The bogeymen of our world haven’t changed much since the initial release of Blood in the Face, a documentary that opens a window on the subculture of American neo-Nazis, Klansmen and assorted white supremacists. The ugliness of white nationalism still thrives – hell, probably more so than those 20th century pre-MAGA neo-Nazis ever could have imagined.
Based on a book by investigative journalist James Ridgeway, Blood in the Face is a compelling, unsettling and sometimes weirdly comic visit with hate-mongers gathered on the Michigan farm of “Pastor” Bob Miles, a somewhat unconventional preacher who advises his flock that “when you have to do the time, don’t regret the crime.”
Contemporary audiences might note the film’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-him inclusion of Michael Moore, then a fledgling documentary maker, as one of the interviewers roaming Miles’ Cohacta, Mich., farm. Anyone anticipating a Moore-styled polemic, however, will be disappointed. Directors Ridgeway, Anne Bohlen and Kevin Rafferty mostly stay away from editorial intrusions, giving their interview subjects wide berth to spew their vitriolic worldview. No directorial hand-holding is needed to interpret the creepiness paraded before the cameras.
The banality of evil is hardly revelatory, but it still makes for fascinating viewing. And the hangers-on at Miles’ white-power hootenanny are nothing if not banal. One male participant, a bespectacled 20-something who resembles a racist Woody Allen, contends that American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell was a “love-monger” because “he loved the white people.” Pastor Miles conducts a nighttime wedding for two hooded KKKers, the happy couple exchanging nuptials beneath the romantic glow of torchlight. Reflecting this world’s bizarre blend of hate-speech and folksiness, one speaker at the conference wraps up his message thusly: “All I’m gonna say is Sieg Heil … and let’s go eat!”
What emerges in Blood in the Face is the depth of fear and insecurity that breeds racism. These folks – factory workers, record-store employees (remember record stores?), housewives – are chafing at their lot in life.
Mostly poor and poorly educated, they are stifled economically and culturally. The objects of their hatred might be Jews or Blacks or homosexuals, but the role they fill is invariably the same. These yayhoos gussied up in Nazi uniforms and white hoods desperately need scapegoats. Blood in the Face lets that truth unfold.
Cutting to the Chase with Phil Bacharach 