San Francisco F'ilm Festival Native Son Comes to the Screen Special Section: Black Women Filmmakers Break the Silence

• ••• • ••••• •••••• ••••••• Vol. 2, 0.3 Summer 1986 $3.00

Co-produced with the Black Film Institute of the University of the District of Columbia POSIT-IV·E DUTI'ON'S, INC. OBSERVES

BY OFFERING THREE SEPARATE OPPORTUNITIES TO SEE NEW FILMS BY AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN FILMMAKERS TAKE WORKSHOPS IN DIRECTING AND SCRIPTWRITING AND HEARING PANEL DISCUSSIONS ON AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN FILMMAKING Events AFRICAN FILM MINI SERIES FOURTH ANNUAL BENEFIT FILM FESTIVAL Biograph Theatre Benning Library March 3-6 August 7) 13) 21 & 27

"Bridges - A retrospective of African and African American Cinema"" - Fall 1986 American Film Festival

for more information call (202) 529-0220

,MYPHEDUH FILMS, INC.

Af.rican and African American filmmakers are struggling to make their points of view known. African American families are struggling to find media relevent to their own experiences. We are working to bring these two groups together. We - distribute films nationally and internationally (members of the Committee of African Cineaste: For the Defense of African Filmmakers). Our new­ est arrivals include seven new titles made by African filmmakers. For brochures contact: MYPHEDUH FILMS} INC. 48 Q Street} N.E.} Washington} D.C. 20002 (202) 529-0220. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Vol. 2, No. 3/Summer 1986

Crossing Cultures: An Interview with Hanif Kureishi Black Film Review by Pat Aufderheide 110SSt.,NW Playwright and screenwriter talks about My Beauttful Laundrette. With a Washington, DC 20001 review of the film by Stephanie Faul p. 4 (202) 745 -0455 Black Films in San Francisco Editor and Publisher by A. Jacquie Taliaferro David Nicholson This year's San Francisco International Film Festival featured an extensive Consulting Editor program of black films p. 6 Tony Gittens (Black Film Institute) Native Son Returns to the Screen Associate Editors b David Nicholson Pat Aufderheide; Keith Boseman; A new film based on Richard Wright's classic novel is slated for release A. Jacquie Taliaferro; Clyde Taylor this year. With an interview with screenwriter Richard Wesley p. 8 Contributing Editors Liane P. Davis; Stephanie Faul; Black Women Filmmakers Break the Silence Bell Hooks; LeighJackson; Karen by Bell Hooks Jaehne; Arthur P. Johnson; Ales­ Silence has characterized black women in the arts, but black women sandra Lutiger; Sergio Mims; filmmakers are expressing new and different visions p. 14 Salim Muwakkil; Saundra Sharp; James A. Snead Special Feature: Black Women Filmmakers Designer Kathleen Collins, Ayoka Chenzira, Debra Robinson, and others p. 16 Robert Sacheli Typography Art Vs. Ideology: The Great Debate Word Design, Inc. by Salim Muwakkil The problems facing black people demand a more complex response Black Ftlm Review (ISSN 0887-5723) is to films and other works of art p. 26 published four times a year by Sojourner Productions, Inc., a non-profit corporation Spike lee looks Forward to Success organized and incorporated in the District The director of She s Gotta Have It talks about his new film : p. 28 of Columbia. This issue is co-produced with the Black Film Institute of the University of the District of Columbia. Subscriptions Oscar Micheaux Receives Special Award are $10 a ear for indi iduals 20 a ear for by Saundra Sharp institutions. Add 5 per year for overseas Director's Guild recognizes the pioneer black filmmaker p. 32 subscriptions. Send all correspondence con­ cerning subscriptions and submissions to the above address' submissions must include Passion and Memory a stamped, self-addressed envelope. No pan by James A. Snead of this publication may be reproduced with­ Roy Campanella, Jr.'s look at black film stars p. 35 out written consent of the publisher. Logo and contents copyright ©Sojourner Produc­ tions, Inc., 1986, and in the name of in­ Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo dividual contributors. by leigh Jackson A new film about the Argentine women who gathered to protest the Black Ftlm Review welcomes submissions disappearance of their children despite fears of official reprisals p. 37 from writers but we prefer that you first query with a letter or a telephone call. All unsolicited manuscripts must be accompa­ Women Toil to Make the World's Goods nied by a stamped self-addressed envelope. by Alessandra Lutiger Manuscripts must also be typewritten Lorraine Gray's new film, The Global Assembly Line, explores off-shore double-spaced, and include the author's ad­ production in Third World nations p. 39 dress and telephone number on each page. On request, v, ith a stamped self-addressed en\-e ope, \\~e v"ill end a cop of our guide­ Features Ii e_ 0 - 're con idering a submission. Film Clips p. 2 Reviews ' p. 41 2 Black Fzlm Review Film Clips •••••••••••••••••••• Notes on People, Issues, and Events

uring the 1985 Ougadougou Pan­ People he did not believed it had hurt black peo­ African Cinema Festival festival ple. 'Actually" he said, "the series had many [BFR Vol. 1 No.4], a contingent of Tony Gittens, director of the Black episodes that showed the Negro with profes­ Afro-American and Afro-British Film Institute of the University of the Dis­ sions and businesses like attorneys, store D trict of Columbia, is co-programming this filmmakers was assured an application for owners, and so on which they never had associate, non-voting membership in the year's Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, to take in TV or rno ies before." Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers place in upstate New York August 9-16. The (FEPACI) would be favorably received. Plans Seminar, in its 32nd year, is a week-long oc­ are now underway throughout the US to de­ casion for the viewing and discussing of Calls for Papers velop that application and for participation films and videotapes. in the 10th session ofFESPACO, next Febru­ For more information: The Black Film SAGE: A Scholarl Journal on Black ary 21- 27 in Burkina Faso. Institute; University of the District of WOmen is soliciting manuscripts for its Those plans include a tribute to Paul Columbia; 800 Mt. Vernon Place, N.W.; Spring 1987 issue on "Black Women as Ar­ Robeson with a special appearance by Har­ Washington, DC 20001; (202) 727-2396. tists and Artisans." Editors are seeking ry Belafonte. manuscripts on black women filmmakers, Filmmaker Haile Gerima, who coordi­ Filmmaker William Greaves received visual artists, photographers, etc. Deadline nated the visi t by the US delegation to the the Association of Independent Video & for submissionsJanuary 15, 1987.-For more 9th session in 1985, is urging filmmakers Filmmakers's Lifetime Achievement Award information and guidelines, send a self­ who wish to participate to begin planning March 21 in New York ....Television actress addressed, stamped envelope to: SAGE: A now. It is hoped the US contingent can ar­ Marla Gibbs received the Frances E. Wil­ ScholarlyJournal on Black Women; PO Box range to meet in Burkina Faso a week be­ Iams Tribute Award May 4 from Black 42721; Atlanta, GA 30311-0741. fore the festival. As Gerima points out, op­ Women in Theatre West, Inc. in Los An­ portunities available to black US filmmakers geles. CinemAction, the French film maga­ through increased participation in FEPACI zine, seeks articles for a special issue on might include broader distribution offilms, Alvin Childress, Amos in the TV series black filmmakers in the Americas - the co-productions and financing, co-operative Amos 'n' Andy, died in April in Inglewood, U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean. fur teaching training, and work overseas. Calif. He was 74. Childress, responding to more information: Guy Hennebelle, "Many black filmmakers now support criticism of the show-which was forced off CinemAction, 106 Boulevard St. Denis, themselves by making films for other peo­ the air because of complaints about stereo­ 92400 Courbevoie, France. You may cor­ ple to get the money to do their own films," typed characters and situations- once said respond in English. • Gerima said. "But there are many documentaries made in Africa, and the work goes to white filmmakers in the US, France, and Germany. If you're going to support yourself doing odd jobs, why not This Issue's Contributors initiate or make an effort to create a co­ producer relationship with different Afri­ Pat Aufderheide is the cultural editor Arthur J. Johnson has written film can production outfits?" of In These Times and a frequent contribu­ reviews and about film for several metropli­ One concrete result of the 1985 festival tor to national film magazines ....Keith tan Washington publications .... Allesan­ was an agreement between Burkina Faso Boseman is cultural editor for the Citizen dra Lutiger has written for Washington-area and Howard University to co-produce a Newspaper chain and film critic for the Chi- arts and entertainment publications .... tourism film, under the direction of Abiyi cago Observer Liane P. Davis is a Wash- Sergio Mims is a Chicago writer who assists Ford of the Howard School of Communi­ ington writer Stephanie Faul writes the in programming the Blacklight Film Festival cations. Two Howard students went to Bur­ "On the Town" column for Presidential Air­ ....Salim Muwakkil is features editor and kina Faso last winter, and several Burkinabe ways magaz1ne. a staff writer for In These Times . ...Black are scheduled to come to the US this sum­ Bell Hooks, a/k/a/ Gloria Watkins, is FIlm Review Editor David Nicholson is a mer to edit the film. an assistant professor at Yale University in former newspaper and wire service reporter. Gerima said he is willing to donate the English and Afro-American Studies. She is A writer, actress, and filmmaker, Saun­ use of his films for programs des~gned to the author of two books-Ain't IA WOm­ dra Sharp lives in Los Angeles .... James raise funds for filmmakers to travel to an: Black WOman andFeminism and Fem­ A. Snead, associate professor ofEnglish and FESPACO 87. For more information about inist Theory: From Margin to Cen­ comparative literature at Yale University, efforts to assure participation of black in­ ter. ... Leigh Jackson is assistant editor of writes frequently about black images in film dependents at the festival, contact Dee Bak­ American Visz'ons magazine ....Karen .... A. Jacquie Taliaferro, an actor, writer, er or Misty Brown at Positive Productions; Jaehne is a Washington, D.C.-based film and filmmaker who makes his home in the 48 Q St., NE; Washington, DC, 20002; critic who writes for Variety and other na­ B(!.y. Area, lives by the motto "Cinema to (202) 529-0220. tional film publications. the max." Summer 1986 3 Film Clips •••••••••••••••••••• New Work in Film, Video, and Other Media

en years ago, New York filmmaker those who oppose the system. Among those Roman Foster promised one of the massacred is Placido, whose poetry inspired men who dug the Panama Canal that the abolitionists and the masses. The would not rest until he had told France: Willie Rameau has completed their story. That story, Diggers, is a power­ and released Lien de Parente, which is due ful new film, produced and directed by Fos­ for U.S. distribution. ter and scheduled to air inJuly on PBS. The Germany: Cecil Brown has completed film, narrated by Brock Peters, tells the a new film Double Life, about a black wom­ hitherto undocumented story of the an in Berlin. Brown is in development on 100,000 West Indian laborers who dug, dy­ a feature film Nadine, the story of a black namited, and moved tons ofearth to create man from Detroit who goes to Germany to the Canal. A 60-minute version of the film sell a house that belonged to his father and was screened in May at the Organization of finds he has a half-German sister. American States in Washington, DC. Though the film softpedals the polit­ ical machinations by the U.S. that led to Classic Radio Recreated Colombia's forced ceding of the territory Multi-Media Training Institute has re­ that became Panama, this is not a weakness. ceived grants from National Endowment of Foster focuses on the narratives of the Cuban director Sergio Giral on the set of the Arts and National Public Radio to pro­ men-mani of them now in their 90s­ Placido. (Photo: Marc PoKempner) duce four radio dramas called Destination who dug the Canal. They wanted the work Freedom. Series originally aired from 1948­ because in the 1900s a West Indian labor­ 50 on WMAQ-AM in Chicago, portraying er could earn as little as 24 cents a day. London: Black film collectives have lives of blacks prominent in education, the Thus, as one says in the film, "Even 10 cents been active this year. Sankofa is in post­ arts, sports, and civil rights. Original series an hour to come to Panama was better than production on a feature titled Systems. member Oscar Brown, Jr. , is artistic director. to stay in Barbados." Meanwhile, Kuubma Productions has com­ Multi-Media and Howard Univet;sity's Despite the low pay, backbreaking pleted The Street Wamors for Channel Four, School of Communications also sponsored work, and constant danger (thousands of and members have gone to Guyana to be­ a June forum "Trends in Minority Partici­ men died), those who testify in the film re­ gin another project. Black Film and Audio pation in the Media: An Overall Perspec­ call, without exception, their work with is in postproduction on Handsworth Song. tive." Forum featured Dwight Ellis, vice pride. Theirs is an impervious Afro-British And Horace Ove (pressure, A Hole in Baby­ president of Minority and Special Services of dignity, evident in crisp accents, erect lon) has completed two films in India, Who the National Association of Broadcasters. heads, and steady, though arthritis-twisted Shall We Tell?, on the Bhopal disaster, and For information: Multi-Media Training hands. We come, quite simply, to admire Dabawalla. Ove is also in production on Institute; PO Box 56461; Washington, DC the men. And, instead of pitying them as Playing Away, a black feature for Channel 20011; (202) 635-0119. victims of a sordidly imperialistic era, we Four. too, feel proud and gain a new understand­ Burkina Faso: Med Hondo (West In­ ing of the human cost of constructing the dies, SolezlO) is in production on San-ou­ Jamaican Festival Planned Canal. nia: An Afncan Queen. Gaston Kabore has From]amaica, Victoria Marshall writes The film, in color, includes contem­ completed Propos Sur Le Cinema Afncain, that she and Pat Ramsay, owner/curator of porary stills and film footage of the build­ and is now working on a drama about a The Gallery, a forum for cultural activities, ing ofthe canal. It was shot in Panama, Bar­ peasant caught up in urban renewal, tenta­ are planning a program of international bados, Jamaica, and other Caribbean tively called Armed Struggle. films. Marshall writes, "The idea is to estab­ islands. A 98-minute version of the film Cuba: Sergio Giral (The Other Fran­ lish an on-going international film series, goes on to tell the story ofthe diggers once cisco, Maluala) is in postproduction on Placi­ particularly highlighting films of the Third the canal was finished. do, a drama on a 19th century black poet, World, so thatJamaicans can see what's go­ For information: Roman Foster; 108 the son of a Spanish dancer and a mestizo ing on in other parts of the world ... W. 15th St.; New York, NY 10011; (212) barber. The poet gains fame from his writ­ through the eyes of the inhabitants or in­ 924-3543. ing, but his relationships, which cross social dependent filmmakers, not the Hollywood lines, make him aware of the repressive na­ establishment. Features, personalized European, African, and ture of the society in which he lives. This documentaries, and 'docu-dramas'· are the Cuban Productions becomes reflected in his poetry, and makes types of films we intend to show." the Spanish officials aware of him. Because If you are interested in supporting the Floyd Webb of Blacklight reports the of constant slave revolts and conflicts with proposal, or want more information, con­ following news of productions by filmmak­ those Spanish born on the island, the tact Victoria Marshall at (809) 927-4926 af­ ers in Europe and in Mrica: government decides to make an example of ter 6 p.m. EST.• 4 Black Film Review Interview ••••••••••••••••••• Hanif Kureishi on My Beautiful Laundrette

By Pat Aufderheide Within a coming-of-age story about vision offers them one-dimensional views Omar (Gordon Warnecke), who takes on of the life the are li,ing. So do most films. y Beautzful Laundrette seemed the job ofrunning his hustler uncle's "laun­ Even a film b someone I deepl respect­ the least likely hit of 1986. A drette" with his sometime-lover Johnny Woody Allen-Hannah and Her Sisters is film about a gay Pakistani laun­ (Daniel Day Lewis) - a white punk trying very one-dimensional. I v.. anted to make dromat manager in Mrs. Thatch- to shed his fascist National Front affiliations something more complicated, more ambig­ er'sMEngland, it was made for British TV on without losing his identity-My Beautzful uous. a relatively low budget of $900,000. Chan­ Laundrette explores the social, political and nel Four, a joint project of the British economic conflicts defining England today. government and the British Film Institute, BFR: Your portra al of the Pakistani com­ Kureishi toured the U.S. this spring, munity is not kind - ou sho\\ greediness, founded to fund innovative, offbeat, and and spoke with Black FzJm Review about ­ underheard voices, backed the project. And corruption, opportunism among the suc­ the film, its themes and its place In an cessful businessmen. yet the film, directed by veteran director emerging international culture. Stephen Frears (Gumshoe, The Hit) and Kureishi: Yes, that's a crucial part of the written by 29-year-old Anglo-Pakistani story. It's true that Pakistanis are oppressed playwright Hanif Kureishi, became a star BFR: You really packed the film with so­ by racism in England but man) are mak­ on the festival circuit and then a hit in Brit­ cial conflicts-class, race, generation, cul­ ing a lot of money. It's a similar problem ish cinemas after the original 16mm print ture. Why did you attempt so much at for Koreans, as I understand it here in the was blown up to 35mm. Once picked up once? black community. Pakistanis have become by Orion Classics, the film became a criti­ Kureishi: Well, in general, I think au­ an important source of support for cal and box office success in the U. S. diences have been very undemanding. Tele- Thatcher- she gets mone from Pakistani businessmen. That's one reason the film is a little hard for a liberal audience. The are used simply to sympathizing with Pakistanis who Around halfway through, when they see are being beaten up by fascists. I've given boys biting each other's chests, they can't them a fuller picture. take it." BFR: Did you intend to make a drama that would provoke criticism and analysis? Kureishi: Yes, I use the film educationally in classrooms in England, where there are black and Asian kids. It always starts dis­ cussions about gays, about being black, about being Asian. They usually begin to argue among themselves about their own prejudices. The reaction among boys and girls is different. The boys, it completely freaks them out. Around halfway through, when they see boys biting each other's chests, they can't take it. The girls are always better about it.

BFR: And yet the film is also a kind of up­ scale fable, with the Pakistani and English boy falling in love and setting up a trendy business. Kureishi: The end ofthe film is a bit false. The two boys stay together, and you might Rosan Seth, left, is the father in My Beautiful Laundrette, while Daniel Day Lewis plays see it that class and race are reconciled by Johnny, the punk and some-time 'Paki-basher.' (Orion Pictures Pharo) love. Summer 1986 5

BFR: Were you forced to write a happy end­ very interesting. They have a surrealism that I imagined it when I wrote it to look some­ ing for commercial considerations, or did is today's realism. thing like Mean Streets, which it didn't you want it that way? My next film is going to be even more eventually. The dialogue is too written, per­ Kureishi: It was a little of both. I was pres­ surreal and even closer to life. It's a heter­ haps. But I like the rough quality in films. sured to end it happily, but I also chose it. osexuallove story called Sammie andRosie I don't like films made with too much Ofcourse, I realize that social and political Get Laid, about a second-generation money-they're too finished. Films that are problems are only solved by redistribution Pakistani-a kind of yuppie in London­ like punk records made in someone's ofmoney and power. But I didn't want an whose father comes to visit him and sees garage-that's interesting. With too much unhappy ending either. I didn't want to how much England has changed since the money, you've got the producers looking have a movie say that a relationship among 1950s. Once again, it has the elements of over your shoulder, and they have no con­ gays was impossible. race, sexual politics, and class in it. tact with audiences, so they have no hope of knowing what will work. BFR: What was the reaction ofyour family BFR: How have gays in England reacted to and the Pakistani community to the film? the film? BFR: How much of this film is autobio­ Kureism: It's been a bit touchy. My' father Kureishi: In England, it's been very well graphical? and mother reacted OK, but in Pakistan received. But in England, to be gay is to Kureishi: There's a lot of myself in it, as they've disapproved strongly, primarily be-' be political as well. Being gay is'an entrance you can tell from the book [My Beauttful cause of the gay theme. That's the lowest' to a wider politics of the oppressed. In this Laundrette, Faber and Faber, London, thing there, for a man to kiss another man. country, I have had criticisms of the film 1985]. I wrote an introduction to the screen- And to kiss a white, working-class boy-! for not focusing enough on gay oppression, play explaining my background, of being They wouldn't see the criticism of the ra­ and some gay writers have said that it's "not rejected partly by people you love. I had pacious businessmen anyway, or the emp­ a gay film." I thought it was a triumph to a lot of friends in the late 1970s who were tiness of his family life. To them, all that write characters who happened to be gay. very right wing, white English punks, sup­ just looks like successful Pakistanis living the 1'm shocked to find that one-dimensional porters of Enoch Powell. I grew up know­ good life. political attitude here, and don't under­ ing there was another country, and also stand it. knowing I had to make it in England. Our BFR: And the Pakistani community in Eng­ lives perforce are a synthesis. land? BFR: The film has an extremely elegant de­ The English have a pride in being Eng­ Kureishi: It was mostly in London, which SIgn. lish that is very insular, a residue of false is where the ftlm showed, and basically that Kureishi: It's interesting that you say that, community doesn't go to the movies. They because I never expected that to be true. Continued on page 44 sit at home and watch Hindi movies on their VCRs.

