With the new documentary “Anita,” the Oscar-winning director Freida Mock (“Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision”) brings a fresh perspective to a somber and awkward chapter of modern American politics: the Senate hearings to confirm Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court amid accusations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill.
In the first half of this marvelously structured film, Ms. Mock deftly segues from the hearings to present-day interviews with people who were in that room in 1991, including Ms. Hill, her lawyer and her friends. This gives a sense of an annotated version of familiar words and images. (Among those interviewed are Jill Abramson, the executive editor of The New York Times, who covered the trial for The Wall Street Journal and wrote, with Jane Mayer, the 1994 book “Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas.”)
Ms. Mock shows the ways the Senate proceedings quickly collapsed amid racial unease after Mr. Thomas declared that his confirmation was imperiled as a result of a “high-tech lynching.” He was referring to himself and not to Ms. Hill.