Strange Fruit

While the draw for many would be Billie Holiday's interpretation of this famous song, it is the background stories that make this film so engaging.

This film peels away the popular veneer from the song Billie Holiday once claimed she wrote, revealing many intriguing layers. Not only do we delve into the racism that bore this song, but also the interactions between racism, the early labor movement, McCarthyism, and popular culture. Everywhere this documentary's journey takes us, there are the fearful reactionaries meeting the creative and hopeful artists and activists... All of it brilliantly, patiently intertwined and paced by the filmmaker. So patiently executed in fact, I was led into a mid-film, historically surprising plot twist without a clue it was coming.

Yet, with all this depth and craft, the documentary remains very easy to watch.

You probably know the song "Strange Fruit" as a Billie Holiday song about lynching that became an anthem for both protests of the act (which is still not explicitly illegal in the USA), then later one for the Civil Rights movement in the late-'50s through the early '80s and onwards.

This is the fascinating story of a song, its writer, and the influence on people through to today.

Also, the author of the song - both words and music - lead a life that is worthy of its own documentary. His name was Abel Meeropol, but wrote under the name of 'Lewis Allan.' In the documentary you see his two sons speaking of him, and revealing a little throwaway detail about their family that is honestly jaw-dropping. 'But that's another issue,' they say, as if it's nothing.

Very highly recommended!

I only wanted to see this documentary for one reason: to watch Ms. Holiday perform the title song. The song's extremely sad, bitter lyrics are legendary, but I'd heard for years that it had been given something of a dramatic, almost eccentric, interpretation by Ms. Holiday herself. I'd assumed that if there was a surviving recording of it, it was in some B-level motion picture or newsreel. And here's the big surprise of the documentary: when we finally see Holiday, it is not on film, but on live television. A surviving b/w reel-to-reel videotape of a 1958 (or 1959) BBC broadcast shows Ms. Holiday- beautiful, regal, but somewhat melancholy (with hair severely pulled back and in a glittering dress)- stylishly reciting with piano accompaniment for 3 minutes of what must be the earliest surviving videotape ever recorded-- and just a scant 5 months before her death. It's like two phenomena were jelled into one performance: modern television technology and an artist very much at the end of her own life. Blew me out of the water!!

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root."Strange Fruit.A poem written by a Jewish high school teacher Abel Meeropol.A song made famous by Billie Holiday.Abel wrote it after he saw a photo depicting the lynching of a black man in the south.Something so beautiful came out of such a tragic event.Shivers go down your spine when you hear Billie Holiday perform it.Your eyes get wet.You ask yourself why and yet you get no answer.How could something like that happen such a short time ago? And just because you're black.Joel Katz' documentary from 2002 is very touching, very moving movie about one stain in American history.There are Abel's sons, Michael and Robby, talking about the song, about their father.Pete Seeger sings a piece of the song and plays with his guitar.Again your eyes get wet.Amiri Baraka, Don Byron, Abbey Wilson and Cassandra Wilson are also talking there.This movie makes you mad, it makes you sad.There is a stain you can't clean. "Here is a strange and bitter crop."

A few months ago, I saw "Strange Fruit" for the first time. It was so haunting, both the song and the film, that I couldn't get it out of my mind! I've recorded the documentary and am looking for a CD that contains the song. I definitely recommend seeing this film.