In Leadbelly, Gordon Parks tries to tell the story of the black singer who spent years of his life on Southern chain gangs in a way that is one part moralizing primer for black children, and one part unpleasant facts transmuted into striking pictures for white coffee-table books. It is calculated … to disturb without upsetting, which means that the protagonist's seamy side must be prettified, and suffering must be represented in artfully staged images, as if it were Washington Crossing the Delaware. There must always be reaction shots of black faces in picturesque groupings, and, whenever possible, misty out-of-focus landscapes or sunsets turning the world into a place inhabited solely by blood oranges. I admire Parks's purpose and his fight to get the film made and exhibited, but I can react to the actual movie only with polite uninvolvement.

John Simon, "Head Ache," in New York Magazine (copyright...