As Above, So Below

A rediscovered masterpiece, director Larry Clark’s As Above, So Below comprises a powerful political and social critique in its portrayal of Black insurgency.  The film opens in 1945 with a young boy playing in his Chicago neighborhood and then follows the adult Jita-Hadi as a returning Marine with heightened political consciousness.  Like The Spook Who Sat By the Door and Gordon’s War, As Above, So Below imagines a post-Watts rebellion state of siege and an organized Black underground plotting revolution.  With sound excerpts from the 1968 HUAC report "Guerrilla Warfare Advocates in the United States," As Above, So Below is one of the more politically radical films of the L.A. Rebellion.

—Allyson Nadia Field

Available for research at UCLA