Cousin Bobby

Stars: Reverend Robert Castle, Jonathan Demme. After taking time out to direct the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme returned to an ongoing labor of love film about his cousin, the Reverend Robert Castle. Cousin Bobby is his story, the story of a man with many different sides, some of them seemingly contradictory. The film opens with a look at Bobby preaching: he's standing in the middle of the street in Harlem, exhorting his mostly black listeners to get on the city's butt over a fairly dangerous looking hole in the road. As the film moves along, we learn that the middle-aged, bespectacled, white bear of a man named Robert Castle was also a good friend of Isaiah Rowley, former leader of the Black Panthers. Demme, Bobby, and the camera crew visit Rowley's grave until an officious cemetery employee threatens to call the police if they don't leave. Castle, whose regular ministry (when he's not doing the bully pulpit number in the street) is in Harlem's St. Mary's Episcopal Church, is seen celebrating his 60th birthday, visiting victims of a tenement fire set by arsonists, working to save a hospital wing, encouraging teachers at the local Head Start program, and demanding a traffic light installation near a school. It closes with a montage of scenes from racially sparked riots over the past 30 years. Shortly after the film's completion, Los Angeles would erupt in riots again in the wake of the verdict in the Rodney King case. An interesting portrait, and a telling reminder of the gap that exists between black and white in America. Audience: People looking for thought-provoking and entertaining documentaries.