BFR: How did the film's budget affect what Film Is Rife With Social Themes you chose to do? Kureishi: It actually freed me somewhat. By Stephanie Fanl don't react to each other. They're all too On that amount ofmoney, you haven't got busy talking to listen, too busy expound­ everyone on your back telling you what to hile My BeauttfulLaundrette is ing to be affected except occasionally. do all the time. On the other hand, you rife with social themes, it is the When moments ofreal contact occur, they have to work quickly-no more than four homosexual theme that has are touching and genuine, particularly be­ takes, and sometimes we had to cut around Wcaught most of the critical at­ tween Omar andJohnny. But for the most problems we couldn't solve. We filmed it tention. The two main romantic characters part, actions occur in a void, and the fall­ in 16mm and it was later blown up to are male, but their relationship is treated out is never shown. Characters talk past, at, 35mm when they decided to take it to with a refreshing off-handedness- merely and through each other without reacting to theaters. We never intended it to go into one more way humans relate to each oth­ the response. theaters. It was always to be on television. er. Any outrage is reserved for miscegena­ The action itself is terse and choppy. That's why you see the style that Stephen tion, not homoeroticism. Johnny (Daniel Scenes flow in a disjointed stagger from one [Frears] used, with a lot of closeups. Day Lewis), a down-and-out London punk episode to the next; we see actions begin­ And yet you notice that the film did and sometime Paki-basher, has no visible ning but not their completion. This pace very well in the theaters. Laundrette made family and his mates on the street appear lends the film a kind ofungraceful gait that more money last year in England than any­ more incensed that he's hanging around echoes Omar's adolescent stride. Likewise, thing but Letter to Brezhnev, another film with a Pakistani than with what he and the the dialogue hops along; Omar is the fac­ about young people and their search for Pakistani do with each other. Omar (Gor­ ile entrepreneur (withJohnny), while with meaning in Mrs. Thatcher's England. Both don Warnecke) is the product ofan extend­ his relatives he lapses into wide-eyed silence of them made a lot more money than Plen­ ed clan, and although it's clear by the last and awkward pauses. ty, and that had Meryl Streep in it. People third of the film that almost everyone in But back to social problems. One want films about contemporary life. it knows what's going on, no one says any­ beneficial effect of having the major ro­ thing about it. There's even talk ofhis mar­ mance in the film a homosexual liaison is BFR: The visual style is reminiscent ofrock rying his cousin Tania (Rita Wolf), who at that it effectively serves to separate three of videos. least seems aware enough not to get terri­ the major issues addressed: the problem of Kureishi: Yes, that's Stephen, and its bly enthusiastic over the deal. immigrants in an alien society; the prob- deliberate. Rock videos are fatuous, most But one of the major problems with of them, but they way they're shot can be My BeautifulLaundrette is that its people Continued on page 43 6 Film Review San Francisco Film Festival First Black Cine1na Senes Provided Foru1ns, Debates, andFil1ns

By A. ]acquie Taliaferro

an Francisco is multi-ethnic, a city of As Reggie Brown, whose film If Beale many cultures. This unique melting pot Street Could Talk (1983) was shown during the was reflected in the 29th San Francisco festival put it, "The cost of filmmaking these SInternational Film Festival, March 19-30, days is so high that most filmmakers are caught which featured about 100 film programs and between making a long bad film and short good some of the world's best films and filmmakers. films." The festival program included Asian, Latin Ashley James, vice president of the Film American, British, and women's films and, for Arts Foundation, a Bay Area organization that the first time, an extensive Black Cinema Series. offers services to independent film- and Although black-oriented films, like Stan videomakers, said, "Right now, the state of in­ Lathan's Go Tell it on the Mountain, have been dependent filmmaking is the lowest it's been shown in the past, this year's was a special pro­ since the 60s and, with Reaganomics at work, gram of about 15 films by and about black peo­ it does not look like things are going to improve ple and the black experience. soon. But, a determined filmmaker will always In addition to a program on music and find a way." dance-And Sttfl We Dance (Ashley James, James said he thought the BCS (and the 1985); Improvisation II and Empty Sky (Linda Latin Film Series and the Bay Area Filmmakers Gibson, 1980; Honky-Tonk Bud (Scott Laster Showcase) could have been better publicized, and T.]. Beagan, 1985); and Little Richard and he complained that the location of many (David Hinton, 1985) - the films included: Af of the films in the black series made it difficult ter Winter, (1985), Haile Gerima's documen­ for blacks to attend. tary on poet, critic, and teacher Sterling Brown; Still, he said, "Film festivals are a good and juju, (1986), Ghanaian King Ampaw's place to show your work." Though not a mar­ comic story of an elder who refuses to be shunt­ ket, the San Francisco festival provided an ex­ ed into retirement. cellent opportunity for many black filmmakers The hit of the festival was the U. S. pre­ to have their work shown and (possibly) picked miere of Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It (1986), up by a distributor. A representative from the a feature-length modern romance about a wom­ National Black Programming Consortium, one an trying to choose between three lovers. ofthe country's largest distributors of black tel­ The festival also featured several seminars, evision programming, flew in from Ohio. James' including, "Beyond Boundaries: The Black Ex­ And Sttfl We Dance was picked up by a Bay perience in Media," which featured actor Dan­ Area distributor to be shown before Dance Black ny Glover, and filmmakers Carol Munday America. Representatives from Island, Orion, Lawrence, Bill Duke, and Spike Lee; and "How and Goldwyn reportedly were in the audience We Did It: Creating Our Vision, Maintaining for She's Gotta Have It. Independence" and "Distribution and Mar~et­ During the BCS seminar, participants dis­ ing for Independence" both sponsored by the cussed the gamble offilmmaking and the need Northern California chapter ofthe Independent for highly specialized skills in that competitive Feature Project. These and the BCS provided an industry. Bill Duke, one ofHollywood's hottest opportunity for black filmmakers to discuss directors and an actor featured in Car Wash, common problems and concerns. Amencan Gigolo, and Commando, stressed that Many noted, despite the strong showing of filmmaking is "show business, not art business." black films for the first time at the festival, the Good scripts for black talent sit on absence of recently-produced feature-length producers' shelves and, because there are so few films by or about black people. black producers, few films with black themes are Summer 1986 7

Ie city's unique melting pot was reflected in the festival's 100 film programs andsome ofthe world's best films andfilmmakers

made. And, even when a good script is pro­ raised by Danny Glover, star of The Color Pur­ Panelists during a session duced, it often goes through the Hollywood ple, Silverado, Places in the Heart, and Witness, on blacks in media at the washdown. who said, 'Just because a story is about blacks San Francisco International As a case in point, Duke told ofhis recent­ doesn't mean only black people are interested Ftlm Festival. From left, actor and director Btll ly-produced The Johnnie Gibson Story, a film in it. People in]apan go to see Shakespeare not Dukes; actor Danny Glover; about the first black woman FBI special agent. for cultural enrichment, but because he is an filmmaker Carol Munday Before Duke could begin shooting, he and his excellent storyteller and everyone loves a good Lawrence; andfilmmaker producer went through a total of 24 script story." Spike Lee. (Photo: © djovida) changes before the FBI and other agencies would Duke and Lee often seemed at odds dur­ approve the production. ing the panel discussion, yet perhaps they are "I've been working on it for years," Duke not at opposite ends of the cinema spectrum. said. "I had to compromise a little just to get While Lee feels that good films do not neces­ the project out." sarily have to be made in Hollywood, he does While Duke said he recognized that many not oppose using the Hollywood system of dis­ changes need to take place, he noted that tribution. In that sense, he agreed with Duke, change of any significance usually comes slow­ who feels filmmakers can work ·in both medi­ ly. "Hollywood is more than a name; it's an es­ ums, especially in the area of distribution. tablishment," he said. "To change an establish­ Lawrence and others made the point that ment, you must know it inside and out and then a film does not have to cost millions of dollars strive to make the changes." to have high production values and demonstrate Carol Munday Lawrence~ one of the few the integrity of the film. Lee said his film cost successful black women producers, supported less than $20,000 to make, using deferred pay­ this point. ments and classmates from New York Univer­ "The bottom line is profit," she said. "Can sity on the crew. The film was made in less than your film make a profit? Black people aren't go­ two weeks and most of the shooting was done ing to see your film just because a black person five blocks from his home. Yet, Lee said he made it. You don't want to isolate yourself­ would have done nothing differently if he had you should make a film that all people can re­ had a Hollywood budget. late to." "This," he said, "is the film I wanted. The question of universal themes was also wouldn't change anything." • Black Fzlm Review Victor Love Looks Forward To Native Son

By David Nicholson

ictor Love was in Cleveland appearing in mances of Othello. Love continued commuting Othello when he learned that the actor that weekend, leaving Cleveland Sunday night tapped to play Bigger Thomas in the new not knowing if he would be called back to the Vfilm of Richard Wright's novel Native Cleveland Playhouse because his replacement Son had decided not to take the role. Shooting had been unable to take over the part. was scheduled to begin in five days in Chicago. "I had very little time to work on the role And Love, who had earlier auditioned for the of Bigger Thomas," Love said. "What really part, was now being offered his first film role. saved me was that I had read the book, prepared That March Thursday morning, he flew to for the audition with every intention ofgetting Chicago to confer with producer Diane Silver it, and knew quite a bit about how I would play and director Jerrold Freedman, then flew back it if I would get it." to Cleveland for matinee and evening perfor- Native Son, slated for release later this year,

Matt Dzllon, left, is Jan, whose girlfriend is kzlled by Bigger Thomas, played by Victor Love Summer 1986 9 is based on Wright's novel published in 1940. Brothers ofAmerica, and Aetna Life Insurance. It is the story of a young black man who kills He continues to study privately in New York. a white girl-the daughter of the Chicago man Love grew up in a comfortable Los Angeles who has hired him as a chauffeur. Arrested af­ home. Both his parents have master's degrees, ter he kills again, Bigger is convicted and calm­ and he was president ofhis class in high school. ly faces execution with a new awareness ofhim­ But, while he admits that because Bigger's life self and his life. It is a story of fear and was so different from his own, the choices he alienation, anger and the beginnings of self­ had to make as an actor were "so much clear­ realization. er," Love said: The production is the second version ofthe "There are lots of incidents in my life and film. The first, released in 1951, was shot in Ar­ in my chemistry as a man that bring me pain. gentina and starred Wright himself as Bigger. And I think there is an intrinsic understanding A stage version, starring Canada Lee, was ofpain once you are a feeling human being. Big­ produced in New York by the Mercury Theater ger came from pain. He came from fear." in 1941. Once he knew that he had landed the role Producer Silver bought the rights to the of Bigger, Love worked alone and with the cos­ novel about two and one-halfyears ago. But, de­ tume designer-even altering the shoes he spite the recent success ofHollywood films star­ would wear-to ensure the authenticity of his ring blacks (A Soldier's Story and The Color Pur­ portrayal. ple), bringing Native Son to the screen a second "We cut offpart of the heels ofmy shoes," time was no easy task. Mter she was turned down he said, "so that my walk couldn't help but be by the major studios, Silver finally persuaded a a certain way. And we made the clothes fit so variety of sources-PBS' Amen·can Playhouse; they were tighter than they had to be. We didn't Vestron, a videocassette distributor; and Cine­ go with making me comfortable in my clothes, com, an independent theatrical distributor­ but made them those ofa man who had bought to come up with the film's comparatively small them maybe four years before, and then gone $2 million budget. into a growth spurt." Making a movie for that sum was, she says, On the set, he would sit by himself, think­ "Hell." ing about how Bigger would feel in a particular Calledfive days be­ "You don't want to know about it, and you scene. At the time of the shooting, Love lived don't want to do it." in Harlem where, he said, he was surrounded fore shooting began, One example ofthe limitations imposed by by much the same environment as the one in Love had little time to the film's budget was the decision to shoot in which Bigger is trapped. He said, however, the Chicago for only eight days, and then to com­ affinity he developed for the character was more work on the role. But plete the film in Los Angeles. "I would have than that. he had auditioned and liked to stay longer," Silver admitted, "but we "I did not become him, but something knew from the beginning that we would be un­ about his spirit did overwhelm me for quite a thought about how he able to stay." while," Love said. "This was one of three roles wouldplay Bigger Nonetheless, despite the paucity of I've played where I didn't wear any makeup at resources, the film attracted a talented cast­ all. Some physical transformation came over me Thomas. all worked for scale - and production staff. that had to do more with an energy that was Akosua Busia and Oprah Winfrey, both of inside. Even my parents, when they saw the pic­ whom were featured in The Color Purple, play tures of me in the newspaper, my mother said Bigger's girlfriend and his mother. Elizabeth that if she hadn't known it was me, she would McGovern (Ragtime, Ordinary People) is Mary have just looked past them." Dalton, the girl Bigger kills, and Carrol Baker Love now recalls playing Bigger as a power­ her mother. Matt Dillon plays Jan, Mary Dal­ ful experience, like "a frightening dream I'm ton's boyfriend, and Geraldine Page (who won now very happy is over." an Oscar this year for her role in The Tnji to "Ifsomeone were to call me tomorrow and Bounttful) plays the Dalton family maid. say, 'We lost this day of filming,' I really would The film was directed byJerrold Freedman, be very, very shaken to have to go back to that who has worked primarily in television. And pain, to have to go back to that understanding Richard Wesley, who has amassed a host of and acceptance of a life condition. And I don't screenwriting credits, including Uptown Satur­ know if I could do it," he said. day Night, Let's Do It Again, and Fast Forward), "I don't think I have played a man who's wrote the script. [See accompanying had as many dimensions that had to be shown interview - Ed.} as this man. Every character is as complete and Compared with some ofthe other actors in complex, on some level, as Bigger is. But Big­ the film, Love is an unknown. After studying act­ ger was in a situation-we see him at a time in ing at Los Angeles City College, he went on to his life where it's life and death. And that life the Professional Actors Training Program at the and death situation brings to the surface all of University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee. Since finish­ the things this man is. All his passions, all his ing that program, he has acted here and over­ needs, all his fears. How often in our lives are seas, done commercial ~ork-Levi's, Big we called on to deal with all of these things?" 10 Black Ftlm Review

lithefilmproves controversia~ Lovesays he'll discuss his working methods, but he won't defendhis decision to take the role.

The complexity and power ofWright's dra­ "Our major concern was that we weren't creat­ ma aside, it is a better than even bet that, once ing another vehicle where black men and wom­ released, Native Son will engender more ofthe en would be depicted negatively," he said. "We controvery aroused by The Color Purple and, to spent a lot of time talking about why we were a lesser extent, A Soldier's Story. doing this and bringing what we thought was Silver says she wanted to film the novel truth to the characters." simply because it was such a "great dramatic Aware that he may be criticism, he says piece." he'll wait to see the film before he responds. "I hope it is a universal film," she said. "I "If it is the film I think I was making, I'm think it is, though it is peculiar to the state of not going to defend my work or defend my race relations in the U.S. film," he said. "I'll let people say what they need "I really can't imagine why anybody would to say. If they ask me direct questions about a take offense. It tells the story of growing up in point that isn't, 'Why did you do this?' or ifthey America. That's the meaning of the title. It's say, 'Can you explain what this moment was to part ofour culture. It's part ofour lives. It's part you?' I'll deal with that. But I'm not going to of our humanity. I hope nobody takes offense defend it. I'm an actor. They chose me to do at reality." the role and I followed through with it because Love says he, Busia, and Winfrey discussed I believed in it." • the question of images during the shooting.

