Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist (English) DVD

• Additional Details
• Format: DVD
• Rating: Not Rated
• Number of Discs: 4
• Run Time: 586 Minutes
• Region: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Fullscreen
• Language: English, Silent
• Studio: Criterion Collection
• DVD Release Date: February 13, 2007
• Closed Captioning: No
• Subtitles: English
• Audio: ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Mono
• Genre: Drama
• Color: Black & White
• Includes:
  Audio commentaries by historians Jeffrey C. Stewart (The Emperor Jones) and Pearl Bowser (Body And Soul)
  Musical scores by Wycliffe Gordon (Body And Soul) and Courtney Pine (Borderline)
  1958 Pacifica Radio interview with Paul Robeson (Courtesy of Pacifica Radio Archives)
  Four new video programs featuring interviews with actors Ruby Dee and James Earl Jones, filmmaker William Greaves, cinematographer Tom Hurwitz, film historians Ian Christie and Stephen Bourne, and Paul Robeson Jr., and including film clips from Song Of Freedom (1936), King Solomon's Mines (1937), and Big Fella (1938)
  PLUS: A book featuring an excerpt from Paul Robeson's Here I Stand, new essays by Clement Alexander Price, Hilton Als, Charles Burnett, Ian Christie, Deborah Willis, and Charles Musser, a reprinted article by Harlem Renaissance writer Geraldyn Dismond, and a note from Pete Seeger
• Release Date: 1925

All-American athlete, scholar, renowned baritone, stage actor, and social activist, Paul Robeson (1898–1976) was a towering figure and a trailblazer many times over. He made perhaps his biggest impact, however, in the medium of film. The son of an escaped slave, Robeson managed to become a top-billed movie star around the world during the time of Jim Crow America, always striving to use film to educate viewers about equality, democracy, and the rights of workers. Though he eventually left movies behind, using his international celebrity to speak on behalf of those denied their civil liberties and ultimately becoming a victim of ideological persecution himself, Robeson left a film legacy that continues to speak eloquently of the long and difficult journey of a courageous and outspoken African American.