A limited number of wheelchair accessible spaces may still be available for this screening. Please contact bampfa@berkeley.edu if you would like a ticket for a wheelchair accessible space.



The Spook Who Sat by the Door

Ivan Dixon
United States, 1973

Restored 35mm Archival Print

  • Introduction
    Michael Mark Cohen

    Michael Mark Cohen is Associate Teaching Professor of American Studies and African American Studies at UC Berkeley.

  • In Conversation
    Greg Bridges

    For nearly forty years, Greg Bridges has been a part of the Bay Area’s arts and culture scene through his radio shows on KJAZ, KCSM, and KPFA, and through print journalism as a writer for Jazz Now and Dred magazines.

  • In Conversation
    Nomathandé Dixon

    Nomathandé Dixon, daughter of director Ivan Dixon and a retired banking executive who originally started her career in entertainment, is dedicated to preserving and now sharing this striking restoration of her father’s 1973 film classic.

I chose The Spook Who Sat by the Door because it’s guerrilla cinema at its finest—radical, unapologetic, and still dangerous. It lit the match for a conversation on resistance that we’re still having today.

Cheryl Dunye
featuring

Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League, J. A. Preston,

Based on the explosive 1969 novel by Sam Greenlee, who cowrote the screenplay, director Ivan Dixon’s pull-no-punches adaptation follows the CIA’s first Black agent—recruited as part of a Potemkin integration policy—from the halls of power to the streets of Chicago, where he uses the agency’s own training to foment a violent Black revolution. For his part, Dixon shot the film guerrilla-style, deploying the action tropes of Blaxploitation to revolutionary ends, using their camera as a weapon in the ongoing cultural war of self-representation.

UCLA Film & Television Archive
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Sam Greenlee
  • Melvin Clay
Based On
  • the Sam Greenlee's novel The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Cinematographer
  • Michel Hugo
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 102 mins
Source
  • Library of Congress
Permission
  • Estate of Ivan Dixon
  • Estate of Sam Greenlee
Additional Info
  • Restored by The Library of Congress and The Film Foundation, Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or need accommodations to attend this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-1412 (Wed–Sun, 11 AM–7 PM) as soon as you can. Advance notice helps us fulfill your request.

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