Richard Wnght's novel Native Son returns to the screen with John Karlen, left, as Max, the defense lawyer, and Victor Love as Btgger Thomas. At nght is producer Diane StIver. Summer 1986 11

Interview Sc writer Richard Wesley o alive Son

ative Son screenwriter Richard Wesley When I came back to New Jersey, I read went to Howard University, where he the novel. Right around that time, there was a studied playwrighting under Owen series of articles in the newspapers about a Dodson and Ted Shines. After graduat­ Chicago basketball player named Ben Wilson ing in 1967, he joined a playwright's workshop who was shot down in the street, just for bump­ run by Ed Bullins, then writer-in-residence at ing into somebody. Wilson was 17. The boy I decided there was the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. In 1970, who pulled the trigger was 15. Everybody was Wesley became a member ofthe theatre and be­ trying to figure out why. What could make a value in writing this gan to have his plays produced. They attracted 15-year-old boy pull a gun out and shoot some­ script. The positives critical attention, and he won a Drama Desk one? Then there was the Bernard Goetz situa­ Award. A New wrk Times review of his play tion. Then there were things I were hearing from outweighed the fears Strike Heaven on the Face caught the eye of Sid­ former neighbors and friends I had grown up . ofnegative black ney Poitier, who was preparing for the release with in Newark. ofhis 1972 film A Ularm December. A meeting One night at Amiri Baraka's house, Claude images. " with Poitier led to Wesley's writing Uptown Brown [author of ManchzJd in the Promised Saturday Night (1974) and Let's Do it Again Land] and I had a conversation based on his (1975). He continues to write for the theater, as book ChzJdren ofHam and an article he had well as for television and film. This interview was written for The New York Times. He had gone conducted by BFR Editor David Nicholson. back to his old neighborhood in Harlem to talk to this new generation of black youth. And he BFR: When were you approached to do the was comparing them with the kids he had come screenplay of Native Son? up with. He was talking about how hostile and Wesley: In late 1983. I had just finished work angry and alienated these kids were and how on the first draft of a film called Fast Forward their value system bordered on nihilism. That for Sidney Poitier. Just as I was getting ready rang a bell. to come home, I met with Diane Silver. I was Richard Wright wrote about this 50 years reluctant to get involved with the project. I ex­ ago, I began thinking, and now it's come to fru­ plained to her that I had read the book some ition. It's almost like Native Son was a prophe­ years ago and had had serious problems with it. cy. And so I decided there was value in writing I didn't particularly like Bigger Thomas, I didn't this script and that the positives far outweighed like the choices he had to make. the fears of another negative image of black males on the screen. BFR: What changed your mind? Wesley: Diane did. She said, "Don't read the BFR: When did you actually begin to work on novel as Richard Wesley, son of loving parents the script? who grew up in a pretty stable environment, Wesley: I started in early December of1983. I graduate of Howard University, successful had a first draft by February of 1984. We did screenwriter. Read the novel in terms of being a polish, which took me into the spring of 1984. Bigger Thomas, alienated from society, whose And then I worked on it off and on through­ father has been murdered, who has been living out the rest of that year. for five years in an alien environment in Chica­ go, as opposed to rural Missssippi where he grew BFR: I want to ask a question about your back­ up. Who lives in a world of fear and rage, 24 ground. Was making the transition from stage hours a day." to screen difficult? The New Lafayette Theatre When she said that to me, something in­ was nothing like Uptown Saturday Night. side me just said, "That's the kind ofinsight and Wesley: No, it wasn't. My attitude was that the sensitivity I don't normally hear from people most valuable work that I was doing as a writer who produce films. And I think I would like was being done for the stage. It seemed to be to work with this person, because perhaps there the only place that I could say what I wanted is something ofvalue here that can be realized." to say. I was writing with my own voice. When 12 Black Fzlm Review

I was writing for film or television, it was never which was something that had never happened my voice. It was always the voice ofwhoever was to me. And the reason it was happening was I producing the project. I was more or less a trans­ was starting to take on a lot ofwork I wasn't in­ lator of other people's ideas. terested in. In the beginning it was very easy to do. As So the opportunity came to me to sort of I got older, and began to feel much more sure turn that around. I started wanting to do some­ ofmyself, and much more sure ofmy own capa­ thing ofvalue. When people started asking me bilities, I began to chafe a little bit. It became to write comedies, I started saying, "No." I said, very hard to be placed in a position where, even "No man, I don't want to do that anymore." if I had an idea that had validity, it had no val­ I found out I was getting typecast as a comedy ue ifit didn't meet the criteria the producers set. writer in California. I wanted to do something In the last couple of years, it has present­ else. ed a problem for me. But I stay with it, because When Diane Silver asked me about Native it's much more lucrative financially than thea­ Son. I said, "No." And then,.as I started think­ ter. And I've got growing kids who want to go ing about what she had said and what I wanted to college one day. as a writer, I began to realize Native Son was the perfect project for me. It became a labor of BFR: Right. Just don't get trapped in the F. love, something I'm particularly proud of. Scott Fitzgerald syndrome. book was very te Wesley: That's one thing I had to struggle not BFR: How difficult was it to translate the novel easy to translate. to have happen to me. I used to roll about in into a film script? How did you approach it? Wesley: The book was very easy to translate. The Wright wrote the nov­ self-pity and then I began to realize, "Hey man, this is an industry that chewed up and spit out first thought I had was that Richard Wright el almost as 1/ he was James Baldwin, John Killens, Lorraine Hansber­ wrote the novel almost as if he was writing the uJriting the outline for ry, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Ben outline for a screenplay. It's a highly visual nov­ Hecht." I said, "Hey if it could do that kind of el, except for the last third. a screenplay. It's a number on them, if I'm not careful .... " In the first draft, I translated everything highly visual novel. " I used to read articles essays and things that that was in the book. Every scene, every shot. some of these people had written about some I tried to get as many ideas as I possibly could of their experiences. And I came to realize what down on paper and wound up with a 250-page was so painful for them was that they came to first draft. Then I went back and started cut­ care too much. If you are hired by someone else ting. And Diane would cut. We cut 100 pages, to write a screenplay, what you have to realize and still kept the essence of each scene. Then is that it's their project, not yours. Whatever we had to go back a second time because we had they want, as long as it doesn't offend your own to get another 25 or 30 pages out. Those were standards, artistically or morally or politically or the toughest pages because we had gotten the ideologically, fine, give them what they want. script down to what we thought was the basic The minute you start really getting into car­ essence ofthe book. We were afraid ifwe start­ ing, the minute you start getting into questions ed cutting any further, we would begin to tam­ of aesthetics and dramatic continuity, and get­ per with what Wright was trying to say. ting into arguments with them, that's when you The original intent was to be as honest as start having problems, that's when every day be­ possible to Wright, not to take the novel and comes a real drag. You hate going to work you use it to say something else. So when we got wonder why you're working for these people. down to those last 30 pages, what it really be­ That's when your craft begins to suffer. came was a question of snipping lines and try­ ing not to cut whole scenes out. As it turned BFR: And your reputation. out, we did lose a couple of whole scenes. But Wesley: And your reputation. What I did was once we started shooting, some of those scenes compartmentalized everything. There were the crept back in. movies I was doing out in California, there were the plays I was doing in New York. For awhile, BFR: Let me get back to something you said I was able to divide myselfup very neatly. Some­ earlier about the value of the film outweighing one would tell me what they wanted, and I any response that it might contain negative por­ would give it to them. And I would get the work traits of black people. Do you think there's a done as quickly and as efficiently and as profes­ message here that might awaken some people? sionally as possible, then get back to New York Wesley: Well I would hope it would. The thing and go back to writing plays. that was starting to disturb me was what was The mistake I made after a couple of years happening to black youth in this country. In was that I began drifting away from the theater every major city I've been to in this country, the and began allowing myself to be talked into tak­ ·condition of black youth is identical. And their ing more and more film and television projects. reaction to their poverty is identical. It manifests Then I used to find myself very angry and irri­ itself in a kind of sullenness, a disregard and tated and had days when I ran into writers block, disrespect for everything and everyone around Summer 1986 13 them, violent 'anti-social behavior, self­ necessary, and so there may be places where destructive patterns, nihilism. things are going to be lost. But I don't think When Richard Wright wrote Native Son in it's going to do any real overall harm to what 1940, he was talking about one small segment we are trying to say. of the black community. And now that small segment, two or three generations later has BFR: Do you worry that Bigger might be taken grown to such proportions it's possible to lose as a hero by some? an entire generation. So this film, while it's set Wesley: It's a possibility, but the way that in 1939, is a contemporary piece and a warning Wright wrote him, he's not a hero. He's not a that unless the conditions that create Bigger hero in the way that one might have assumed Thomases change, there will be be more and the 'mack' to be a hero. Or even Superfly. Su­ more Bigger Thomases with each succeeding perfly gets away at the end and is a completely generation. changed person. Bigger Thomas is a changed person at the end. He's much more knowledge­ BFR: What can the film do? able of himself, and he also accepts the guilt Wesley: I guess the primary thing it can do is for what he did. He's not a hero, like some of to get people to start talking. And if they start these others, he's not even that much of a role talking, and begin to recognize what's happen­ model. He's a warning, and I think that's the ing on that screen is what's happening in real way a lot of kids are going to see him. Now, RIght now, black life, it will start mobilizing a few more people whether or not kids heed that warning, I think to start doing something about it. It"s the pri­ that's a key question. people are under mary thing an artist can do. seige, and black artists Writers have to function as the antennas BFR: Would you have been more comfortable of society. They have to be there to tell the so­ with a black director? have to speak up. " ciety what it has to do to protect itself. In this Wesley: I had expected one would have been society, writers are controlled just as much as hired. I've since come to realize Diane didn't anywhere else. They are controlled by the mar­ really know any. And since I was on the East ketplace; if they say something the marketplace Coast and she wasn't really consulting with me doesn't like, they simply get no sponsors. But on that, she just went ahead and made the con­ people have to speak out. Right now, black peo­ tacts with people she knew. There were black ple are under siege, and black artists have to directors I might have recommended she talk to. speak up about it. BFR: Writers don't usually go sit on the set. BFR: In that sense, perhaps what you're saying Why did you? is not very far from the goals of the New Wesley: Two reasons: I wanted to. And Diane Lafayette Theatre. And some ofthe things peo­ andJerry both asked me to come. They wanted ple were saying in the 60s. me there. They wanted some ofmy input at cru­ Wesley: No, it isn't. I've tried to maintain some cial points. They wanted me to be a part ofthe kind of consistency and faithfulness to what I whole process. Also, I have often thought I learned in those days, because those are the peo­ wanted to go into filmmaking at some point. ple that I came up under. And even when I was So I took this opportunity because I wanted to writing Uptown Saturday Night, I was trying to see how pictures are made. sneak in some kind of messages. BFR: Did you do much rewriting on the set? BFR: Did you feel any pressure to delete any Wesley: No, I spent much of my time observ­ of the elements of Native Son? To make less ing. There were two key scenes I recall. No, one. clear, for example, that Bigger is the way he is, It involved a jailhouse scene, a meeting between in part, because of white oppression? Jan and Bigger that we had a lot of problems Wesley: None. At no time did Diane say mute with. In the novel, Jan comes in. It's a key mo­ anything. Oh yes, one time, and I agreed with ment, Here are Jan and Bigger, alone in this her. After Bigger has murdered Mary and is go­ room and, incredibly, Jan has not only forgiven ing to put her body in the furnace, he cuts her him, but has also gone and gotten a defense head off because her body won't fit. We just counsel for him. decided not to do that. About halfthe audience For myself, translating that scene into the would get up and leave at that point. It was not script was very difficult. It just didn't make sense the kind ofthing we wanted to show on screen. to me. I mean, I could see Jan forgiving him, . but what was the process that brought him to BFR: A lot can change, though in the editing. it? I wanted to see that. Wesley: I'm aware of that. ButJerry Freedman, the director, was on the same wavelength as Di­ BFR: Though the film isn't near release, peo~ ane and myself, so I don't expect the final film pIe are already speaking out, saying, "Why do to look radically different from the script or the novel. I know there was a lot more shot than Continued on page 44 1 L Black Film Review lack Women ilmmakers Break the Silence ilence or absence has historically charac­ terized black women's relationship to im­ By Bell Hooks ages of ourselves created by others in Sfilms, to film theory, and to the art and craft of filmmaking. Absence has meant just that-the lack of a visible presence. And the si­ lence has meant that even at those times when black women as artists and scholars have spo­ ken, our voices have rarely been acknowledged, heard, or listened to. This has especially been the case with the work of Afro-American film­ makers. Hence it was appropriate that the At­ lanta Third World Film Festival would begin a week's focus on black women filmmakers by rais­ ing this critical issue during a day-long seminar, "Sexual Difference: Women Look At/Show Themselves," that explored the development of a black female voice. The panelists included filmmaker Kathleen Black women must emphati­ Collins [profiled elsewhere in this issue. -Ed.}; Paula Matabane, associate professor in the cally assert our freedom as School of Communications, Howard Universi­ ty; Wekesa Madimoyo, ofthe Montgomery Film Society; and myself. artists to express our reality, Black women residing collectively at the very bottom of this society's social and economic how we see ourselves as black hierarchy have struggled to make space where­ in we can work creatively to develop fully our skills and talents. Sexism, racism, and class op­ women, and the way we inter- pression have made that struggle arduous, though not impossible. To address the develop­ ment of a black female voice, we begin by ex­ pret our experience. " amining the forces that have worked to oppress, exploit, and silence us. In keeping with this, Matabane presented a slide show and spoke on the images of black women in television, film, and popular culture. The minstrel band Black Patty and the Troubadours, billed on contemporary posters as "Better Than a Circus," showed how black wom­ en have been portrayed as mindless purveyors of fun. Exotic images ofjosephine Baker, Ear­ tha Kitt, and Dorothy Dandridge showed black women as sex objects, often of the white man's Among the filmmakers present during the week ofscreenings ofwork by black desire. This, Matabane noted, has used rape as women filmmakers were, from left: Carol Munday Lawrence, whose decade-long an excuse to continue the myth that only white career includes works on Oscar Micheaux, blues singer and songwnOter Wtllie Dixon, men and black women are free in America. and a· sen"es tllustrating the pn"nciples ofthe Nguzo Saba; Michelle Parkerson, cur­ And, finally, black women have been shown.as rently teaching at Temple University in Phtladelphia and working on a new produc­ tion about the ]ewelbox Revue, a troupe ofblack female impersonators who were the strong (and endlessly forgiving) maids por­ popular in the 1950s and 1960s; and Carroll Parrott Blue, who teaches at the trayed by Hattie McDaniel and Louise Beavers, University ofSan Diego and has made films about artist Varnette Honeywood and sexless matriarchs with no erotic life of their photographer Roy DeCarava. (Photo: Susan Ross) own. In all of this, the media has failed to ren- Summer 1986 15

der the whole truth of black women's ex­ perIences. "These," Matabane said, "are some of the images we've dealt with that have remained in­ delible with us and that we have to begin to deal with and probe intellectually." Significantly, the second stage ofsuch a dis­ cussion and examination (and a most important stage) is the focus on way~ black women artists have broken barriers, overcome obstacles,/ and found space to fully develop artistically. Under­ standing this process is especially necessary in any discussion of Afro-American women film­ makers and their work. While many black fe­ males are raised in environments with visible role models in various arts (musicians, dancers, singers, painters, poets, novelists), we have not known about black women filmmakers. During the conference, discussion about the development of a black women's cinematic voice focused on the extent to which black wom­ en must emphatically assert our freedom as ar­ tists to express both our reality- how we see our­ selves as black women-and the way we interpret our experience-our right to imagina­ tive transcendent artistic visions that may, or may not, have that experience as their central creative starting point. Specifically, critical attention was focused on black women's work in the films Suzanne, Suzanne, (Camille Billops, 1980), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1978), Four Women, Gulie Dash, 1978) and Your ChtJdren Come Back to You (Alile Sharon Larkin, 1979). Each of these films, in some way, showed the tremendous beauty that is expressed artisti­ cally when black women take charge of and name our own reality. The discussion emphasized the difficulties that arise when black women filmmakers strive to develop a voice that places black women at the center and not on the margins. Usually, the audience's perspective has been shaped by so­ cial realities that do not place value on the black female experience. As a consequence, the viewer may not be prepared to grasp fully the scope ofa given film. Thus there is the need for a shift in paradigms- that is to say, the ways we look at films - so that we as an audience can better be prepared to fully engage ourselves with the work of Afro-American women filmmakers.• 16 Black Fzlm Review Conflict and Complexity: Filmmaker Kathleen Collins by David Nicholson

produced at the American Place Theatre and the Richard Allen Centerand publishedinPerform­ ing ArtsJournal. Her new play is to be published in a New American Review of black women playwrights. She recently received a National En­ dowment for the Arts Creative Fellowship, with which she intends to finish her novel. "I keep saying that I am more a writer than I am a filmmaker, and I think that's really true," she said. "My first commitmentis to writing, and theform thatthat takes is really largely dependent on what's on my mind." , Both The Cruz Brothers andLosing Ground have been shown to critical acclaim, but the au­ dience response is often complex; neitherfilm fits easily into pre-established categories. Viewers want to know why a black woman made a film about Puerto Ricans. Or-unable to fathom the complexities ofLosing Ground, which refers to Sartre and existentialism, and neatly integrates ex­ ternal questions ofcolor with deeper, more per­ sonal considerations - theysettlefor the easy criti­ cism that it is a negative portrait of a black marriage. "I have a sense sometimes ofgoing my own way," Collins said, "andI don'treally thinkmuch aboutwhetherit's for oragainst the grain. I don't Fzlmmaker Kathleen Collins n a short talk at the start ofthe forum "Sexual really want to spend a lot oftime worrying about and Ronald Gray, her co­ Difference: Women Look/ At Show Them­ how I am perceived by other people." producer on the film Losing selves" duringtheMarch AtlantaThirdWorld Collins was born inJersey City, N.J. She at­ Ground. Film Festival and Forum, filmmaker tended Skidmore College and then went on to I graduate school in France, where she studied Kathleen Collins briefly stated her credo: "The obsession, and I would be glad to ac­ French cinemaand "therelationship betweensur­ knowledge itas anobsession, ismybeliefthatwhat real imagery and poetry." She has been a film I see personally, ifI can be very faithful to that, researcher and a film editor. Some years before andmanage tofind away tosay it, will meansome­ making the The CruzBrothers, she tried to make thingtootherpeople." And, she continued, "the anotherfilm, but that experience was discourag­ artist must be fundamentally honest. What you ing enough for her to give up on filmmaking en­ should get is his or her soul. Ifyou get anything tirely. else, they have cheated themselves, first, and they "I hadwritten a script called Women, Sisters, have cheated you, second." andFn'ends, and I had gone all around the coun­ Collins has made three films: The Cruz try trying to raise money to do it," Collins said. Brothers andMrs. Malloy (1980), is about three "This was in 1971, and nobody would give any Puerto Rican brothers, theirghost-father, and an money to a black woman to direct a film. It was Irish womanwho hires the brothers to renovate her just ridiculous. I did that for a year, looking for home. Losing Ground, (1982), depictsthedilem­ money, and then I gotso discouraged, I said, 'No rna ofa woman professor ofphilosophy in search one's ever going to give us any moneyto do afilm. ' of ecstasy and self-definition apart from her People wouldlove thescript, thoughtitwas awon­ painter-husband and actress-mother. Collins' derful idea, but thought I should find a director latest film, the recently-completed Gouldtown, and a producer." is a portraitoftheNewJersey townfrom which her It was, she said, "probably the most dis­ family came. couraging time ofmy life." In 20 years ofwriting ,- Collins has complet­ So Collins leftNew York, moved to thecoun­ BLACK WOMEN ed six plays, numerous short stories, four screen­ try with her children, and began to write FILMMAKERS plays, and much ofa novel. The plays have been Kathleen Collins Summer 1986 17

