By framing the civil rights movement in microcosm via the truly wrenching story of Emmett Till, director Keith A. Beauchamp's searing The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till is a poignant, brutal document that captures the nascent American civil rights movement. Utilizing chilling photographic and filmed archival materials, Beauchamp skillfully and methodically pieces together the August 1955 kidnapping and murder of Chicago youth Till as he vacationed in Jim Crow Mississippi, also relying upon numerous interviews with eyewitnesses and family members, some of whom relay their stories for the first time here.

The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till does an exceptional job of quickly sketching the grim realities of the Jim Crow South for African-Americans before delving into the Till saga. Beauchamp uses brutal photos and newsreel footage of whites and blacks coming to blows, instigating near-riots at lunch counters and on street corners, revealing the deep scar upon the American psyche that can be felt to this day. Till, visiting relatives in 1955 Mississippi, made the crucial mistake of whistling a white female shopkeeper in public, which led to his subsequent abduction and senseless torture. Till's body was eventually discovered, three days after his kidnapping, bound to a cotton gin fan with baling wire near the local river. What followed is every bit as shocking – the local law enforcement moved quickly to try and literally bury the incident while Till's mother, Mamie, fought from Chicago to have her son's body returned to her, allowing for an open casket funeral, which as interviewee Al Sharpton explains, "says more than a thousand speeches ever could."

Following the public funeral, the trial for the two Mississippi men accused of kidnapping and murdering Till – Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam – began, although Till's mother had an inkling as to what the outcome would be. Indeed, the all-male, all-white jury returned with a verdict of not guilty after deliberating for all of an hour. Not long after, Milam and Bryant confessed to Look magazine for $4,000, but the concept of "double jeopardy" made it impossible to retry the case. Suspicions were long held that other men, aside from Milam and Bryant, were involved in Till's abduction and murder, but until Beauchamp initiated this project, the case lay dormant, one of the great unsolved mysteries in American legal history.

The centerpiece of Beauchamp's film is his extensive interviews with Mamie Till-Mobley – her harrowing description of first laying eyes upon Emmett's brutalized body is chilling and unforgettable. By eschewing a narrator, Beauchamp allows this landmark story to be told by those who lived it, which lends an urgency and authenticity to this inherently compelling piece of scandalized American history. The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till is gripping filmmaking, a viscerally angry documentary that pins you to your seat.

The Video:

Presented in a serviceable 1.33:1 fullscreen transfer, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till looks solid, despite its reliance upon 50-plus year old archival footage. The newly filmed interviews look sharp and clear.

As befits a film reliant upon numerous interviews, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till arrives on DVD with a perfectly fine Dolby 2.0 soundtrack that provides clean, distortion-free dialogue and allows the score to fill in with minimal distraction.

The supplemental materials included help further flesh out the Till case and its impact upon the American civil rights movement: Beauchamp contributes an informative, dense commentary with a pair of informational screens detail the work of the Harvard Civil Rights project; the 26 minute, fullscreen featurette "The Impact of The Emmett Till Case in American History and Today" features moderator Andrew Grant-Thomas, attorney Jenny Lopez, professor Charles Ogletree and professor Gary Orfield discussing the case's cultural and legal ramifications. The film's theatrical trailer and trailers for I Love Your Work, Protocols of Zion and Born Into Brothels rounds out the disc.

A vital, essential document, The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till is an achingly poignant film that reveals the wounded truth behind one of America's most heinous crimes. Highly recommended.