by Nick Taylor
There will always be room for art chronicling the systemic and individual injustices wrought on America by its own police force. Hell, you could probably apply that sentiment to police in any country, to an armed institution given virtually unchecked power on any scale. Power, the latest documentary from filmmaker Yance Ford, follows the history and development of US policing with a dry, succinct eye...
Where many recent documentaries have zeroed in on specific incidents or actors within larger institutions (Attica, MLK/FBI, Riotsville USA, Whose Streets?, all indelible and worth watching), Power’s scope is enormous. Without condensing historical fact for easy consumption, Power traces the inception of the US police force as we know it to volunteer slave patrols, hired thugs protecting land and property on behalf of landowners during union strikes, frontier militias slaughtering Native American tribes. The film presents its history and its politics in remarkably clear terms. It moves fast, but I never felt lost. We shouldn’t give art a pass for having politics we agree with, and I am very much in agreement with the historiical argument Ford is makinig. Still, on its own ideological terms, Power provides a prickly, unflinching portrait of institutional rot built in as a feature from the moment of its creatioin.
Ford’s cast of talking heads is almost exclusively populated by academics who have spent their careers studying US history, the origins of law enforcement in this country, whiteness as an institution into itself, and the way these systems have and have not evolved since their earliest days as slave catchers. They are quick to point out that the distance modern policing has successfully made from its ugly origins is yet another tool to protect themselves from the changes that might come from greater historical awareness. The violent immediacy keeps us from lookinig backwards and wondering who let this happen and how it can be changed. I didn’t recognize any of these people as “names” recognizable on a national level. No armchair pundits or pop academics or media personalities who might grant Power more buzz as a trade-off for whatever ensconced credibility we ascribe to these storied academics, all of whom are clearly galvanized by what their research has taught them and ready to present it to the audience this documentary can reach.
The downside to Ford’s approach is that the few personal testimonies he presents end up getting overwhelmed. We get two talking heads who report their lived experience with policing. One is a black Minneapolis police officer who’s served on the force for decades, with a regular beat only six miles from where George Floyd was murdered by white cops four years ago. He’s too aware of the contradictions and limitations of his role for Ford or the audience to label him as a case of cognitive dissonance, but recognizing this doesn’t help him wrangle with what he knows the police should be and their real, paramilitary role towards most of his community. Whatever violence exists in Minneapolis without the involvement of law enforcement does not excuse the sheer unchecked power his fellow officers have.
The other speaker is a young Indian man who describes getting searched by the NYPD at least once a day as a high school truant during the height of the "Stop & Frisk" policy. He eventually became numb and chummy towardss this routine violation, and realiziing this made him horrified at how obsequious and obliging his fear had made him. Both men provide poignant contrasts to the web of academic thread-connecting surrounding them, yet their individual stories wind up feeling misserved amidst Power’s collage of academic text, archive footage, copaganda films, and bodycam videos. It does not always help that Ford seems aware of this imbalance in narrative weight, and tries different camera angles with the young man to give his story a unique visual impression. It’s an admirable impulse, at least, but not an effective one.
Elsewhere, Ford’s control of tone and information is unimpeachable, if occasionally monotonous or unadventurous. Power is carried through the sheer absurdity of police-sponsored hyperbole, like the repeated cutaways to a training video led by Ben Gazzara lounging on a bed. The ironic juxtaposition of self-described heroics from law enforcement against bodycam footage of recent abuses committed against American citizens permeates the whole film, reminding us how undemocratic and dangerous a lot of normalized power imbalances have always been. I could’ve likely done without the chapter titles Ford uses, delineating complex, deeply interwoven subjects as property and rebellion into more digestible segments. Even so, I’m probably never going to forget the history Power fleshed out for me. I can’t quite argue this will be one of the year’s most cinematically valuable objects, but as a film that explicitly sets out to teach its audience, demanding their trust and their curiosity in equal measure, you could hardly imagine a better outcome than this.
Power is currently streaming on Netfliix.