plays. In 1974, she was asked to teach direct­ The characters in Losing Groundare black, ing, screenwriting, and film theory courses at and the fact of race informs the film in many City College ofNew York. There, her students ways, but not within protest or nationalist con­ wanted to know why she wasn't making films. ventions. They are, Collins said, "people who One in particular, Ronald Gray (Transmagnifi­ are willing to recognize that being black is with­ can Dambamuality, 1976) was particularly in­ out purity. That one cannot achieve purity in sistent. this culture. That one can only achieve some Though Collins had lost all hope of get­ kind of emotional truth." ting the money to do a film, Gray-who be­ Thus, in line with Collins' preoccupation came her partner, lighting, shooting, and co­ with "how people resolve their inner dilemma producing her films-kept pushing. Finally, in the face of external reality," Sara the profes­ with lab credit and $5,000 from friends, they sor, comes to realize she has denied a part of began The Cruz Brothers, using a script from herself by becoming too much an intellectual. a novel by Henry Roth. She envies her husband's spontaneity. And her "It was awful doing a movie for $5,000," mother, "a little bit ofa libertine," depends on Collins said. "It was like going down a terribly her in a way neither has ever really been able long tunnel. It was frightening. I was 37, not to acknowledge. What the film explores, then, old, but it was not like I was 21. And I had chil­ is the way Sara resolves "her personal connec­ dren and all that stuff. But we did it because tion to these people and to herself in the Ronald and I were really good partners and have process." remained very good partners." /' Yet, and this may be part of the problem keep saying I am The film was well received. Collins felt her­ the film poses for some viewers, the ending of I self beginning new, mature work, and others the film does not contain a conventional reso­ more a writer than I corroborated that, calling The Cruz Brothers un­ lution. This, Collins said, was intentional. I usual and evidence ofa new voice. Then she be­ "You don't get the resolution, but you get am a filmmaker, and came ill, and,though in that time she finished the explosive moment," she said. "After that, think that's really true. Losing Ground, she said, "For about four years the resolution is not your business. In all my My first commitment it was a scary time." work, I take you to the explosive moment, but Her illness, coupled with an interest in the that's basically where I leave you." is to wn·ting, and the work of black playwright Lorraine Hansberry­ As playwright, novelist, and filmmaker, form that that takes is to which she was introduced by filmmaker Haile Collins is concerned with developing to the ut­ Gerima-has been the occasion for meditation most her skills in whatever medium she has cho­ really largely depen­ about "the nature of illness and the capacity of sen. "I would call myself very committed to a dent on what's on my the female to acknowledge its own intelligence." refining and continuous refining of the craft­ Hansberry, who died of cancer in 1965, is per­ whatever craft it is," she said. "If that is artis­ mind." haps best known for her 1959 play, A Raisin in tic, let someone else decide that. My decision the Sun. is to become more and more skillful at whatev­ "My basic premise is that all illness is psy­ er I do." chic disconnection ofsome kind," Collins said. Her private audience is black people but, "I think that if there is any way in which wom­ she said, "I dOQ't write for them in a political en tend to be self-destructive, it is in that area sense." And she said she sees black women film­ of creativity where they actually feel their own makers as "part of a larger redemptive process power and can't either continue it or go to the that black women have to achieve." end of it. They get scared and they retreat into "The only residual softness that's possible illness or into having too many babies or de­ in this culture, as far as I am concerned, is in structive love affairs with men who run them the hands of black women," she said. "They ragged. Somewhere or other, they detour out must have the capacity to forgive black men. of a respect for their own creativity." White women don't necessarily have to forgive But, more than that, Collins is fascinated white men, because white men had real power, by a sense ofconnection with Hansberry and her and used it abusively. Black men never had real work. power. So whatever power they exercised, they "I've never found another black writer who have exercised it out of an intense and godaw­ I felt was asking the same questions I was ask­ ful, nightmarish relationship to the culture. ing until I started reading her work," she said. "We absolutely must forgive them. It is the "A lot ofher preoccupations are my preoccupa­ only possibility of love left in this culture. The tions. She had a really incredible sense of life stronger person is only as strong as his or her that fascinates me; anything in life was accessi­ capacity to forgive the weaker person. And to ble for her to write about, instead offeeling the separate oneself from black men is to allow black experience was the only experience she America the final triumph of division. If they could write about. And it was that breadth of can actually succeed in dividing black men and vision that I have always sensed was ultimately women, then there is no emotional victory left my vision." , in this culture." • 18 Black Fzlm Review Ayoka Chenzira: Sharing the Empowerment of Women by Keith Bosetnan

hen Ayoka Chenzira's latest work, the Chenzira: Yes. There's Paule Marshall, Maya 30-minute video Secret Sounds Angelou, and Toni Morrison who, in my mind, Screaming.' The Sexual Abuse of are master storytellers. In a single paragraph, WChzJdren, premiered in Chicago at , they can make you weep, they can make you the Women in the Director's Chair Sights/Sites shake, they can make you laugh. They can make Festival in March, the screening hall was filled you cry, and they can make you feel orgasmi­ to capacity. People stood in the doorways to see cally good! Another writer I admire is Ngugu Chenzira's new work, and though the video was Wathiong'o. He is a Kenyan writer and he has stunning and had much to recommend it, it was this book called Petals ofBloodwhich-whooo! only part of an exciting evening. Chenzira's films reflect her personality. BFR: Do you read everything? See everything? SyvzJla.· They Dance to Her Drum, is an ode to How do you get your ideas? a great artist and a tribute to a mentor. Hair­ Chenzira: Things impact on my life at particu­ piece is one big laugh- but it is also bold and lar times. For example, Syvilla Fort came into serious. Its message-it's OK to be black and my life at a time that was very difficult for me nappy-headed-is driven home with a wacky, in that I was going to New York University film propulsive kick. The film begins with a lament school and looking at the old boy network about the familiar "hot comb," and travels the through their children. Most of the people in image road to Dixie Peach and the mental and my class were white men whose fathers were un­ physical terrors of the male "do." The ending ion cameramen. I watched how they interact­ is a rapturous, bluesy celebration ofnatural Afri­ ed. I thought that was going to be an ex­ can glory - braids, locks, and naturals. perimental time for me, but people tried to pigeonhole me into editing because, you know, BFR: How did you get started in film, and who women are supposedly good with their hands. were your influences? Chenzira: It was a combination ofa number of BFR: Your film credits show you almost a one­ things. I had been dancing for a long time and woman traveling band. You come up with the working as a still photographer. One day, I story idea, do the research, write the script. You looked at my body of work as a still pho­ raise the money, direct and edit the film. Then tographer, and simply wanted my photographs you go out and market the film. I'm almost to move. And so I like to think that it's a com­ afraid to ask how you do all those things. bination of my dance and my interest in still Chenzira: I'm poor. But I still enjoy doing all photography. I wanted moving stills, or stills those things because it was a kind of proving dancing. ground for me. Now I'm working on a feature film, and I am looking forward to the division BFR: So there is no one in cinema who inflamed of labor that will free me up to work on just the your passion for film? directorial kinds of things. Chenzira: Most ofmy influences are really from the dance world, and they are people who im­ BFR: What's your favorite task in making a film? pressed me with how they can move you to Chenzira: I don't think I have one because they laughter or tears with motion or stillness. Peo­ all seem interrelated. I never think about things ple like Eleo Pomare, Thomas Pinnock, Diane in fragments. The research [for Secret Sounds] McIntyre, and Blondell Cummings. I would like had to be done and the directing had to be done in my own work, to carry though that call and and the music had to be done and I just think response from the dance world. I'm a great one that this is what you are supposed to do. It for interactive art. I'm not much into digestive doesn't really feel so sectionalized to me. And cinema where you sit down and digest your din­ if you are going to direct, you have to know ner. I want people to be on their feet testify­ something about camera, sound, and editing. ing, because I think people release a lot of their emotions when they can be involved in that in­ BFR: Do you have a theory of film? teractive art process. ·.·Chenzira: I'm just trying to work. To make some films. You can do that, or Clyde Taylor can do BLACK WOMEN BFR: I understand that black literature has also that, and the Cahiers du Cinema folks can do FILMMAKERS influenced you. that. I am so busy right now trying to produce Summer 1986 19

and distribute my work that I can't sit down and can't have a full range of black people?' And write the theories for it too. Asian people and Hispanic people? A lot of Hairpiece comes out of that anger. BFR: So you work because you were born to create? BFR: And Secret Sounds Screaming? Chenzira: No. I do what feels good to me. I do Chenzira: That came at a time in my life when what interests me. I was working at this hospital and met a 4-year­ Sylvilla was someone who loved me. I loved old child who had gonorrhea of the throat and her dearly, and she died on my birthday. Once, mouth. I had never even considered the thought she came to me and she said, "Ayoka, you can of that, the possibility of that. My own child do. as much as you can handle. And you will was six months old, and it scared me so bad I know how.much you can handle." That was very knew if I didn't find a way to release this fear important for me to hear at the time. and this anger, I would be real hard to deal with. So the sex-abuse piece came out of a de­ BFR: How did Hairpiece come about? sire to know this was not going to happen to Chenzira: It was originally a stand-up comedy my child. piece. I was very concerned with the question of black women in this country and self-image BFR: In the film, you choose to try to heal as aesthetics. If you look at all the commercials that opposed to making men culprits. Why? come out and tell you how to fix yourself, they Chenzira: Things are not that black and white are all based on the idea that there is something in real life. Men are not the bad guys. I do know Continued on page 25 wrong with you. And so, having a child, well, these things just became very glaring and I think that's a part of Hairpiece. Hairpiece is funny, but it comes from a position of real anger. 'm busy right now trying to BFR: Do black people continue to deny their I worth, their existence in 1986? Chenzira: Yes. I think that as much as we produce anddistribute my work. " worked to become more fully integrated into so­ ciety, it's been mostly an external integration. There has not been a lot ofattention on the in­ ternal things that also had to be worked on. You can have $5 million and still have a fucked-up sense of self. There is no question in my mind that most black people who live in this country are angry and have a right to be. I don't care if that anger has been coiffed, three-piece suited, or ginnymaded- there is some real anger going on here that has never been dealt with. Part of the -assimilation process has been to downplay who we are and our history. You cannot tell me that that has not been a painful experience, and I think it's a pain that a lot ofpeople walk around with.

BFR: So they cope by doing what? Chenzira: Well, that's just it. They cope. And coping is not the same thing as living. I think it's been a lot easier to take on the external in­ dicators that say, "Yes, I am a good American person," than to deal with the anger. Like, why is it that it's not all right to be black and nappy­ headed? If this is a pluralistic society, how come the mainstream isn't pluralistic? If this society is so pluralistic, how come black people are still fighting to appear on film and in television? I don't just mean in roles that are about decency and integrity, because I don't come from the school of positive images. In fact, I think that's very dangerous. But how come we Ayoka Chenzira 20 Black Ftlm Review From Acting to Filmmaking: Saundra Sharp's Odyssey

by David Nicholson

n the midst ofa 20-year career that included the $1,000 first prize in the 1984 Black Ameri­ commercial work in New York and featured can Cinema Society Competition and was a win­ roles in two made-for-TV movies, Minstrel ner at the 1985 San Francisco Poetry Festival. IMan (1977) and Hollow Image (1979), "I knew immediately the BACS award Saundra Sharp decided to go back to school to could not go for rent money and stufflike that," "brush up" on her knowledge ofvideo. Once en­ Sharp said. "It had to go for the next film pro­ rolled at Los Angeles City College, she realized ject." that while much oftelevision involved film, she She had met poet Kamau Daaood when knew the medium from only one side of the she first came to Los Angeles and had always camera. So Sharp decided to take some film liked his work. While she had ideas for dramat­ courses. ic films, she did not feel ready to tackle one. So It was like falling in love or coming home. when Sharp encountered Daaood at a Black His­ "I had heard that people are either fanati­ tory Month Celebration, she broached the idea cally video people or fanatically film people, and of making a film about him. rarely in between," she said. '~nd once I got into "I said, 'I just won a thousand dollars and film, I understood it. I am a film person. I want ifwe could get a couple ofmore thousand, then to pick it up. I want to touch it. I want to lay we could probably get this film together; " Sharp it over there and look at it and move it over here. said. She laughed. "Poor child!" It was just the And then get up and get a glass of water and beginning of the struggle. come back and walk around the room and look She set about raising enough money to be­ at it and think about it. And then put it back gin shooting, ignoring for the moment the post­ on the Movieola." production funds she would need to complete The results of Saundra Sharp's new involve­ the film. Once production was completed, she ment with film-Back Inside Herself(1984) and figured out a post-production budget and faced Life is a Saxophone (1985) - reflect her concern the reality most independent filmmakers face­ about black images (a concern that threatened there was not enough money and she did not to destroy her career) and her involvement with know where it was going to come from. the arts. She was a founding member of the Part of the problem was that acting income Black Anti-Defamation Coalition and is a poet she might otherwise have counted on had dried and writer. Both films were screened in March up because of her involvement with the Black at the Atlanta Third World Film Festival and Anti-Defamation Coalition, which she had Forum. helped form in 1980 to protest the NBC mini­ Back Inside Herself a five-minute "visual series Beulahland. Then, too, there were certain poem" about black women's images, almost roles she would not take. Offered a chance at didn't get made. Sharp had intended to do a a role in the 1984 made-for-TV movie Calamity documentary, but all the arrangements fell Jane, she rushed down to the casting director, through the day of the shoot. With a carload got the script, and read a stereotyped "mammy ofsuddenly useless equipment and an approach­ role'~ black woman taking care of white girl. ing deadline, she sat trying to cope with the sit­ "I just sat there and cried;' Sharp said. '~nd uation by working on a poem. Suddenly, it oc­ for the next year, I just sat at home and concen­ curred to her "that that [the poem] was what trated on my film work. I dropped out of act­ I was supposed to be shooting." ing, and acting dropped out of me." After a quick call to a friend, Barbara-a, Nonetheless, she finished Life is a Saxo­ Sharp drove over with the equipment and shot phone. the film herself. The result is sometimes uneven "The key thing about the film is that I but undeniably powerful. A made-up, bewigged raised $10,000 from black people. All the mon­ woman (Barbara-a) walks home to the recita­ ey in the film is black," Sharp said. "I raised con­ tion, "She's going back, back inside herself." tributions from $100 to $2,500, and the National BLACK WOMEN There, she takes off wig and makeup, and Black Programming Consortium gave me some emerges at the end herself having rejected im­ funds to complete the film. But there is no grant FILMMAKERS ages thrust on her from outside. The film won money in the film." Summer 1986 21

I'm a film person. I want to pick it up. I want to touch it. I want to lay it over there and look at it and move it over here. "

Saundra Sharp (Photo: Susan Ross)

While Sharp said there is nothing wrong looking Los Angeles and, in the culminating se­ with grant money, she noted that granting agen­ quences, an electrifying performance with mu­ cies are often the first place that black indepen­ sicians such as the renowned Billy Higgins. dent filmmakers turn. Sharp intends to continue exercising her "Sometimes, I get into community discus­ many talents, acting, writing poetry, writing sions, and people jump up and say, 'Why don't non-fiction-in 1983, she collaborated with au­ we just buy a television station?'" she said. "We thor Henry T. Sampson on the catalogue from go from zero to $3 billion, with no perspective a Los Angeles exhibition on blacks in film. in the middle. What's crucial for me about this Nonetheless, she wants to continue making film is that it said that black people can come films. Films by black filmmakers are especially together with some means and do a film for important, she said, to counter the negative $20,000 or $25,000 that is good enough so that messages that issue from television, Hollywood it can be shown on a screen at a festival. film, radio, and the recording industry. "That's what my film cost, so it's possible "I'm not a feminist," she said. "I think we to do that, and very often we don't think in don't stop to think that we are women filmmak­ those terms. But that's how it got put together, ers, because we are really too busy to stop to and I have to stress that we can do that." think what we are doing." Saxophone won the Award ofSpecial Merit Still, she says she wants her work to say from the BACS in 1985. It has been shown at "how wonderful and exciting and powerful numerous festivals, including the American black women are, particularly when we grab Film Institute's National Video Festival, on ahold of our thing and use it." WNYE- and WTTW-TV, and at 20 West The­ "We have such incredible power, and very atre in Harlem. It is scheduled to be shown at often we are talked into subverting it, or con­ the Singapore International Film Festival in cealing it," Sharp said. "In order not to offend June. our men, or offend the white folks, or whatev­ The film, produced by Sharp, and direct­ er. In order to protect our children. And I feel ed by Sharp and cinematographer Orlando Bag­ that through film we layout some road maps well, shows Daaood in a variety ofsituations-at to move beyond that." • home, on the street, musing on a hilltop over- 22 Black Film Review Debra Robinson Focuses on Black Women Comedians

s filmmaker Debra Robinson (I Be Done A year before Robinson started shooting, was Is, 1984) tells it, she "just kind of she made a sample video tape to secure fund­ fell into" making movies. Originally from ing. The film was completely funded by the ADayton, Ohio, she attended Baldwin­ Corporation for Public Broadcasting and was Wallace College, where she was active in theatri­ shot in two months. Though it has aired in New cal productions. After finishing school, she York, like other black productions, it has not moved to New York where, for a time, she yet aired nationally. worked at Woman's Day magazine. Eventual­ I Be Done Was Is is, to put it briefly, very, ly, she decided to return to school, and chose very funny. Some of the comedians - Hanson filmmaking at Columbia. and Galvin-Lewis-work extending riffs begun "I just happened upon filmmaking and by Richard Pryor, inventing and extrapolating decided I would like that," she said. "When I familiar preachers and cleaning ladies with went to school at Columbia, I discovered it was earthy folk wisdom. But Galvin-Lewis' humor a commitment, more than just liking it, or is also topical. A sample: "Reagan says when he wanting to get a job in the industry or what was a boy, black people had no problems." not." Pause. "Of course black people had no prob­ lems when he was a boy." Pause. "When Rea­ gan was a boy, blacks were in Africa." Ithink there are a lot ofthings about And Warfield riffs on topics that might have been considered taboo a few years ago­ black lifestyles and black history in pantomiming pullstarting a dildo. Or a mono­ logue, with pantomime, that begins, "I like the Midwest that is missing from black men. I say that, because you can't assume that." (The line drew a burst of laughter from film, because usually most films take the audience.) "Black men," Warfield continues, "are place in the urban east or the rural cool. When they hit on you, they want to know one thing .... " She pauses, imitating a man do­ South. ing a doubletake, perusing a woman from head to toe, and slowly lowering sun glasses. And Though previously she had thought of then, sly and streetwise, "Say mamma, you gotta filmmaking in terms of Hollywood, at Colum­ job?" bia, Robinson met independent filmmakers and Robinson is currently developing a narra­ began to consider that alternative. tive film, scripted by Terry L. McMillan, a writ­ I Be Done Was Is, Robinson's first film, er she met in film school who wrote the narra­ features black comedians Alice Arthur, Jane tion for I Be Done Was Is. The film is set in Galvin-Lewis, Rhonda Hanson, and Marsha the Midwest, and though Robinson said she al­ Warfield, in performance and in conversation, ways felt out of place in Ohio, she said she talking about their lives, their art, and the prob­ thinks it is important to make films about the lems they have faced. Its genesis was Robinson's black experience there. friendship with Arthur. "I think there are a lot ofthings about black "I knew her when she first started in come­ lifestyles and black history in the Midwest that dy," Robinson said. "And when she first start­ is missing from film, because usually most films ed, I thought she was the only black woman take place in the urban east or the rural South, since Moms Mabley doing comedy. That was for some reason," she said. "But there are a even more confirmed when I went to the Come­ whole group of people who don't live like that dy Club with her. She was standing in line to at all in the Midwest in terms of their lifestyle, get a number and perform, and I never saw any but people just aren't aware of their lifestyle or other black women there. I think that just kind what their standard of living is." of stuck in my mind. I literally woke up one And, she said, she definitely wants to deal night and said, 'Yeah, black women comedians,' with women's issues and themes. and went right back to sleep. I said, 'That's the "Number one," Robinson said, "I'm a film.' " woman. And for anybody writing or whatever, Robinson decided she needed to find more it is self-expression. Black women have just been BLACK'WOMEN women comedians. Once she began looking, she overlooked. During the Harlem Renaissance said, "People just started falling out of the black women writers were overlooked, and fi­ FILMMAKERS trees. " nally in the 80s, they are just staning to get some Summer 1986 23 kind of note. Black women in film, have been funding for her films. overlooked. Given that in the late 70s and 80s "There's always time," Robinson said. "The there have been a lot of women's films, they problem is there isn't enough of working on have all been by or about white women. They things. The time lapse between films really have not been black women's films. And con­ makes me nervous. I need to work more for ar­ sidering our history, I think that's abominable. tistic development and for survival. I want to We are totally overlooked, but I also don't feel overcome this time lapse-I just don't want to that the blame should be passed -I take the wait. And the waiting time is average - people blame for part of it. It's our responsibility to tell go three years, four years and then another film. our stories." I don't see the survival of blacks in this busi­ To tell those stories, Robinson said she real­ ness, continually doing that." _, izes she will have to find consistent sources of

