A retelling of John Ford’s The Informer (1935), which itself was drawn from Liam O’Flaherty’s 1925 bestselling novel, Uptight resets a classic story of revolution and betrayal from Dublin to Cleveland in the days after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Jules Dassin, a veteran of the avant-garde ARTEF Yiddish theater, returned to America after 20 years on the McCarthy-era blacklist to make this film about an ambivalent radical who betrays his dearest comrade.
Join us as we continue our autumn discussions on community, solidarity, and power. Our panel will examine this startling film and its relevance for the times we live in, cinematic reflections on the police murder of African Americans, the legacy of Jewish-Black radical allyship, and more.
