TUPAC: RESURRECTION
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten Grade: B+ Paramount Pictures Directed by: Lauren Lazin Cast: Tupac Shakur Screened at: Loews E-Walk St.,, NYC, 11/18/03
Hip hop sells more compact disks to whites than to African- Americans, which could mislead you into thinking that its basic appeal lies primarily with whites, A look at our country's demographics might indicate that young whites have both the money and the adolescent rebelliousness to dig anti- establishment lyrics, particularly given the infectious beat and nose-thumbing, especially at police. (On the other hand, you won't find young blacks whistling the tunes of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Weber, except perhaps at New York's School of Performing Arts.) Tupac Shakur, who was shot dead in Las Vegas at the age of twenty-five after reaching number one on the charts, is arguably the most charismatic of rap artists, an articulate fellow whose opinions appear to be as sincere as they are strong and who displays an uncanny ease whether on the stage of in the TV or radio interview room.
Lauren Lazin's documentary is appropriately subtitled "Resurrection," as we hear the murdered Tupac narrating his story from the grave, a gut-wrenching tale that shows the title character to be a product of the times. His mother, Afeni Shakur, for example, was into the radical politics of the Black Panthers, whose slogan, taken up by whites during the late '60's and early '70's, was "power to the people." Ms. Shakur, however, had to fight her addiction to drugs as she was challenging the Establishment, and was pregnant with Tupac while held in jail. As a feminist, she might find common cause with conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, William Bennett and Dan Quayle in opposition to the rap lyrics that exude their contempt for "hoes" and "bitches," nor does Tupac's defense "we don't say that ALLl women are bitches" suffice as rationalization.
His reputation with the police was not helped by the tattoo he had affixed to his stomach, "Thug Life," a mistake that might have helped convince a jury that such a fellow really did commit sodomy on a young woman which sent Shakur to a jail cell for several months. His status as a celebrity made him arrogant, a charge that could be leveled against quite a few whose activities become the property of gossip mongers. Whether interviewing in a studio or performing hip hop, he comes across as so articulate, such a master of the street rhythms of English prose and poetry, that we may even wonder whether a literary critic could contrast his lyrics with the more ethereal lines of the beloved poets whose works appear regularly in magazines like The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
Tupac holds the distinction of being the Malcolm X of rap, a stage performer, a street musician, even an actor who had been well received in John Singleton's 1993 film, "Poetic Justice" a fellow who tries to break through an L.A. beautician's melancholy after her boyfriend's murder. He made millions for Death Row Records, owned by Suge Knight who some believe ordered the hit which ended the life of this promising street hero.
The documentary itself eschews the deadening talking-heads style, an expensively-made features presenting the man's life as a collage rather than a continuous narrative. If all non-fiction offerings were made like this, bearing in mind the need to entertain as well as enlighten, documentaries could shuck the principal reservation that moviegoers have about them that they are nothing but dull interviews about people irrelevant to the lives of Americans who rarely achieve their fifteen minutes of fame in their entire lives.
Rated R. 110 minutes.(c) 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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