Muriel Jackson Looks at Women's Work

hen videomaker Muriel Jackson first came to Atlanta in 1979, she noticed large numbers of black women wait­ Wing at bus stops for buses that, she knew, went into white neighborhoods. Curious, she started asking questions, and found the women were maids, going to and from their jobs. "I fou'nd it intriguing," Jackson said. "I asked, 'How could this be?' I thought that it was a phenomenon from the 1950s." The result ofJackson's investigation is a 28­ minute video, The Maids.' A Documentary (1985), which was shown in March as part ofthe 1986 Atlanta Third World Film Festival and Forum. The video is a historical look at the work, circumstances, and attitudes surrounding day­ workers. It examines domestic service from sever­ al viewpoints - interviews with maids, with Leane Ackerly, founder and president ofa fran­ chised company called Minimaids, and with Dorothy Bolden, founder and president of the National Domestic Workers Union. It considers Jackson thought domes;;·:/~;;~::;san;SS) both the personal views of women who have cleaned and cared for others' homes, Bolden's holdover from the 50s. When she organizing efforts, and the disappearance ofthe one-household maid as franchised services such began her video, she found a as Ackerly's become more popular. "The interesting thing is that in recent changing profession. years, domestic service has been at a crossroads," Jackson said. "The transition has atready oc­ women who seek it as a career or as a means to curred, but it is still continuing. The work has other, higher-paying work. Less tangible are oth­ been reclaimed by whites-actresses, secretar­ er social factors - Jackson said she found black ies, people with master's degrees - anyone be­ maids wielded a certain amount ofinfluence in tween jobs or who needs a job to tide them over the homes in which they worked. until something else comes through. The con­ The Maids, done under the auspices ofthe cept is a worker who is detached from the house­ Atlanta Media Project, a non-profit production hold, and it raises implications for black organization that furnishes video training, is workers." Jackson's first long work. She also produces Franchised services such as Minimaids hire shows for the Project, and is currently working domestic workers who travel in groups in cars on an ,eight-part series on racism that features or vans, typically cleaning several homes each race relations expert Charles King. Topics in the day. Thus one question the video raises is that series include housing, sex, civil rights, educa­ of future availability of such work for black tion, politics, and religion. _ 24 Black FzJm Review Ellen Sumter Comes Home

by David Nicholson

available, the screening was postponed. Still, viewed on a Movieola, it is an undeniably differ­ ent kind of vision. The film is about two women. One lives in the city, the other in the country. They ap­ pear watching from windows, going about their daily tasks. Both are waiting, for what, Sumter never really tells us, but an old man driving a truck appears to both. Is he real or a dream? Whichever, he represents an escape the women find impossible to accomplish by themselves. The film is shot in black and white, with a multi-layered soundtrack, which is primarily environmental sound. There is no dialogue, and so the viewer watches, waiting (much like the women in the film) as the theme reveals itself. "It's not necessarily a statement about women," Sumter said. "Women happen to be the characters in the film, and because I'm a woman, that's easier for me. But it's mostly about people who are stuck and not motivated enough." Sumter shot the film about two years ago, and has been editing it off and on for about a year. She received start-up funding from a Na­ Ellen Sumter (Photo: Susan Ross) tional Endowment for the Arts regional agen­ cy, a finishing grant from the Film Fund, and money from family and friends. Rags and Old Love is an expert'men­ Like many other filmmakers, Sumter be­ gan as a still photographer. When she went to tal film with a multi-layered sound Howard as an undergraduate, she "fell in love with film." track. It is an undeniably different "It's the ultimate form ofcommunication," she said. "You can share your dreams with oth­ kind ofvision. er people-sight, sound, everything. That's very exciting for me to sit in a theater and have a fter completing two years as a graduate film shown and share it with someone. You're student in film at the Howard University really just watching somebody's dream or their School of Communications, Ellen Sumter vision of the world - their interpretation of the Adecided to come home to the South. world. That's what really excites me about Originally from Gadsen, S.C., she now lives in film - that possibility of that superior form of Atlanta, going about the work of independent communication." filmmaking. At Howard, Sumter studied with Haile "The problem with being in Washington Gerima, and co-edited his film portrait ofSter­ and trying to do films was that all my scripts ling Brown, After Winter (1985). Last winter, take place in the South," Sumter said. "I was she spent about six weeks in Burkina Faso, work­ always coming back and it was like being a split ing on a tourism film co-produced with Howard personality." University. Sumter's film, Rags and OldLove, an ex­ "I immediately felt at home-the dust, the perimental film about two women-one urban, dirt roads, the space between the houses," Sum­ the other rural-was scheduled to be shown in ter said. "It immediately reminded me a lot of BLACK WOMEN March at the Sixth Annual Atlanta Third World Savannah. A nice feeling, very human. I didn't Film Festival and Forum. It was still in double go with any mystical view of Africa, and when FILMMAKERS system and,because equipment was not I got there, I w~ glad it was so very familiar." • Summer 1986 25

Ayoka Chenzira, continued. .. we live in a society where living is very difficult have to grow up and realize that not everybody for a lot of people and particularly difficult for is the bad guy. In fact, there are no bad and people ofcolor. Anger gets expressed in a num­ good guys. Things just are, and they impact ber of ways. The first thing we need to do is upon one another and create either horrible recognize the problems, then find solutions. things or very wonderful things. Part offinding solutions is educating everybody in the process. And you don't educate people BFR: If Hollywood came knocking, would you by making them feel bad about themselves. go? The women and men in the sex-abuse piece Chenzira: It depends on who knocked and what had been made to feel bad about themselves. they wanted. I never really had a strong desire So it would almost defeat my purpose to attack to work in Hollywood, because I always saw it men to make them feel bad about themselves. as a world where everyone was a municipal em­ That's not going to stop them from raping wom­ ployee. However, I am very interested in Holly­ en. I think women who feel empowered have wood distribution because when I go to 14 coun­ the responsibility to share that with everybody. tries in Africa and all they know about black That means men, older people, and children. people in America is what they get through And ifyou don't share this empowermenf, you Hollywood-distributed films, you've got to look continue to set up this vicious cycle of hateful twice at that. relationships. I may also have another child, and I may BFR: Is your secret dream to have a commercial have a son. I mean, here I am married to a won­ success? derful black man and am able to conceive, so Chenzira: Actually, most ofmy dreams and the how am I going to talk about hating anybody? things I want to accomplish in the next 10 years don't necessarily have anything to do with film BFR: Do you find sympathy with many of the at all. If I were to think in those terms, I would black women artists who in their work seem to end up being very, very frustrated. What I am express anger toward black men? interested in right now is making some stories Chenzira: Ofcourse! People have a right to their that I care about. Telling some stories that I care anger. A lot ofblack women have been mistreat­ about. ed. They have a right to express that anger and they have a responsibility to deal with that an­ BFR: So what else besides film is on the hori­ ger. But I don't think things should just stop zon in those 10 years? at identification. It's ,the "now what?" after the Chenzira: I want to feel very comfortable on this pain that I'm interested in. If the bottom line planet and look for ways that assure people are is not about helping, caring, and sharing, then going to be better off than the next genera­ what is your agenda? Emotionally, a lot of us tion.•

JUMP CUT No. 31 Hollywood Reconsidered - Semiotics, Musicals, Authorship. THE COLOR PURPLE, RAMBO, EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. Teaching Vietnam. Independent Film Distribution. Med Hondo and African Cinema. Contemporary Chinese Film. Cuban Film Festival. Labor and the Solidarity Movement. Women's Rage.

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PO Box 865, Berkeley CA 94701 26 Black Fzlm Review Art vs. Ideology: The Debate over Positive Images

by Salilll Muwakkil

embers ofa group called the Coalition spiring to tarnish the image of black men. Against Blaxploitation picketed out­ "Mr. Reagan, and his attorney general, Mr. side the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Meese, have decided that they are going to turn Oscar night. They were denouncing back the clock on us," said Vernon Jarrett, a M Chicago Sun-Times columnist who is black. Steven Spielberg's movie The Color Purple and its portrayal of "negative black male images," "The purpose of movies like The Color Purple and they claimed victory when the Academy of is to make that process acceptable to you." Jar­ Motion Picture Arts and Sciences failed to award rett made these remarks to an overflow crowd the film an Oscar. that had gathered to discuss the film in a Chica­ When Bill Moyers went into a Newark go church, one of many such gatherings that ghetto for the CBS documentary The Vanish­ took place around the country to discuss the ing FamIly: Crisis in Black America, a wail of mOVIe. protest erupted from black leaders who charged The film adaptation of Alice Walker's the program presented information out ofcon­ epistolary novel has provoked an energetic, text. Stung by the criticism, the network provid­ sometimes vitriolic debate in the black commu­ ed a forum for discussion of the issue on its late­ nity. Superficially, the debate is between black night show Nightwatch. The discussion was men who dislike the film for its portrayal of taped on Palm Sunday in a black middle-class black males, and black women who strongly church in Washington, DC, and it revealeg identify with the film's female characters. But that, despite some diversity of views, there is a ideology, not gender, underlies the dispute. general consensus that the Moyers show gratui­ Although some of the film's black detrac­ tously proje~ted negative images of young black tors focus on Spielberg's film as a distortion of males. Walker's book, the severest critics make little Operation PUSH has boycotted CBS sta­ distinction between the two works. These crit­ tion WBBM-TV in Chicago because of a veter­ ics span a wide spectrum, from cultural nation­ an black anchor's demotion and negotiated with alists like Haki Madhubuti to bohemian intellec­ the station for months about increasing the pres­ tuals like Ishmael Reed, and include many ence of blacks in the newsroom. The negotiat­ females in their number, yet they frame the is­ ing document, "the WBBM Covenant," was re­ sue in broad ideological terms as a struggle cently revealed and much of the media focus against black feminism. centered on the group's demands for financial The current debate is a continuation ofone contributions to PUSH-approved charities. But sparked in 1977 by Ntozake Shange's play, For the covenant also included a demand the sta­ Colored Girls Who Have Considered Sui­ tion hire "two male minority anchors for its cide/When the Rainbow is Enuf Both Purple weekday news broadcasts." and Colored Girls presented black female When asked why the specific demand for characters who were victims ofmale cruelty and minority males, PUSH negotiator the Rev. Hen­ brutality, but who managed to find strength ry Hardy said, "The black male has always been within themselves by affirming their essential castrated by white America and black women worth as women. Walker calls her work have always been used to keep black men in "womanist." their place." Hardy said the only role models Walker and Shange, like black female for black men in this society are athletes or en­ writers Gayle Jones, Paule Marshall, and Glor­ tertainers (he could have said preachers) and that ia Naylor, are engaged in an audacious attempt WBBM should employ a "virile, charismatic to reimagine themselves and create a historical black male anchor" instead of a black female. identity unmediated by male consciousness. The thread connecting these diverse pro­ This group of writers often use homoerotic en­ tests is an increased concern with the media counters to dramatize the discovery of their depiction of black males. (An upcoming movie feminine integrity; lesbianism is often used as version ofRichard Wright's n'ovel Native Son is a metaphor for self-affirmation. sure to add fuel to this fire.) Many in the black Metaphors be damned, say the ideological community are convinced that forces are con- critics. "One character that's been popping up Summer 1986 27

oflate in the works ofman-hating feminists, one holds are . easin because the federal govern­ who is drawn sympathetically and developmen­ ment is a better provider t an Dung black tally: the black lesbian," said journalist-activist men could ever hope to be. When Bill 0 s Nate Clay at the Chicago forum. '~dded to the asked a group of black teen-age mothers ifmale store ofother stock black female characters, the input was necessary in their lives, their answers black lesbian is about to take her place along­ were instantaneous and unanimous-and nega­ side Sapphire and Butterfly McQueen." tive. For people like Clay, the ascendancy of The Reagan-inspired attacks on affirmative these "man-hating feminist" writers is linked to action programs continues apace and the num­ CBS' documentary on the black family in a cul­ ber of black middle-class families is dropping tural conspiracy to weaken the black communi­ accordingly. Fewer black men are receiving col­ ty by assassinating the character of black males. lege degrees than did in the early 70s, and more Nathan Hare, co-author ofthe book Black Fam­ black men are incarcerated than at any other zly: The Endangered Species, made it clear in time in history. a recent interview he thought Purple "is Into this situation drop The Color Purple designed to break down the family structure by and other works of the black feminine imagi­ destroying black manhood and womanhood." nation. Black women, long imprisoned within The Hollywood branch of the NAACP the double walls ofsexism and racism, see some wasn't happy about the Oscar shutout for Pur­ openings and are reaching for them. Black men, ple and, apparently unembarrassed by its previ­ although they haven't shared much else in this ous protests against the film's portrayal of black society, have at least shared some perquisites of men, the group sent a protest letter to the acade­ patriarchal culture and thus those privileges have my to express its displeasure. At a news confer­ assumed an exaggerated importance. Black women writers ence called to explain its position, NAACP Even a cursory look at the history ofimage­ are fi·nally expressing branch chiefWillis Edwards said the academy's making in this country reveals how profoundly decision not to award the film at all was "sus­ public attitudes determine the presentation of the Yin ofthe black pect of racism." minority groups. That a dominant culture in­ experience. And zf He said the issue ofthe film's negative por­ variably attempts to sanctify its own presump­ black men aren't quite trayal of black men was "separate from the bla­ tions at the expense of others is a sociological tantly political act of snubbing the film com­ truism. The pickanninies and "01' Black ]oes" ready for that, well, pletely. Although we didn't like the images the from this country's past undoubtedly reflected they better get ready. actors projected, they were still superb actors and and reinforced the public's perception of black they should be graded on their work and not people. And as for mixing art and ideology, not for political reasons." many will seriously disagree that D.W. Griffith's The NAACP's apparent inconsistency on Birth ofa Nation was both a cinematic break­ this issue - denouncing the academy for mak­ through and racist propaganda. There's little ing a "political" decision while demanding po­ doubt that blacks must remain vigilant against litically "correct" images - is symptomatic of a stereotypical portrayals. deeper confusion and a lack of rigorous stan­ But the question for a mature African­ dards from which to judge black artistic expres­ American community is whether aesthetic judg­ sion. African-Americans have yet to develop the ments should rest on ideological or political critical wherewithal that would enable them to criteria. Is a positive or negative image-count the evaluate creative expression outside narrow ideo­ proper way to determine the worth of a crea­ logical or political parameters. tive endeavor? The ideological critics tradition­ But the confusion also extends into ideolo­ ally fudge the differences between ideology and gy. How else to explain a rights group like PUSH aesthetic. And, although efforts to impose ideol­ callously dismissing the career aspirations and ogy on the creative process is a totalitarian im­ limiting the employment options of black fe­ pulse with a negative historical resonance, many males simply to upgrade the black male image? black intellectuals have yet to learn the lesson. This confusion is not unearned, however. The black cultural nationalists of the 60s Black Americans are at a turbulent historical and 70s demonstrated anew the deadening ef­ juncture. Caught in the draft ofWestern liber­ fect such ideological requirements have on crea­ alism, many black women intellectuals are be­ tive expression. Their various proscriptions and ginning to question patriarchal assumptions that prescriptions aborted a historical moment preg­ underlie this society. This is happening just as nant with promise. It seems clear that efforts to many black men, particularly younger ones, find subordinate the profound and penetrating crea­ they are becoming economically irrelevant in tive process of black people to an ideological their community. Inordinately uneducated and movement suffocates the community's creative (© 1986, In These Times unemployed, young black males are over­ vitality. and reprinted with permis­ represented in virtually all crime statistics and Black women writers are finally expressing sion. For in/ormation about have few tangible benefits to offer black females the Yin of the black experience. And if black In These Times, write 1300 during the prime years of family formation. men aren't quite ready for that, well, they bet­ W. Belmont, Chicago, II Female-headed, welfare-financed house- ter get ready.• 60657) 28 Black Fzlm Review

The Great Black Hope Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It]ust Might Be the Breakthrough

Spike Lee, left, on the set ofShe's Gotta Have It, with cinematographer Ernest Dickerson. (Photo: David Lee) Summer 1986 29

By David Nicholson

pike Lee's new film, She's Gotta Have It, nest Dickerson, was committed to another pro­ was the hit ofthe 1986 San Francisco In­ ject and so Lee scrapped The Messenger for one ternational Film Festival. The near­ with three locations, a smaller cast, and a crew Scapacity audience gave the director and Lee had known from film school. Redmond Hicks, one of the stars, a standing She's Gotta Have It, was shot in 12 days ovation after its premiere screening. But it was and a weekend in Brooklyn for some $20,000, remarkable that the film was even shown at all. less than the catering budget for most Holly­ The print arrived only that morning, and a third wood films. It was shot in black and white in of the way through the screening, the projector 16mm and blown up to 35mm, but there is groaned to a halt-the electricity had gone out nothing low-budget about it. It has the intimate in that part of the city. Still, people stayed, en­ feel of a 60s European film instead of the cold, during the wait in the darkened theater with perfect color of a Hollywood production. The good humor. They just had to have it. dialogue is witty and precise; the images star­ In May, before going to the Cannes Film tling and original. Dickerson (Brother From An­ Festival (where he won the Prix du Film other Planet and Almacita Di Desolato) found Jeunesse), Lee concluded a distribution agree­ inventive camera angles and captured magnifi­ ment with Island Pictures. The film was sched­ cently the richness of black skin tone; Nola's uled to open August 1 in New York, with later seems so smooth and perfect you swear it would screenings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seat­ ripple in a breeze. tle, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Houston. Rights have already been sold in France, Ger­ many, Holland, Spain, and Japan. ." Spike Lee is on his way, and he hopes the She's Gatta Have It, was shot in 12 success ofhis film benefits other black indepen­ dents. days and a weekend in Brooklyn for "People always ask how it feels," Lee said. $20, 000, "It feels great. I could see it happening five years some less than the catering ago. I'm just glad it happened sooner, rather budget for most Hollywoodfilms. than later. The time is right-look at the suc­ cess of The Color Purple. Now, if this film is But there's nothing low budget about a hit, distributors are going to be looking every­ where for black independent filmmakers." the film. She's Gotta Have It has been billed as a woman's story and, on one level, it is. "She" is "Some documentary filmmakers argue that Nola Darling (the winsomely luscious Tracy it doesn't matter how it looks - it's just the con­ Camilla Johns), a young graphic designer in­ tent," Lee said. "Ernest and I have always been volved with three men-sober-minded and very concerned with how a film looks. We've al­ monogamous Jamie Overstreet (Hicks), self­ ways wanted to do a film with a strong narra­ centered male model and weight-lifter Greer tive, that tells a story. We've always wanted to Childs Oohn Canada Terrell), and the zany, make good films with content, and to have our post-adolescent Mars Blackmon (Lee himself). shit look just as good as anybody else's." Is Nola a freak or isn't she? Facing the camera None of this has gone unrecognized. Be­ at the beginning of the film, she informs us, fore Lee concluded his Island deal, several ma­ "The only reason I have consented to this is to jor distributors-Orion, Goldwyn, and Circle clear my name." Pictures-were considering the film. And, in a Nola almost never got the chance. When year when "Rambo" and others stayed at home Lee was considering a new film, he originally because of fears of terrorism, She's Gotta Have conceived the story of a Brooklyn bicycle mes­ It was the sole American independent. film senger and his family. He did eight weeks of selected for the Directors Fortnight at the pre-production and planned a four-week shoot­ Ca-nnes Film Festival. ing schedule. But the cinematographer, fellow All of which has Spike Lee feeling pretty New York University film school graduate Er- good. 30 Black Fzlm Revz"ew

