‘The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution’ is insightful, timely

Starring Kathleen Cleaver, Elaine Brown and Clayborne Carson. Directed by Stanley Nelson.

Unrated. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 53 minutes.

Bottom line: A relevant and contemporary documentary

Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver are dead, Bobby Seale is 78, Kathleen Cleaver is 70, the events that turned all of them into national figures are decades in the past. So how is it that “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” comes off as the most relevant and contemporary of documentaries?

Part of the answer is that the social crisis that helped to create the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in the 1960s is still very much with us. You only have to hear a network TV newscaster say nearly half a century ago that “relations between police and Negroes throughout the country are getting worse” to feel a frisson of despair at how up to the minute that sounds.

Also a factor is the skill with which writer-director Stanley Nelson has told this story. A veteran documentarian, Nelson expertly combines archival footage, photographs, music and his own interviews to assemble the pieces of what is a complicated story.

Nelson understands the play of outsized personalities and unexpected events, and he’s helped that enough time has passed for former Panthers to feel comfortable telling their stories, especially to someone of Nelson’s stature in the documentary world.

The thoughtful approach Nelson takes to the material feels right. He does not look into every skeleton in the organization’s closet, but he doesn’t hesitate to deal with problem areas, including the group’s chauvinism. Though “The Black Panthers” empathizes with the outrage that brought the party into existence and the pride individual members continue to take in their work, his tone is measured, not incendiary.

One factor “The Black Panthers” underscores is how much individual leaders influenced the organization’s actions. Newton was arrested in the shooting death of an Oakland police officer (“Free Huey” became a ’60s battle cry, and he ultimately was released after a hung jury). Writer Eldridge Cleaver, a literary star after writing “Soul on Ice,” became the face of the party, with mixed results.

While the Panthers worked hard to connect to poor black communities, creating a free breakfast program for schoolchildren that served 20,000 meals a week in 19 communities, their violent rhetoric had made an unswerving, unscrupulous enemy of J. Edgar Hoover, the omnipotent head of the FBI.

An organization that stubbornly resists being pigeonholed, the Black Panther Party emerges from this documentary with its significance enhanced but some of its tactics questioned. Seeming to speak for the film is Stanford history professor Clayborne Carson. “The leaders,” he says sadly, “were not worthy of the dedication of the followers.”