In the 1960s, Jean-Luc Godard made a series of politically explosive films exploring how the tenants of Mao and Socialism informed the counter-cultural movement of the time period. This was best exemplified in his films La Chinoise, Sympathy for the Devil, and Weekend, which were both celebrations of the youth revolutionary movement of the time, as well as cautionary tales of the dangers of extreme radicalism. Shaka King's incendiary and powerful film Judas the Black Messiah (2021) continues Godard's tradition of exploring the youth revolutionary culture, but does it from the lens of modern day societal issues which mirrored the turbulent 1960s.
Judas and the Black Messiah, as the title implies, takes the Biblical tale of Judas Iscariot and his betrayal of the original revolutionary (Jesus Christ), and transposes it to the 1960s. The film is a tense exploration of the true story of William O'Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a memer of the Black Panther party who also worked for the FBI as an informant on the party's actions. After infiltrating the Black Panthers, O'Neal rises up in the ranks to become a Security Captain, where he works closely to ensure the safety of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party. Judas and the Black Messiah explores the close relationship between Hampton and O'Neal, as well as O'Neal's partnership with Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), who works as his liasion with the FBI.
What makes Judas and the Black Messiah such a powerful film is the careful time King takes to develop the parallel relationships O'Neal has with both Hampton and Mitchell. King skillfully reveals how O'Neal is gradually drawn into the fight for racial and societal justice that Hampton and the Black Panthers stand for, while at the same time doing his part to bring down the party through his undercover work with Mitchell and the FBI. The central character of O'Neal is a morally conflicted figure, as he is working in tandem with the FBI to bring down the party which he most indentifies with as an African-American in the 1960s. It is this central schism of identity which provides much of the tension and power of the events that unfold in Judas and the Black Messiah.
Like Godard's political films from the French New Wave period, King couches his exploration of a revolutionary movement through a specific cinematic genre. Godard's counter-cultural films mixed genres like the musical, the gangster film, and documentary elements. Judas and the Black Messiah examines O'Neal's plight through the filter of film noirs from the 1950s, like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Heat. Like these films, King shows the corruption of law enforcement, and how his protagonist is both working for and fighting against these institutions. Much of Judas and the Black Messiah is filmed at night time in dark shadows, making it visually resemble a classic 1950s film noir as well. The opening interrogation scene itself, when O'Neal first meets Mitchell in a shadowy police station, is staged like something straight out of a Howard Hawks' crime film.
On an aesthetic level, King also films much of Judas and the Black Messiah with close-ups of his actor's faces, focusing quietly on their facial features and emotions. This recalls Godard's similar close-ups in films like Vivre sa vie and Masculin Feminin; like these films, King uses the camera to carefully capture and focus on naturalistic reactions from his actors, allowing them to give full-bodied, genuine performances.
In addition to his homage to classic noir films and The French New Wave, King also presents a three dimensional portrait of Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers that shows how they were driven by a genuine concern for societal and racial justice. While many associate the Black Panthers with being gun-totting, violent militants, King shows how the Panthers worked to improve and help out their communities, such as with their free lunch programs for inner-city youth, and their attempts to provide better education and access to resources for those in need.
As Hampton explains early in the film, the reason why the Black Panthers arm themselves with weapons is because they are essentially at war with a society that uses unjustified violence against those it wishes to oppress. King also shows how this oppression wasn't just against African-Americans, but against all races and subclasses within society. Eventually, Judas the Black Messiah shows how Hampton formed a Rainbow Coalition with both Latino and White people who wanted to fight back against systematic racism and subjugation. The enemy in this case was not only Capitalism (a common Godardian target), but the police force itself, which was responsible for the murder of so many innocent African-American lives. King also shows how the malevolent sway of the police extends well into higher echelons of government, all the way up to Hoover and the FBI.
And this brings Judas and the Black Messiah back to its central subject of law enforcement, and O'Neals complex relationship with this institution. Noir films were often about corrupt members of the police force, and King takes this cinematic trope and insightfully updates it to the plight of African-Americans in both the 1960s (the time period of Judas and the Black Messiah), and into the modern time period when police brutality targated at Black people is still prevalent. In this way, Judas and the Black Messiah's exploration of the eventual murder of Fred Hampton at the hands of the police in the 1960s is a dark mirror of similar recent events in American history, such as the murder of George Floyd and the countless other innocent African-Americans who are shot down by law enforcement every year. As King's profoundly unsettling film reveals, no matter how far our society claims to have advanced towards racial justice, we still have a long way to go.
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