"It's rewarding," he said, "because we said. "But I would say the only similar thing be­ slaved to make the film. We had to practically tween Woody Allen and myself is that we're kill ourselves to get this film made. But it's no both looking at things. And he has as many surprise to all ofus who worked on it that things black people in his films as I have white people are working the way they worked. We had the in mine." utmost faith in our ability and the project." One the film's strengths is the way it And, despite the limitations, Lee said, presents black men and women, in a fairly (only "The great thing is that this film is exactly the Johns is shown nude) non-exploitative way, as film I envisioned. And it's not often, whether sexual beings-sensuous, humorous, and trag­ you have the money or not, that you get to make ic. Lee looks at black men and women and their" the film you originally wanted to do." relationships in She's Gatta Have It, for while Lee, '29, was born in Atlanta and raised in the film is about Nola's journey from confusion Brooklyn. He went to Morehouse and then to to some kind ofcertainty about who (and what) NYU. He has made two other films with she wants, it is also about men. And it is likely One ofthe film's Dickerson-Sarah (1980), his second-year film to engender a continuation ofthe hackneyed de­ at NYU, and]oe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We bate about "positive images" that accompanied strengths is the way it Cut Heads (1982), which was the first student The Color Purple. Women may have qualms presents black men film ever selected for the Museum of Modern about the fairly explicit sex or complain that No­ Art's New Directors/New Films series, and won la's character is not developed enough. Men may and women, in a non- a Student Academy Award. find it smoothly deflates many of the attitudes exploitative way, as He credits his mother, who taught art and they hold dear. At one point, Nola wryly re­ sexual beings. There English, and his father, the musician Bill Lee, marks that there have been "dogs" in her life, with providing the artistic environment that and in rapid succession 12 men (filmmaker Reg­ are no white charac­ decided him on filmmaking. "My mother was gie Hudlin and cinematographer Ernest Dick­ ters, so the story has always dragging me to Broadway plays when I erson have cameos) deliver the lines that get was three and four years old," he said. "My fa­ them over. That sequence alone is worth the less to do with being ther was dragging me to see him play- the Vil­ price of admission. oppressed than ,with lage Vanguard, the Bitter End, the Blue "I'm putting it out there," Lee said. "But Note-when I was the same age. I think that's there's a difference between putting it out there the awful responsibtli­ been the big influence-my parents. And es­ and hating people. There's nothing wrong with ty ofbeing human. pecially exposure at an early age to music. When screaming about black men, but don't do it with all is said and done, the thing that has kept hatred or vengeance. I know that black men do black people alive has been our music." a lot of things that are fucked up, and I've tried Lee's father contributed the soundtrack to to show some of the things we do." the film, as well as a role as Nola Darling's fa­ And the film is located centrally in the ther, Sonny. And, indeed, She's Gatta Have It black experience. The characters talk in a kind was a family affair, with most members of the of bop prosody - "Please baby, baby please, family getting production credits. Lee's sister baby baby, please," Mars says to Nola, with the Joie is featured as Nola Darling's roommate, essence of nose-open rap. Later, assessing her, Clorinda; his brother David Lee, a pho­ he says, "Nola was on the job, 24-seven-365." tographer, took the production stills. The mis-en-scene refers to Malcolm X and there The film itself is serio-comic. The fum­ are references to "political" concerns (though blings of Nola and her three lovers are by turns they are never hammered into our conscious­ painful and laughable, in part because we recog­ ness)-JesseJackson's presidential campaign and nize something of ourselves in their predica­ Mars' liking the Knicks while Jamie thinks Lar­ ments. Not the least of the humor comes from ry Bird the NBA's best player. There are no Lee's role as Mars Blackmon, a gold-chained, white characters. Thus Nola's dilemma, and bicycle-riding B- boy (we first see him as he each man's, has less to do with being an op­ careens into the camera after riding pell-mell pressed member ofa minority group and every­ downhill) whose brutal urban wit and irrepres­ thing to do with the awful responsibility implicit si ble craziness energize the screen. Perhaps be­ in being human. cause of the humor and surface similarities such In this specificity, much like those two oth­ as an enormous pair ofhorn-rimmed glasses, Lee er exemplars of the new black cinema, Charles has been compared to another auteur, Woody Burnett's My Brother's Wedding and Kathleen Allen. Collins' Losing Ground, She's Gatta Have It . H~ thinks, however, that the comparison achieves a rare universality. IS specIous. "People," Lee said, "are always talking "People always try to compare stuff," he about universal, universal. Any universal film Summer 1986 31

Tracy Camzlla Johns is Nola in Spike Lees new film She's Gotta Have It. Red­ mond Hicks plays her lover, Jamies. (Photo: David Lee) has always had to be on one specific thing, and With She's Gotta Have It, Lee has the it's that one specific thing that makes it univer­ chance to get his. Distributors have told him, sal. You don't make a universal thing by hav­ he said, that they were looking for black films. ing a black, a Puerto Rican, aJew- 'Yeah, we'll "I told all the distributors we met with, 'If make it universal; put every race in it.' That's we go with you, I don't want to be your black not universal. That's just some misconception act,' " he said. "I want to be treated as well as Hollywood has. Oohn) Sayles, as well as any of the white in­ "Any great film- The Bicycle Thief is dependents. I want all the respect given to about an Italian right after the war. And be­ young white directors. And I don't want this cause it's so specific, that's what makes it univer­ film targeted just to black inner-city people." sal. When you're holding on to one thing, one And what he wants to get is enough to fin­ truth. A lot of people don't understand that. ish paying for She's Gotta Have It and begin And this is the trap black people get into- to another film. He doesn't know which of his become successful means the less black you have many scripts it will come from yet, but the film to be. will be set in Brooklyn, and it will be black. "Why does Barbara Streisand do Yentl? "We have to tell our own story," he said. Everything Woody Allen does is Jewish. Look "I am sick of these white people defining who at Scorcese with Little Italy. How come they can we are. But there is nobody to blame but our­ do things with their culture, but we are the ones selves. I'm not naming names, but I think one who allow ourselves to get into that- 'I want to of the things that holds us back is that we think cross over, so I have to make that move so it's it's not a film unless it's a $5 million picture. universal?' Man, if our stuff wasn't universal, I think we have it backwards, and there are al­ people wouldn't have been stealing our stuff­ ternative means to just doing this Hollywood our art, our dance, and our talk-from day stuff." • one." 32 Black Ftlm Review At Long Last Director's Guzld Honors Oscar Micheaux

by Saundra Sharp

OU .know, it's very interesting .. I have the edited, and then distributed his products with­ words written here, but the words here out benefit ofHollywood studios or distribution will hot suffice to express all that need companies. He operated the most financially be said about the fact that we gather successful film company ever, marketing to the Y black audience, and he remains the single most here too many years after an enormous genius ofours has gone. But fortunately he has left us prolific black filmmaker of our time. with the mark ofhis gift. We gather here then, And the films were good! At this event, to say thank you for what he was, thank you for more than 500 guests waited as actor Ben Vereen what he has left us, and thank you for finally introduced Body and Soul, a silent film made allowing us to have a role model by which we in 1925. Sadly, many of Micheaux's films dis­ Can sculpt our future in the American film in­ integrated or were lost. Prints remain of only dustry." about 10 titles. The print shown was restored With these words by Sidney Poitier, the by the International Museum of Photography legendary pioneer filmmaker Oscar Micheaux at George Eastman House in Rochester, New received a posthumous Special Directorial York. Award "for lifetime achievement in direction" The lights dimmed. In the tradition ofsi­ from the Directors Guild ofAmerica in Los An­ lent films, organist Gaylord Carter performed geles, May 18. It was the first time a posthu­ an overture, and as the organ rendered strains mous award had been given, and the first time ofthe spiritual "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've an Afro-American had been so honored in the Seen," producer/ director Oscar Williams 50-year history of the Guild. whispered'r"I hear our international anthem." The award was accepted by Micheaux' The "trouble" the DGA and its black niece, Verna Crowe. The two previous award members have seen is the same throughout the recipients were Akira Kurosawa and Frederico industry-racial discrimination in hiring prac­ Fellini. tices. Blacks represent approximately 3 percent DGA President Gilbert Cates remarked, of the DGA's 8,000 members nationwide, yet "To produce 35 films ... without help from a the Guild has stepped ahead ofall other enter­ distribution source or financial organization is tainment industry unions in supporting the extraordinary. However, to have been a black goals ofits minority members. This includes tak­ man in 1918, to 1948, when there was absolute­ ing Warner Bros. and Columbia Pictures to ly no cooperation or encouragement from the court when each studio refused to sign mini­ conventional picture organization. .. makes this mum hiring level agreements, although the really an unparalleled achievement." cases were subsequently dismissed. America's- first "Negro" film production The curtain lifted, and the screen filled company, the Foster Photoplay Co., was start­ with the stunning presence of Paul Robeson, ed in Chicago around 1910. Later, the Lincoln then just 26, making his film debut playing a Motion Picture Co. became the first black­ dual role ofhero and villain. The sophisticated owned enterprise to establish a national distri­ audience got right into the spirit ofthings, loud­ bution network for black-produced films. In ly hissing the villain, and laughingly applaud­ 1918, Micheaux, then a South Dakota rancher, ing the moments when virtue triumphed over businessman, and author, decided to make his evil. own film ofhis book The Homesteader. It was "There were several versions of Body and the beginning of a phenomenal 30-year career Soul," said Dr. Henry Sampson, a film and the­ during which he wrote, produced, directed, atre historian and author of the book Blacks in Summer 1986 33

Black and White. "This is partly due to bled directors and producers, "This is the day Presentation ofthe special Micheaux' habit of re-editing his films, and of­ to do an audition!" The event even garnered a posthumous Lifetime ten having more than one ending. Micheaux telegram from President Reagan, which said, in Achievement Award to pi­ learned that his audiences cared less for part, "Oscar Micheaux stands tall in the history oneer black film director propaganda than for a good story. Still, he want­ of the cinema.... Nothing daunted him and Oscar Micheaux. From left, William Crain, co-chairman ed his films to accurately show the social condi­ his work remains a testament to courage and ar­ ofthe event; Verna Crowe, tions under which the black man existed in tistic excellence." Micheaux' niece; veteran America. So you might consider some of his Most white Americans have never had an director Wendell Franklin, films as protest films, but he got into motion opportunity to see a Micheaux film. His "All who organized the event; pictures, not as a protest, but to make money Colored Cast" films were shown to all-colored and Sidney Poitier, who like everybody else. He based his stories on his audiences in black-owned theaters. Or, in white presented the award for the own experiences, shot the films in seven to 10 theaters, after Charlie Chaplin films, in mid­ Director's Gutfd ofAmer­ days, and was the only black producer to do night screenings of The Gunsaulus Mystery or ica. (Photo: © Steve W. -Grayson) both silent and sound films." The Notorious Elinor Lee. When the screen dimmed an hour later, Popular Love Boat bartender Ted Lange, the audience's reaction was summed up by TV's who directed more than 12 episodes ofthe show, 227 star Hal Williams: "I enjoyed the hell out said, "At the American Film Institute, director of that film!" He went on, "He did that then. Martin Ritt [Sounder, Cross Creek] held a semi­ With what we have now, there's no excuse why nar, in which I suggested that there should be we can't do our own films." some black consultants on the set offilms with Dolores Robinson, personal manager to Le­ blacks on screen - the way they have doctors on var Burton and comedian Sinbad, said, "I'm medical shows. That way, when white directors overwhelmed. It's impressive looking at this film tended to go wrong, they could be told what poster that says 'Micheaux Picture Corporation.' the milieu is. And Ritt responded, "Well, you That man was a business!" know black people haven't been that involved Among the guests were Frances E. Wil­ in the cinema.' This was in 1974." liams, who starred in Micheaux' Lying Lips in So what caus~d the DGA to suddenly ac­ 1939, and Lorenzo Tucker, featured in 14 knowledge someone whom most ofits member­ Micheaux films, who announced to the assem- ship had never even heard of? The action was Bh ck Film Review

initiated by Wendell James Franklin, with Sampson includes one of the most complete strong support from his co-chair, director Wil­ written documentations on icheaux-14 ad he been alive, liam Crain. Twenty-six years ago, Franklin be­ pages- in his aforementioned book. came the DGA's first black member. Producers Gail Choice and Ton Brown are Micheaux wouldprob­ "This recognition has to have a heck of an among several who have highlighted 'cheaux' ably have been too impact," Franklin said, "because it means that accomplishments in their programming. Luther busy to come to the the man has finally been accredited by this in­ James, the first black to direct commercial epi­ dustry." From the podium, Academy Award­ sodic television (the series Bewitchedand]ulia) ceremony. he would winning director Robert Wise (West Side Sto­ first learned about Oscar Micheaux when he was have been at work. ry, The Sound of Music) affirmed Franklin's a boy in Harlem. "I went to Fredenck Douglass commitment and added, "Wendell Franklin Junior High, a school in which they were forev­ came to the National Board with a thick packet er trying to acquaint us with the accomplish­ ofinformation and a long list ofreasons ... but ments of those who were trying. So naturally, before he got past the preamble his case was they showed us Micheaux' films." And each made and approval was unanimous." Franklin February, the Black Filmmaker Hall of Fame added, "It's time. It seems as though a lot of confers its Oscar Micheaux Award on new in­ us are known in the black world, but we don't ductees. Fittingly, this historic plaque will be tell anybody else about it." housed at the Hall of Fame in Oakland, Calif. Actually, we have been trying to tell peo­ As the evening came to an end, someone ple about Oscar Micheaux. Independent film mused, "I wonder what Micheaux would have producer Carol Munday Lawrence included a thought about all this, had he been here today?" half-hour segment on Micheaux-with Danny Well, he probably would have been too busy Glovet portraying the exacting filmmaker-in to come. He would have been filming in Chica­ her PBS series "Were You There" that first aired go, or editing in New York, or in Oklahoma in 1981. Mayme Clayton, founder ofthe West­ City petitioning a theater owner to show his next ern States Black Research Center, owns four film. Oscar Micheaux would have been at Micheaux prints which have screened regularly work.• since 1977 at the Black Talkies Film Festival.

Published continually since 1967, Cineaste is today in­ ternationally recognized as America's leading magazine on the art and politics of the cinema. "A trenchant, eter­ nally zestful magazine," says the International Film Guide, "in the forefront of American film periodicals. Cineaste always has something worth reading, and it permits its writers more space to develop ideas than most maga­ zines. " Published Quarterly, Cineaste covers the entire world of cinema - including Hollywood, the independents, Europe, and the Third World-with exclusive interviews, lively articles, and in-depth reviews. Subscribe now, or send $2 for a sample copy, and see what you've been missing!

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oy Campanella's documentary, Passion and Memory (airing nationally on PBS in May and]une), brings a gifted young Rfilmmaker's sympathetic sensibilities to bear on the struggles and triumphs of five prominent blacks in the history of Hollywood films: Stepin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel, Bill Robinson, Dorothy Dandridge, and Sidney Poitier. Moreover, Passion and Memory serves a crucial role in recording the contributions of blacks to the Hollywood film industry. Since the early 70s, both casual and seri­ ous students of blacks in Hollywood films have had access to a greater variety ofcritical materi­ al than in any previous decade. After the rela­ tively positive black images ofthe 60s, and just at the onset of the 70s "Blaxploitation" wave, film historians and critics discovered the black presence in mainstream films constituted a ter­ rain once neglected but now ripe for critical comment and assessment. Our understanding of Hollywood's use of black images on screen gained considerably from such studies as Donald Bogle's Toms, Coons, Mulattoes Mammies, and Bucks (1973); Gary Null's Black Hollywood (1975); Daniel Leab's From Sambo to Superspade (1975); and Tho­ mas Cripps' Slow Fade to Black (1977). Each of these studies in its own way gathered and evalu­ ated large amounts of archival material into plausible historical accounts. Yet a filmed assessment of films and film actors rna be more descriptive and immediate than a written commentary. For example, MGM's successful projects That's Entertainment I (1974) and II (1976) and the later That's Danc­ ing (1984)- compilations of key dance se­ quences taken from archival footage - are "film documentaries" in a dual sense: documentaries on film and documentaries about film. These entertaining musicals are but the latest in a Hollywood tradition of conscious self-scrutiny, self-assessment, and (all too often) self­ promotion in the documentary format, the tra­ dition offilms on films. In such documents, as in so many others, the role of blacks in Holly­ Roy Campanella, Jr.'s wood films has been misunderstood, under­ played, or even totally disregarded. Campanella produced, directed, and co­ Passion and Memory wrote this one-hour documentary, based on Donald Bogle's study mentioned earlier. Al­ though Bogle'S later book Brown Sugar (a his­ Celebrates Black Film tory of black women entenainers) was made into a series which has also appeared on PBS, Cam­ panella's Passion andMemory stands as a more inventive, more compact, and ultimately more ByJatnes A. Snead coherent work than the often weakly fused Brown Sugar segments. Passion andMemory en­ lightens us about the history of black Holly­ wood, but also explores with great energy and finesse the limits and possibilities of the documentary film format itself. Hattie McDaniel, left, in a scene from Nothing Sacred with Carole Lombard. McDaniel Campanella earned a BA in anthropology is one 0/five black movie stars profiled in Roy Campanella, Jr. 's documentary Passion from Harvard before doing production work for and Memory. Black Fzlm Review

