead of playing its groups off each other; trapped as we are between the rock of white-boy anti-PC privilege and the hard place of misguidedly polarizing identity politics, we could use her gentle bulldozer these days.
THE DVD Fox's DVD presentation of Chisholm '72 belies its straight-to-PBS trajectory. Aside from some reasonably clear video B-roll, the 1.78:1 image is a tad soft–a matter compounded by the faded condition of select archival footage. It figures that a rock concert like Festival Express can get a full digital clean-up while Shirley Chisholm has to be satisfied that she's there at all. The stereo sound won't thrill you with channel separation, but considering that it's a talking-heads documentary, that shouldn't cause you much worry. No extras.
77 minutes; NR; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 2.0 (Stereo); CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; Fox
