Apple TV+: Series “Big Cigar”: Life on the move forward

When Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton (Andre Holland) is stopped by a police patrol at night in the early 1970s, is racially abused by officers and has to get out of the car, he is afraid of death. This scene in the Apple TV+ series “Big Cigar” shows the continuity of racist police violence in the USA and makes this six-part political biopic, which is sometimes a bit too stylish, very relevant.

That’s why the epilogue of “Big Cigar”, in which Huey Newton ponders the future of anti-racist struggles in exile in Cuba, also includes images of Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd. “Big Cigar” tells of Huey Newton’s escape into Cuban exile in the mid-1970s to avoid an apparently politically motivated murder charge that was rejected years later by a US court as unfounded. The then early thirties found support for his escape from Los Angeles via Mexico to Cuba from Hollywood producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola). In 1969 he exploited the counterculture for the film industry with the cult film “Easy Rider”, but he also maintained a friendly relationship with the 68 legend Abbie Hoffmann, whom he is said to have supported financially during his time in the underground.

Schneider, who specializes in left-wing political films, actually wanted to make a film with his friend Huey Newton about his life and his political struggles, but this never happened because of the escape. Instead, “Big Cigar” became a fake film project to organize the escape of Newton, who was being sought by the FBI at the time and who was made the most wanted man in the USA by the media.

The series also tells of the founding of the communist Black Panther Party in the Bay Area and of the trench warfare between Huey Newton and Bobby Seale (Jordane Christie) over the group’s orientation between revolutionary militancy, social district projects and parliamentary options – after all, Seale applied in vain for the mayor’s position in Oakland. “Big Cigar” jumps wildly through time in quick cuts, sometimes to the 60s, then to the 70s, and in the process unfolds a whole panorama of the anti-racist struggles of the time and Newton’s biography. It’s about his stay in prison in the early 1970s, his drug use, his relationship with Gwen Fontaine (Tifanny Boone), whom he married during his escape, with his father, a long-time civil rights activist, and his flirtation with Hollywood, which some of his comrades resented.

“Big Cigar” features a lot of soul music and at times relies a bit too much on the aesthetics of the blaxploitation films of the 70s. What’s special about this story, which is based on an article by journalist Joshua Bearman a few years ago, is the solidarity between the film producer and the political activist, which also raises the question of how far Schneider’s solidarity for Huey Newton really went. Was this all part of his professional interest?

At some point, Newton himself expresses massive criticism of Schneider, who sometimes organizes the escape very poorly, never puts himself in danger and even ends up doing coke at a film party in Los Angeles while his friend Huey is waiting for him to finally head towards Mexico to get on the way. In any case, the series offers excitement and invites you to get excited when Huey Newton runs away from the FBI.

Incidentally, “Big Cigar” can be streamed just in time for the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case “Brown v. Board of Education”, which gave black students access to all public schools in the USA and is considered one of the milestones of the American civil rights movement .

From May 17th on Apple TV+