WGBH-TV in Boston as a documentary film The early stars of the 30s and 40s, in par­ director, cameraman, and editor. Between 1973 ticular, somehow managed brilliantly to coun­ and 1981, as his creative energies matured, he teract the demeaning roles allotted them. In amassed an impressive series of credentials, in­ Passion andMemory - as opposed to the meth­ cluding an MBA from Columbia's Graduate 0d of That's Entertainment and similar films­ School ofBusiness. In the late 70s, he complet­ Campanella uses documentary conventions to ed several independent films. Two of these, the undercut, rather than underpin the history of semi-autobiographical Pass / Fatl (1978), and the distorted imagery that Hollywood passed off as action-packed fragment Thieves (1979), the "truth." Stereotyped images in large part fur­ anatomy of a Harlem numbers bank robbery, nish the raw material of Passion and Memory, received wide exposure and acclaim at indepen­ but Campanella revises them through tactics of dent film festivals in America and abroad. ironic selection and juxtaposition. In 1981, Campanella moved to Los Angeles Roben Guillaume, star of ABC's Benson, with his company, Morningstar Productions, narrates Passion and Memory with restrained, through which he now exercises his considera­ yet engaging appeal. The film interweaves his ble directing, writing, and producing talents. always concise and intelligent commentary with two further documentary threads: "passion" in the form ofpertinent (and often rare) stills and jilm aims to film-clips from dozens of Hollywood produc­ Ie tions from the late 20s through the early 70s; depict the successful and "memory" as a series ofrevealing interviews breakthroughs ofji've with film historians, co-workers, or personal friends of the entertainers reminiscing about black jilm artists who their lives and times. Transitions between the were not afraid to fazl, capsule biographies ofeach star are smooth: for instance, we move from Stepin Fetchit's career as well as to record to Hattie McDaniel's through a film in which their efforts for future both appear. Each biographical segment gives the key generations. 'events of the performers' careers, emphasizing He is, he said, "skeptical of the definitions the oQstacles, but also their often ambivalent that tie us down," and works only on those triumph over racial stereotypes. Stepin Fetchit projects in which he can discover "a personal steals a scene from Will Rogers even while truth." pretending to be witless and self-effacing; Hat­ "I only do the films I would enjoy watch­ tie McDaniel delivers the Oscar speech, written ing myself," he said. "If you are not willing to for her by the studio, that includes a reference fail, then you can never achieve that level ofsuc­ to being a "credit to her race"; we observe Doro­ cess of which you are capable. Success is really thy Dandridge fighting with great dignity a journey, and not just a destination." against a demise that now seems painfully in­ Campanella's eclecticism allows him to evitable. work in a variety ofenvironments. Over the last Campanella's film rehearses for our eyes three years, he has directed such diverse televi­ and ears the vast 80-year saga of Hollywood­ sion series as Dallas, Knots Landing, and Simon its growth, its duplicities, its magic-from the andSimon, as well as carrying out projects such vantage point of its major black players, but as Passion and Memory and a short film, Rites adds further dimension to this record by o/Passage, on the making ofRichard Pryor'sJo presenting us with co-makers of that history. Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling. He is no stran­ One of the splendid features of Passion and ger to the vicissitudes of filmmaking, either as Memory is its inclusion of interviews with such an independent or as a member of the major black talents of the past and present as predominantly white film industry. Robert Hooks, Ernest "Sunshine Sammy" Mor­ Sometime in 1982, Roy Campanella, Jr.'s rison, Gordon Parks, Brock Peters, Jayne Kenne­ artistic journey led him to conceive of the pro­ dy, and even the great Lorenzo Tucker (the ject that would become Passion and Memory. "black Valentino"). The prominence ofthese in­ As a documentary film, Campanella's work aims terviews gives the documentary's subjects human to depict the successful breakthroughs of five a?d frequently humorous or poignant dimen­ black film artists who were not afraid to fail, as Sions. well as to record their efforts for future genera­ Overall, Campanella's complex design suc­ tions. In a sense, this film both chronicles and ceeds best where it gives us the chance to see critiques the film history it traces. It recalls at­ the dead past preserved on film, but also to see tempts by white filmmakers to show blacks as living black artists ofthe past and present speak­ subordinate and inferior, but puts their artistry ing candidly, and with reverence, about our in an interpretive context that-Jdemonstrates the great film heritage and those actors who­ black stars' perseverance and triumphs rather against great odds- made it eminently worthy than their humiliation. of our continuing passion and memory. • Summer 1986 37

efore returning to her Argentine home,­ land in 1984 to begin production on her Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo Buenos Aires-based documentary, Las BMadres de Plaza Mayo, filmmaker Susana Munoz spent many uncomfortable nights. "I kept having nightmares about being taken away, being put into prison and tortured," she Despite Fear, said. "I was quite scared." Thousands of Argentines had cause for similar nightmares. Many lost children under mysterious circumstances under the junta that They Marched to Save ruled from 1976-83. In reaction to the wall of official silence that cut them off from knowl­ edge about their loved ones, a small group of Their Children mothers of the estimated 30,000 desaparecidos - the disappeared- began to march each Thursday in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. The women were ridiculed and By Leigh Jackson threatened-some even disappeared. But they continued to demand the return of their chil­ dren. In 1983, the debacle ofthe Falkland Islands War felled the government, and the women suddenly found themselves national heroines, latter-day Cassandras who had predicted the military regime's downfall. Soon after, despite her dreams, Susana Munoz flew back from her self-imposed exile in the u.S. to record the mothers' struggle on film. During a trip to Washington, DC, where Munoz showed her film and spoke at the Insti­ tute for Policy Studies, she reported that her time in Argentina passed quietly despite her fears. "There were bad moments technically, but we were not really harassed," she said. "We knew we were photographed at the Plaza like most people are by the security agents that are still operating. Once, we had some trouble get­ ting an interview with the minister of the In­ terior. But otherwise, we didn't have any prob­ lems." Ironically, the interviews with the mothers were sometimes more difficult to film than in­ terviews with the most jaded government offi­ cials. "You're in the middle of your best mo­ ment," Munoz explained, "and the woman is crying, sobbing, just saying her heart is torn to pieces, and the film ends. And she keeps talk­ ing. You want to kill yourself, but you have to ask her to stop and say it again. And like it or not, she would. These women were good actress­ es - they could do it." The events that constituted Argentina's public history and Susana Munoz' private mis­ ery translate powerfully to the screen. Since its release, Las Madres has been shown at the Havana and Rio de Janeiro film festivals, in Spain, Italy, and Australia. It was nominated for an Oscar as best documentary, and in March, received the $1,000 Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival film and video competition. 38 Black Film Review

We wantedto make an educationalandpolitical film, andfor that we chose deliberately to make a film which wouldtake youfrom the beginning andcarry you by the handto the end. "

The road from conception to celluloid and political film, and for that we chose deliber­ proved more treacherous than Munoz' return to ately to make a very a-b-c film which would take Argentin~. Money was always a problem and, you from the beginning and car au b the ironically,.the return ofdemocracy hindered the hand to the end. It's for people who don't know fundraising efforts of Munoz and her partner, anything," she said. Lourdes Portillo. "A lot of foundations would "We had to explain the histor of Argen­ tell us, 'Well, look, you have a democratic tina. Historical facts are important so that peo­ government in your country now. Why do you ple would see that recent events are part of a want to make this film?'" she said. pattern." Once Munoz and Portillo had raised mon­ Munoz hopes that the current Argentine ey, they found themselves in the position of government will survive. On the one hand she many independent filmmakers-chronically un­ admits that "the atmosphere is certainl very derfunded and understaffed. She and Portillo different," and she "definitely and wholeheart­ underestimated their budget by about $30,000 edly supports" President Alfonsin. Yet she also and are still $40,000 in debt. worries that "the basic structures of production Munoz grew up in a smallJewish commu­ and how Argentina operates have not changed nity in Argentina. She had "absolutely no con­ much." tact" with "the goyim" until she ventured out­ "Basically, Alfonsin cannot pay the nation­ side her community for high school. There, she al debt without upsetting everyone," she said. learned that discrimination "works both ways." "People from the working class could go on Her gentile classmates called her "Russita"­ general strike, which in turn would promote vio­ the little Russian- because, as she explains, "it lence, and groups would want the kind of was a derogatory term for a Jew." change that the president cannot bring. Then "There were threeJewish girls in the class. the whole cycle would start all over again. That's We always felt we were different from the rest. the history of Latin America." And there were some very anti-Semitic com­ Munoz is now promoting Las Madres. She ments directed at us." speaks hopefully of showing her film in Hong After high school, "you really had only two Kong and on PBS. And she mentions, rather choices," Munoz said'. "You could be a Zionist coyly, future film prospects. and go to Israel or you could stay in Argentina While the next project is a feature film, it and tear yourself from the Jewish community. won't stray too far from the themes of Las There were no in-betweens." Madres: it's political, set in Argentina, and Munoz chose Israel. There, she developed meets Munoz' standards for historical accuracy. an interest in film and spent seven years work­ "The story is a political story and it has to ing as a television news editor and studying fine do with the same time depicted in Las Madres, " arts. To learn more about film, she eventually Munoz said, "but it's more dramatic. It's not fic­ decided to come to the U.S. to study at the San tional. I'm going to fictionalize something that Francisco Art Institute. "There weren't many really happened." schools in Israel," she said. "I could have con­ And what of the disappearances that gave tinued working in television, but I felt I need­ Munoz' career such momentum? Munoz sighs. ed more training. I wanted to do more than "The evil question," she says. The children are edit. The kind offilm I could do then was very still gone. "There's been little identification of primitive, very news." the remains." Her first and only independent film before And the nightmares? Las Madres was a short autobiographical film "As soon as I got to Argentina, I lost abso­ done for her master's thesis. It has been called lutely all my fear. I didn't have any nightmares experimental, and Munoz said she and Portillo at alL" • could have made an experimental film in Ar­ gentina. (This story was written by Leigh Jackson, and "But we wanted to make an educational reported by Anne Bohlen.) Summer 1986 39 Women Toil on the World's Assembly Line By Alessandra Lutiger

f it weren't for the working women ofMexi­ en in the great General Motors Sit-Down Strike co, the Philippines, and other Third World of 1936-37. The film, nominated for an Acade­ Nations-you wouldn't have been able to af­ my Award for Best Feature Documentary in Iford that personal computer you bought 1979, won the 1979 Greirson Award in Cana­ your family last Christmas. Your children's toys da, and took the Grand Prize at the American would probably have cost twice as much as they Film Festival as well. do now. And the Levi's jeans you love to wear? Gray's curiosity about offshore plants and The material they were made from was the women who work in them was sparked by manufactured in the Philippines. layoffs at assembly plants in the U.S. and the In her new fIlm, The Global Assembly subsequent closing of those plants. In 1980, a Line, Lorraine Gra examines the infinitely com­ friend introduced her to Maria Patricia Fernan­ plex ramifications ofoffshore production in de­ dez Kelly, a Mexican social anthropologist study­ veloping countries b American corporations. ing working women employed by u.S. plants The film directed by Gray and co­ in Mexico. Invited to Ciudad-]uarez, Mexico, produced with Anne Bohlen and Maria Patricia Gray brought a copy ofBabies andBanners and Fernandez Kell. presents oral histories and tes­ showed it to some 150 working women. timonials from 0 erseas working women, cor­ porate executives American workers, and sociol­ ogists to provide a spectrum ofviewpoints. The film shows there are no easy solutions to this The film shows an attitude that negates the parasitic relationship of people, nations, and business interests. welfare offoreign and domestic workers in "One of the reasons we made the film is that people here [in the U. S.] need to under­ the pursuit ofshort-term profits so that stand that business is now going to operate on a global scale Gra said. Increased internation­ Amencan workers come to see their coun­ al competition she said, and pressure to make high profits has led companies to look for quick terparts in developing countnes as thteves. ways to cut costs. And in labor-intensive indus­ tries, the quickest way to cut costs is to move "There was such an extraordinary conver­ .to a country where the absence of unions and sation between the working women and myself the need for jobs means a company can pay after the screening of the film. From that grew workers (some 80 to 90 percent of them wom­ the commitment to do the film that linked the en) $3.50 a da instead of $4.50 an hour. issues of working women in Mexico and other Gray is no stranger to the history and is­ countries with the issues of working people in sues of labor and the working women. Her the U.S. around the plant closings," Gray said. paternal grandfather was president ofa railroad Fernandez Kelly introduced her to her contacts workers' union, and her maternal grandfather in Mexico, and they began research. In keep­ was an Iron Moulder's Union organizer in Ala­ ing with their aim ofshowing offshore produc­ bama. tion as an international phenomenon, Gray and, And because her background also includes her co-producers used research conducted by women who were homesteaders, she has always Rachel Grossman in Philippines electronics been interested in "strong women, and in where plants as the basis for the questions they would women fit into history and.labor." ask in that country. Her first film, The Emerging Woman The Global AS-fembly Line, which (1974), co-produced with three other women, premiered in March at the American Film In­ examined the social and economic history of stitute and has been shown at the New Direc­ women from the 1800s to the present. Gray, tors series at the Museum of Modern Art, is a Anne Bohlen, and Lynn Goldfarb then decid­ stunning documentary. The film shows an atti­ ed to explore the subject ofwomen in the U.S. tude that negates the welfare of foreign and labor force from the 1930s to the present. domestic workers in the pursuit of short-term That project became With Babies andBan­ profits. One result is that American workers ners: The Story ofthe Women's Emergency Bri­ come to see their counterparts in developing gade (1978), a film examining the role ofwom- countries as thieves. As one worker, freshly laid 40 Black FzJm Review

that we were in a number ofweeks after we left and had turned up dead," Gray said. "This is so well known in the Philippines that even someone as visible as the chairman ofthe board of an electronics plant where we filmed admits that labor leaders disappear in the Philippines. And the film does show where there were actu­ ally some people shot by security guards and po­ lice firing indiscriminately on strikers." The businessperson's point of view ranges from the pragmatism of Richard Bolin, direc­ tor ofthe Flagstaff Institute, a consulting firm: "The nile of the game seems to be, if 50 per­ cent ofyour manufacturing-cost is in labor, you either automate or get out," to the self-righteous diplomacy of Ned Doughtery, an offshore production consultant: "Those jobs are going to provide a degree of economic stability. Those jobs are going to provide a degree, a better de­ gree, ofunderstanding ofus Americans, ofwho we are and what we are all about." Gray said she thinks the executives and en­ trepreneurs interviewed were honest in their be­ lief that they had brought jobs where none ex­ isted before. But, she added, "The film is trying to show to business people that you must con­ sider the human aspects of the questions both in the U.S. as well as in developing countries." Lo"aine Gray, left, and offfrom her job at the Magnavox plant in]effer­ And the human aspect is presented in ugly Sandy SissIe, dun'ng filming son City, Tenn., puts it in the film, "Everything detail. o/The Global Assembly went to Mexico. So the people in Mexico will Consider Rose, who talks in the film about Line in the PhzJippines. enjoy our jobs while we're at home ... starving." her diminished eyesight, the result of many (Photo: Anne Bohlen) But the blessings of those jobs for foreign hours ofmicroscopic assembly ofelectronic com­ workers are mixed. Aside from pitiful wages, ponents: "Sometimes we vomit. We faint. We there are health hazards from which they can get permanently blurred vision." expect little protection. And, during filming in Vincente Chudian, chairman of the plant Asia, Gray discovered that women were often in which she works, responds: "They like scope forced to work seven days a week, sometimes work, and they do diminish their eyesight ifthey working two or three shifts at a time. don't follow normal procedures. But these girls "They have no energy for anything else, are all high school and college girls. They are much less a family," she said. "And they are sus­ in their teens and 20s. And they can take a lot ceptible to various lung diseases. . .. Women of abuse." would get up in the middle of interviews and But the film shows the courage and hope spit blood out of the window." of a work force no longer easily controlled. We These women are doubly trapped. Their see working women learning to organize, often own nations hesitate to place restrictions on off­ despite the danger to their lives. shore plants because of the alarming ease with During the first general strike in a free which plant officials ~ithdraw their operations trade zone in the Philippines, Gray said she and at the slightest hint of a problem. her co-producers decided not to film, because Gray said, "The interesting part ofit is that "we had to protect the people we were fllming." in some places, like theGPhilippines, there is a "There was to be a march across the bridge terrible cycle. The Philippines takes out loans to the plant. Someone came up to our car and which build the infrastructure for these plants. said, 'There will be no march,' because they had The corporations that come in don't have to pay, all gotten word that they might be fired on by for the infrastructure-they only rent the build­ the military. All that day, as we travelled around ings." the Bataan export processing zone, we saw mili­ Who pays towards the repayments ofthese tary men with submachine guns." loans? The workers do. The film shows, despite these dangers, In some countries, such as the Philippines, working women forming networks in their fac­ it is against the law to organize or strike. Work­ tories and homes. They talk to one another ers caught meeting can be labelled "subver- , about their working conditions. And within sives." They can be jailed or terrorized. "A num- ' these daily contacts with larger groups, the seeds ber ofpeople were taken from one of the towns of organization are beginning to take root.• Summer 1986 41 Reviews ••••••••••••••• Poor Richard's So-So Jo Jo

By Arthur J. Johnson

Biography is the falsest ofarts. F. Scott Fitzgerald ith such an extraordinary black cast-including Art Evans, Billy Eckstine, Paula Kelly, Debbie WAllen, Carmen McRae, Scoey Mitchell, and Diahnne Abbott-and an ab­ solutely fascinating story, how did Richard Pryor's semi-autobiographical film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling turn out so so-so? Pryor, who produced, directed, and co-wrote the screenplay, portrays Jo Jo Dancer, a successful nightclub and film comedian who accidentally turns himself into a human torch during a drug binge in his Hollywood mansion. Near death, he is rushed to a hospital emergency room, where TPhat's love got to do with it? Debbie Allen, as the wzfe ofcomedian Jo Jo Dancer, with he thinks back on his life and tries to an­ Richard Pryor as the comedian in Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling. Columbia Pictures Photo swer the question, "Where did I go wrong?" On his mental journey, Dancer recalls and star in what is essentially his life story, Though Pryor is, of course, perfect as his childhood and his loving grandmother getting the jump on those who in the fu­ Jo Jo, the film seems thrown together al­ (Carmen McRae), who helped raise him in ture will undoubtedly attempt a film bi­ most carelessly, especially when the songs her brothel, in which his mom (Diahnne ography ofhis life. The question Pryor must on the soundtrack (which includes such clas­ Abbott) was a prostitute, and where his fa­ answer is 'How, and how well, will the sto­ sics as Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," ther (Scoey Mitchell) apparently did chores. ry be told?' Unfortunately, even given the and the O]ay's "Money, Money, Money," (We're never told how Dancer's father felt quality oftalent assembled for this produc­ as well as a score by Herbie Hancock) are about being married to such a woman.) tion, the answers to these questions are, allowed to drown out some of the standup We also glimpse the troubled relation­ 'sketchily,' and 'not very.' comedy routines taken almost verbatim ship between father and son whenJo Jo is As a director, Pryor does little to milk from Pryor's repertoire. older and about to give up his job and leave scenes wi,th the most potential for dramat­ Sequences in which his white wife suc­ his wife to become a comedian. But we ic impact, such as when the young Dancer cumbs to the lure ofcocaine go on and on, never find out why Dancer thought he (well played by little E'Lon Cox), is rushed although the point has already been made. could become a successful comedian in the from his mother's room so she can turn a In fact, we see her do more coke than J 0 first place. trick. The apparently strong and lifelong Jo. Perhaps Jo]o Dancer suffers from an Along the way to stardom, he meets bond between Dancer and his mother is an­ editing problem, and its best scenes were a luscious stripper named Satin Doll (ex­ other aspect of Pryor/ Dancer's life that is scrapped. The film was 'scheduled for re­ pertly played by Paula Kelly), who helps never satisfactorily developed. lease during the 1985 Christmas season, but him get his first break in show biz in a seedy Pryor's life obviously has been full of held back for re-editing until this May. nightclub run by gangsters. We also wit­ extremely emotional and telling scenes, but Nonetheless, whatever its faults ,JoJo ness the deterioration of his marriage to a few of them are recreated well enough to Dancer, like Cabin in the Sky, Stormy white woman (with whom, in keeping with give us a feel forJoJo or the problems that Weather, and even the wrongheaded The Hollywood convention, he is never seen in­ lead to his decline. Wiz, is memorable, because it provides a timate) after success hits and the couple ac­ As to be expected, the comic scenes are showcase for such an impressive array of celerates into Hollywood's fast lane ofdrugs pulled off without a hitch and, if comedy black talent. and casual sex. is enough, thenJoJo will please. Dancer's By the time Jo Jo marries Michelle impersonation of Satin Doll's striptease (in (Debbie Allen), a cool, sensuous, and self­ full drag) will undoubtedly go down in film Crossroads Misses assured black woman, he has lost almost history as a comedy classic, and his feud complete control of his life and career­ with Michelle over a car given her as a gift the Mark the result of a mixture of alcohol, drugs, practically steals the movie because it con­ In Walter Hill's new film, Crossroads, and insecurity. But the film never tells us tains all the emotion and electricity the film singer-songwriter Joe Seneca is Willie why he is insecure. so badly needs. It makes one wish Allen had Brown, nicknamed "Blind Dog Fulton," an Of course, we know how the story a larger role into which she could sink her aged bluesman desperate to return to the .ends: After all, Pryor has lived to fashion pretty teeth. Missisippi Delta to undo the devil's bargain 42 Black Fzlm Review

