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Contrary to what a previous reviewer wrote, "I Have a Dream" has had three sections chopped out of it; it's still a good version of an important speech. The audio here is often excellent -- good selections from the December '62 speech to the SCLC, a good cutting from "I Have been to the Mountain", a good (but too brief) quote from one of the anti-Vietnam speeches. One long section from just before the third Selma march (the one that succeeded) is also very fine. Well worth the money for those with an interest in public speaking and rhetoric. As sort of a bonus, you also get Bobby Kennedy's impromptu eulogy (though the space might have been better used for more of King). Editing, however, veers all over; there are four "assembled" speeches (ones that were never given, assembled from pieces of other speeches). All of the Birmingham material is fragmented and out of order. Further, the nostalgia footage, while giving aging boomers an excuse for a good cry, is so extensive that we only actually see King for about 1/3 of the tape -- the rest of the time you get the tiresome video editorializing for which the Speeches Collection is infamous. You don't learn nearly as much as you should about his delivery, and practically all footage of audience reaction is missing, so if you want to study King as a speaker, in detail, this tape will be very frustrating. (Is Joan Baez on a march really more interesting than MLK?) Finally, two areas of King's career are stinted: his antiVietnam activity (we get only his short defense of his doing it -- none of his actual critiques of the war), and his preaching. To really represent him and his style, at least a few minutes of a sermon -- especially of one of his evangelical ones -- should have been included. So three stars: there's material here that belongs in any good collection of public speaking, but there's also a lot of "Speeches Of" video hash and emotional pandering. If you use it to teach speech or rhetoric, now and then you will need to teach against the tape. |
