In Silver Spring, It’s Marion Barry vs LeBron James

It was a tough job for Discovery and the American Film Institute to top the excitement of opening night of their SilverDocs documentary festival. The opener featured a fine doc about basketball superstar LeBron James, and James himself was on hand for the festivities (see previous post).

But the SilverDocs organizers know their stuff. DC is a stone’s throw from Silver Spring, MD, where Discovery and SilverDocs are based. And DC, as is no surprise, is a town that runs on politics, usually national politics. Yet, all politics is local, right? That’s why SilverDocs was able to top LeBron James with a documentary about Marion Barry, who at one time was known as DC’s Mayor for Life.

As many know, Barry is no longer DC’s Mayor. What most don’t know is that after a few years hiatus, he’s back and he’s holding office. Yes:
• after being caught in an FBI sting (and on tape) snorting cocaine in a hotel room with a woman (not his wife) in 1990; you remember, “the bitch set me up;”
• after serving time in jail for the above;
• after suffering several serious health setbacks like diabetes and cancer (not to mention being shot during a terrorist takeover of City Hall some 40 years ago);
• after facing corruption charges; after 4 marriages;
• after numerous charges of alcohol and drug abuse;
• and after not paying his taxes (this was a recent miscue), Barry, at 73, isn’t in jail. He’s a member of DC’s City Council and is revered by supporters. In fact, he’s in his 2nd term on the Council, having been re-elected in 2008 by a landslide. Fitting then that the documentary—to premiere on HBO August 10—is called The Nine Lives of Marion Barry.

Similar to the LeBron James documentary, Hollywood couldn’t invent a story as good as Barry’s. It would not be believed. Indeed, critics of the doc will say it concentrates too much on Barry—his carousing, the drugs, the women, the charismatic party animal—and ignores the issues he tackled (or ignored) as DC’s mayor. Perhaps. But that story…

And the excitement we were talking about in our opening paragraph? Barry himself was there for the screening. Watching as critics in the film attacked him for boozing and philandering. Watching as one of his former wives criticized him for embarrassing her and himself.

Believe it or not, the film was balanced. It showed Barry’s rise from a modest upbringing in Mississippi (the man interrupted grad studies in chemistry to fight for civil rights—the film showed Barry in a picture with Dr Martin Luther King Jr). Barry changed the way DC is governed, supporters and analysts in the film, said. Before Barry, they argued, the District was run “like a plantation” by white, southern, “racist” members of Congress.

Barry’s legion of supporters received plenty of face time in the film, from middle and upper class blacks who benefited by Barry’s patronage, to simple working-class people who claimed the Mayor’s efforts helped them get a job, and a sense of pride.

Now, surely, Barry would leave before a pack of reporters and others took to the stage to discuss the film. No. Barry, in fact, moved up from the back of the theater to the front of the house.

The panel was spirited, with critics and supporters jousting. A veteran reporter for the local NBC affiliate in DC, Tom Sherwood, attacked but also defended Barry. For him, Barry was nearly a Greek tragedy, a charismatic leader with great potential, whose fatal flaws led him to squander his gift. But, as Sherwood said Barry told him once, in a Greek tragedy “they carry out the fallen hero feet first.” Indeed, after making a few comments to the audience after the panel, defending his record, Barry left the theater to a standing ovation. The overwhelming thought: The man has guts for attending the screening. Most politicians would have skipped it. A less charitable thought: Barry loves the attention.

Once outside the theater, the crowd pushed toward Barry. Men thrust up front to shake his hand. Women leaned over and were obliged with a hug and a kiss. Cameras clicked (see below). “Barry, Barry, Barry,” they cried as our Greek hero got into his limousine.

Marion Barry shaking hands with supporters as he leaves Silver Theater in Silver Spring, MD.

Marion Barry being greeted by well wishers as he enters the Silver Theater for a screening of a documentary about himself.