he made- fame in exchange for his soul­ the tedium of reviewing the noble lives of when he was young. Ralph Macchio (The assassination victims. Karate Kid) is Eugene, a young white clas­ The film is structured as a series ofcon­ sical guitarist who loves the blues. So much versations surrounding major decisions in so he can't resist inserting a hot lick or two the Kennedy era- a sketching ofcharacters while playing Mozart in class at J ulliard. and their odd motivations without the at­ The film takes its inspiration from the tendant historical background. These 10 life ofRobenJohnson, the legendary blues characters in search of a historian include singer who recorded 29 songs (including the LyndonJohnson (played with bastardly de­ song from which the film takes its title) in light by Kenneth Mars) and a Russian Ge­ the late 1930s on what were then called orgi Bolshakov (done up with a lovably ro­ "race records." (The song includes a refer­ guish accent by Theodore Bikel.) But it is ence to Willie Brown, a guitarist who was Guillaume who bends his character more a contemporary ofJohnson's. The Brown in than the others; he creates a new, more hu­ this film, supposedly Johnson's one-time man King. traveling companion, plays harmonica.) At the core of this speculative history The best moments here are the early is Lovitt's insistence that he can footnote ev­ black-and-white sequences-the young ery speech and every incident, although a Robert Johnson in a San Antonio hotel few names have been changed, possibly be­ room nervously recording his first song, the cause ofthe potential for libel. A disclaimer young Willie Brown meeting the devil's as­ Joe Seneca as Blind Dog Fulton in Cross­ reads, "Cenain events in this film have been roads. Didn't anybody notice how much sistant Ooe Monon ofBrother From Anoth­ fictionalized. .. but not the ones you er Planet and Trouble In Mind. ) in a sepia­ Seneca looked like Uncle Remus? think." Perhaps it should read, "Cenain toned Mississippi Delta landscape. In these events have been mythologized .... " moments Crossroads manages to capture on courage and honor set in Louisiana Lovitt, a Southern-born white admirer the mythical resonance of blues lore and swamps that become a metaphor for Viet of King and a man whose obsession with history. You want all ofthe film to be that Nam. Even his films that fail-Streets of Kennedy led him into the research that good, but it isn't. Fire (1984) is a silly story, but contains resulted in the play Pn'nceJack andthe Ma­ One fault, I think, is in Hill's and powerful images that come straight from chine that preceded the film, is firmly con­ screenwriterJohn Fusco's misreading ofthe the heart of rock 'n' roll mythology-have vinced that the president's racial policies song that gave the film its title and, byex­ something that stays with you after you've spurred his assassination. tension, their failure to understand the spir­ left the theater. The soft-spoken producer, director, it ofthe blues whose power they so desper­ With Crossroads, perhaps Hill and editor quietly quotes Dick Gregory's ately want to inform this film. sacrificed too much in pursuit of commer­ line about the difference between discrimi­ Long afterJohnson's death (the cause cial success. It's hard to believe this is a mov­ nation in the North and in the South: "In remains a mystery), older bluesmen told in­ ie he wantedto make. Because it's just an­ the South they don't care how close I get, terviewers that they remembered him as a other teen-flick- Eugene gets laid and so as long as I don't get too high. In the Nonh, not especially talented musician. As a learns to plays the blues, and frees Willie they don't care how high I get as long as young man, he hung around bluesmen like Brown by playing Mozart in the culminat­ I don't get too close." Eddie "Son" House trying, without much ing guitar duel. The film turns out to be "A lot of my point of view in this success, to learn the music. Then he disap­ just another episode in the ·interminable film," Lovitt said, "is to show how Kenne­ peared. And walked into a juke joint one American fascination with the young white dy meant to address that kind ofhypocrisy Saturday night sometime later and proceed­ boy initiated into life by an older black man legislatively, administratively, and spiritu­ ed to astound the older musicians with his that stretches from Huck Finn to the beats. ally." skill. You wonder ifHill ever noticed how much Karen ]aehne No one, the bluesmen claimed, could the white-bearded Seneca resembled Un­ have learned to play so well in so short a cle Remus in the 1946 Walt Disney film, Teens in Space time without having sold his soul. Song ofthe South. The trouble with Space Camp, a sum­ Many ofJohnson's songs contain su­ David Nicholson mer film about five teenagers who find pernatural imagery. In one, he sings ofhav­ themselves aboard a space shuttle launched ing to keep moving because there is a "hell­ Prince Jack: in error, is the problem with most hound on my trail." In another, he asks to Robert Guillaume As teenflicks - people under 25 just aren't very be buried by the highway, "so myoId evil interesting. The film stars Kate Capshaw as ~,pirit ge~, Martin Luther King can a Greyhound and ride." But Ande, an astronaut who hasn't gone into Crossroads: Not surprisingly, Roben Guillaume as space yet, and as her husband, Tom Sker­ I went down to the crossroads, Dr. Manin Luther King,Jr., is the most in­ rit, in yet another sensitive male role. to try to hitch a n'de, teresting thing about Pn'nceJack, a "prexy­ Space Camp doesn't grip you until Didn't nobody seem to know bio-pic" aboutJohn F. Kennedy which pro­ half-way through when Ande and the kids me, everybody pass me by, poses that JFK's tragic flaw lay in his con­ are aboard the shuttle, trying to figure out is not about some dark existential moment cessions to civil rights and in his admira­ how to get back to Eanh. Though we've ofdespair, but rather the very practical con­ tion for, and protection of, King. seen all the special effects before, and bet­ cern ofa man desperate to quit a white Mis­ The attention given King's role; in the ter done, there's at least some tension in the sissippi town before night falls - his life is Kennedy administration is the result of air. Until then, it's a flaccid film, with the at risk simply because he is black. director Bert Lovitt's virtual obsession with usual suspects - two perky golden teenage Walter Hill has always made movies "PrinceJack," as he is called in an extremely girls, a loudmouthed shirker, a pre­ worth seeing- The Long Riders (1980), is veiled, if not obscure, attempt to cast pubesecent boy with an IQ of 180, and a the shoot-'em-up legend oftheJesseJames Kennedy as Hamlet in the Prince-of­ black. gang as male struggle between commitment Denmark-syndrome. Something is rotten in The black space camper, Rudy Tyler, and the longing for adventure. Southern the state, and it's racism. The point of the is played by Larry B. Scott, who is rapidly Comfort (1981) is a brooding meditation film is in its own subtleway a new twist to on his way to becoming the "neo-Negro" Summer 1986 43

Buckwheat of the 80s. In Iron Eagle, an­ other teenflick, Scott played a gung-ho My Beautzful Laundrette, continued. .. sidekick who, like Buckwheat, was given few lines and had little to do with the plot. Here, he jokes about wanting to open a fast­ food franchise in space, then bemoans the fact that in his high school, he's ostracized lem of race relations; and the problem of My Beauttful Laundrette contains in­ because he's serious about studying. the position of women. triguing textural details, though some are The film gives a nod to creating strong The issue of women's status is actual­ more heavy-handed than others. As Omar woman characters. Ande gives orders and ly treated in far greater depth than the is­ meets his uncle's business cronies in the all­ comes up with the solution to their rapidly sue ofhomosexuality. Tania watches Omar male, smoke-filled living room (the wom­ diminishing oxygen supply. Camper flick an eyelash from Johnny's cheek with en sit separately, not privy to male discus- Katherine (Lea Thompson), who has been no more than a knowing roll of her eyes .. 'sjons), we hear an upbeat medley of "The flying for years, assists her in piloting the (that is the moment she suspects the rela­ British Grenadiers" and "Rule. Britannia" craft. Yet it undercuts these characters by tionship), but she attacks herfather's mis­ while Uncle Nasser extols the virtue ofseiz­ having Ande suffer an injury and Kather­ tress with all the verbal force she can mus­ ing one's own opportunity. Later, Omar's ine funk a crucial decision. All in all, this ter. She abuses her as a woman who lives laundrette open to the strains of "Fanfare is a film to see in a re-run house. Or rent off men-yet when Rachel (the mistress, for the -Common Man." The laundrette when it comes out on cassette. played by Shirley Anne Field) points out contains a two-way (or is it properly a one­ that Tania herself is living off her father, way?) mirror, and the opportunity for creat­ David Nicholson her reaction is cut short. ing double images is rather heavily used by Tania, like Omar, is half-way between photographer Oliver Stapleton. And the Pakistan and England, not belonging to ei­ laundrette itself - is called "Powders," Gay History ther culture. However, Omar has freedom financed by a subverted drug deal. Before Stonewall is an independently in the new (to him) world, while Tania's It's difficult to assess much of the act­ produced documentary history of gays in sphere is a household ofwomen. Omar can ing in this film, in part because so many America which examines the background remain in the family and run his laundrette, ofthe characters are walking political tracts. of the gay liberation movement from the while Tania must escape completely to real­ Saeed Jaffrey as Nasser is the most fully­ 1920s to the present. In addition to being ize her freedom. Omar's mother escaped by developed personality; one is not surprised a powerful historical account, it is often throwing herself tinder the wheels of a to learn he gambles or keeps a mistress. The moving, particularly when gay men and les­ train. Tania simply gets on the train and mistress is one more contact he has devel­ bians tell their individual stories of oppres­ disappears. oped in England, because his household of sion and triumph. Besides interviews, the Ifthe flim has one important message cloistered and costumed women remains film includes historical footage and stills that overrides the others, it is that one can resolutely Pakistani. Daniel Day Lewis as which are often juxtaposed in thought­ get ahead against the odds by working hard Johnny also appears to have hidden depths, provoking ways - the gay subtext ofadver­ and earning money. As Omar's Uncle Nass­ but much of his dialogue is so opaque it's tisements from the 40s and 50s becomes im­ er (Saeed Jaffrey) remarks, "You can get hard to guess them. The same constraints mediately apparent. anything you want in this country .... just hamper Rita Wolfs Tania and Shidey Anne The film includes interviews with poet squeeze the tits ofthe system." And, while Field as Rachel. And, as Omar, Gordon Audre Lord; clothing designer Jheri; evicting a Rastafarian poet, he counters a ~ Warnecke carries the day mainly through Richard Bruce Nugent (whose stories were charge of racisrn by saying, "I'm a profes­ affecting good looks, melting brown eyes, included in the Harlem Renaissance Fire an­ sional businessman, not a professional Pak­ and a secret smile. thology); and Maua Adele Ajanaku, an ac­ istani. There's no question of race in the My Beautzful Laundrette .points out tivist and teacher in New York. In one seg­ new enterprise culture." Money is however what's wrong with the situation of Pakista­ ment, Mabel Hampton, a former domestic you choose to acquire it, whether by rela­ nis in England. It doesn't get into any de­ worker and dancer who knew blues singers tively honest businesses like running a park­ tail, however, and proposes no solutions or Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter, says she ing garage and being a slumlord, as Uncle even palliative actions (other than that age­ "does more bothering with straight people Nasser earns his bread: by drug smuggling, old salvation, love). It's a fascinating look now than I ever did in my life." as Omar's cousin Salim (Derrick Branche) at how another country suffers from prob­ In the background of the frame is a finances his elegant wife; or even by pull­ lems of racial tension, though perhaps not picture of Martin Luther King and a stat­ ing a break-in, as Johnny and Omar do to as much of a parallel for America as some ute ofJesus, reminding us that these folks, payoff a debt. By contrast, the British might think. Ultimately it shows how, giv­ too, are part of our community. youths who lounge about in threatening en an environment and a culture completely David Nicholson groups wielding hammers and blocks of different from ours, human beings arrange wood, who don't have jobs and don't cre­ to make the same mistakes time and time ate their own enterp~ise, are victims of so­ again.• ciety even more pathetic than the Pakistani ••• entrepreneurs they mock. The only anti-capitalist voice is that of In the May issue ofAmerican Fzlm, 15 Omar's father (Roshan Seth), a former jour­ Hollywood writers and directors assess the nalist now reduced to lying in bed smok­ state of American film. A portion of direc-4" ing and drinking, who urges his soh to go Check Your Mailing Label tor Sidney Lumet's comment: to college and rails against The System. "The audience is considerably dumber "We must have knowledge if we are to see The last line of your mailing la­ than it was. They're morons. They don't clearly what is being done and to whom in bel indicates the year and month in know how to behave in theaters - they can't this country," he says to his son in between which your subscription to BLACK even be quiet .... They're totally corrupt­ bottles of vodka. Papa is an educated fail­ FILM REVIEW ends. Help us save ed by the television experience. And they ure, showing up 12 hours late for the open­ costs and paperwork by renewing be­ expect the same television emotional ing of the refurbished laundrette, and fore your subscription expires. results: sentimentality instead of emotion, providing a contrast to his wheeler-dealer tactile sensation and shock instead ofthrill." brother. Black Fllm Review

Kureishi, continued. .. BFR: But the argument some people would women in For Colored Girls Who Have make is that's playing into the hands ofour Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is pride of empire. Now they are having to enemies, Ed Meese, William Bennett, Clar­ Enuff, and the social alienation of our broaden their definition ofwhat is English. ence Pendleton, and people like that. youth in Native Son - ifwe didn't make any The problem of racism in England is not Wesley: You means showing the savagery movies that discussed that, they still would with the black peoples, but with the whites. of Bigger Thomas? be moving against us the way they do. But as black artists, we have to talk about those BFR: You also show how that attitude sets BFR: Yes. things, because that's part of what's keep­ in motion a hostility to whites on the part Wesley: Yes, but they don't really need a ing us oppressed in this country. And we of the Pakistani family members in the movie for motivation to act against us. If have to keep reminding people who is do­ mOVIe. these movies never existed - if we didn't ing the oppressing and wh it is we behave Kureishi: Yes, of course that's true. More­ discuss self-hatred in A Soldier's Story, th-e that way. over, Pakistanis are ambivalent about Eng­ estrangment of black men and black lish culture. On the one hand, England is a great empire and they were ruled by En­ gland for a long time, so there must be something great about it. On the other An Engungun festival at the Yoruba Vtflage o/Oyotunji in Sheldon, SC. Phoeo: _f hand, they hated the English for their im­ ~----...... --...,...... -...... , perialism.

BFR: Who did you make this film for? Kureishi: That's the hardest question. I am always in search of my audience, as some­ one who is between cultures myself. For me, England is both a foreign country and home. You just have to make it there, I figure-that's where you are. But I do have a Pakistani community I respond to. The way I dealt with showing that community, warts and all, in this film was by confusing the issue, bringing in the homosexual theme.• © 1986 Pat Aufderheide

Wesley, continued. .. we need another one ofthese movies?" Do you expect to take some heat? Wesley: Yes. [Laughs] I'm trying to get in touch with Alice Walker to try to find out where she was hiding. [Laughs] I think the public controversy was more than she was prepared to deal with, and that's the only reason she hasn't spoken out as much as I would have expected her to. But I am look­ ing forward to it, because I really want to get into the questions of aesthetics and Voices of the Gods: African Religions in America ideology that I am sure are going to be raised. I especially look forward to some of For African peoples, traditional most moving sequences depicts a yearly those symposiums [Black Filmmaker Foun­ religions were part of the fabric of every­ offering to those kidnapped Africans who dation President] Warrington Hudlin once day life, not something to be taken up and did not survive the Middle Passage - a raft referred to as "image tribunals." put down again. Voices ofthe Gods, a one­ offood and drink is sent out onto the ocean hour film by Al Santana, examines the with prayers for dead ancestors. Another se­ BFR: What do you intend to say? Akan and Yoruba religions as practiced in quence cross-cuts between an Akan ceremo­ Wesley: Pretty much what I've just said, the U.S. today by African-Americans with ny and Christian church members feeling and some other things too. I don't know. a strong sense ofhistory and tradition. The the spirit. At the end of the film, an initi­ I guess it will probably depend on the ques­ film includes a discussion ofslavery and the ate about to become an Akan priest speaks tions and accusations that are hurled at me. slave trade and, despite what is popularly ofthe three-year initiation ceremony which believed, the persistence of traditional prac­ culminates in the graduates donning new And the film. But basically,. one of the tices in the new world. As one interviewee clothes to symbolize the new life they have things I learned from my involvement in puts it, "For the African to have his own, begun. "We become, in effect," she says, community theater in the 60s and the ear­ religion gives a sense of identity and is a "the voices of the gods." ly 70s was that the most dangerous thing challenge to represssion." Film is available from: Akuaba an artist can do is to get hung up on The film includes a portrait ofa Yoru­ Productions, PO Box 521, Brooklyn, NY ideology. ba village in South Carolina. One of the 11238; (718) 636-9747. Support the vision and voice ofblack cznema. Support Black Film Review

Black Fzlm Review began with the inten­ Please help us to continue to publish by sending your check or money tion of providing a forum for critical thought order-made payable to Sojourner Productions, Inc. -to: Black Film Review, 110 concerning the images of blacks in American SSt., NW, Washington, DC 20001. film. Since then, the publication has broa­ The editors wish to acknowledge the following donors for their generous dened its coverage to include black indepen­ contributions: dent filmmakers and their productions, Holly­ wood as it affects black images, and Deborah A. Brown Lisa Buchsbaum independent film from Africa and throughout Lorenzo Augusta Calendar II Roy Campanella, Jr. the African Diaspora. When we began publication, we thought Mbye Cham Joel Chaseman subscriptions would cover printing, mailing, Herbert V. Cholley, Jr. Dr. Rita B. Dandridge and other associated costs. It is now clear sub­ scriptions alone will not. We have thus decid­ Dr. Naomi M. Garrett Mable J. Haddock ed to seek suppon from individuals and organi­ Charles F. Johnson James Alan McPherson zations who are concerned with black cinema and who believe Black Fzlm Review is needed. Diane Porter Trodville Roach Three categories of support have been estab­ Roger B. Rosenbaum Stefan Saal lished: Benefactor, $100; Friend, $50; and Supporter, $25. Each includes a subscription Charles Sessoms William and Elaine Simons to the magazine and Friends and Benefactors Keith Townsend Paula Wright will also receive a Black Fzlm Review t-shirt, as well as notice of special BFR-sponsored Sojourner Productions, Inc., has been declared a tax-exempt organization by the events. Internal Revenue Service.

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