Sam Pollard's documentary MLK/FBI goes back to the record. Drawing on newly declassified files, the 2020 film examines how the United States government watched and harassed Martin Luther King, Jr.
What is MLK/FBI about?
The slash in the title sets two parties against each other, and the film is about the relationship between them. On one side stands Martin Luther King, Jr.; on the other, a federal bureau that treated him as a subject of investigation. Pollard builds his account on government files that had only recently been declassified when the film was made, and uses them to describe two connected things: the surveillance of King, and the harassment that came with it. Over 104 minutes the documentary sets out what the state collected, how that material was used against him, and what the paper trail says about the institution that produced it. It is a film about documents and the people behind them, and it leaves the audience to weigh what such records can and cannot establish.
About the cast
As a documentary, MLK/FBI has no actors in the usual sense. Its credits list Martin Luther King and J. Edgar Hoover, the two names at the centre of the story, together with Beverly Gage, David Garrow, Andrew Young, Donna Murch, Clarence Jones and Charles Knox. Sam Pollard is the director.
Context & significance
Documentaries built on declassified material occupy a particular corner of non-fiction film. Their raw material is official paper, written by an institution for its own purposes and never meant for the public, which means the filmmaker has to present the evidence and question it in the same breath. MLK/FBI works in that tradition. The subject is historical and American: the catalogue lists the United States as the country of production, 2020 as the year and documentary as the only genre. The film was well received on release. For viewers interested in twentieth-century American history, in how state surveillance operates, or in the way archives change what is publicly known about famous lives, it offers a focused account that stays within a feature-length running time.
Watching MLK/FBI on Ktime
MLK/FBI can be played on K-Time once you sign in to your account; this page is open to read without one. K-Time serves Persian-speaking audiences outside Iran, and its catalogue, search and player are laid out in Farsi, which makes browsing international documentaries like this one straightforward.