US Edition‘Soul Patrol’ Filmmakers on Their Sundance Doc and Why Black Stories Are More Important Than Ever: ‘They Were Going to Erase Us From History’
The documentary blends interviews, archival footage, and reenactments to reveal the unit’s dangerous missions and the veterans’ struggle with trauma and racial recognition.
5 Articles
5 Articles
‘Soul Patrol’ Review: Documentary Pays Overdue Tribute to Elite Black Soldiers in Vietnam
In 1968, when Lawton Mackey Jr. was just 17, he forged his mother’s signature so he could enlist in the army. It had to be, he thought, better than earning $3 a day as a field laborer in South Carolina. But by the time he got to Vietnam, he was already regretting his youthful decision. War — both abroad and at home — serves as the compelling center for J.M. Harper’s exceptionally moving documentary, “Soul Patrol.” But the men who fought, and who…
‘Soul Patrol’ Review: A Distinctive and Moving Addition to the History of the Vietnam War
Filmmaker J.M. Harper takes a hybrid approach, combining new interviews, archival footage and stylized dramatizations, to tell the story of the U.S. Army’s first all-Black special operations team in Vietnam.
When Vietnam veteran Ed Emanuel wrote his memoirs “Soul Patrol” (2003), the gesture could have been compared to that of an abandoned man sending a message inside a bottle. Although he had a decades-long career in the film industry, Emanuel had lived with disturbing memories of his service in the first African-American six-man long-range reconnaissance patrol team. His tour lasted from 1968 to 1969. Despite how deeply united these men had been in…
Soul Patrol Review: Brothers in Arms - POV Magazine
Soul Patrol (USA, 100 min.) Dir. J.M. Harper Prod. Sam Bisbee, Danielle Massie, J.M. Harper, Nasir Jones, Peter Bittenbender Program: U.S. Documentary Competition “Don’t no one want to hear about you [n-words] …it didn’t happen,” a person once said to Vietnam veteran Ed Emanuel. The dismissive individual was trying to erase the Black contribution to the war like it was a spelling mistake on a history exam. Incidents like this, and the national…
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