looking for Langston is avisually beautiful and lyric exploration of black gay identities. A poetic meditation on the jazz/blues infused Renaissance as one central motif fo r the re-presentation of the black gay artist. The poetry of , and Bruce Nuggent are featured with Jazz and Blues music by Blackberri; this and other texts weave through the stylized dramatic sequences and archive material in afilm which celebrates gay desire and laments the attitudes expressed by contemporary society. In the words of :"A person does not lightly elect to oppose his society. One would much rather be at home among one's compatriots than be mocked &detested by them. And there's a level on which the mockery of the people, even their hatred is moving, because it is so blind."

40 minutes. Black &White.

01 RECTOR PRODUCER NADINE MARSH-EDWARDS DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY NINA KELLGREN ART DIRECTOR DEREK BROWN EDITOR ROBERT HARGREAVES ASSISTANT DIRECTOR CHRIS HALL MAUREEN BLACKWOOD PRODUCTION ASSISTANT ROBERT CRUSZ FEATURING BEN ELLISON MATHEW BAIDOO AKIM MOGAJI JOHN WILSON DENCIL WILLIAMS GUY BURGESS JAMES DUBLIN JIMMY SOMERVILLE FEATURING THE POEMS OF ESSEX HEMPHILL BRUCE NUGGENT SONGS llBEAUTIFUL BLACK MEN" AND llBLUES FOR LANGSTON" WRITTEN AND ARRANGED BY BLACKBERRI.

PHOTO BY SUNIL GUPTA.

A SANKOFA FILM &VIDEO PRODUCTION C. 1989. FINANCIALLY ASSISTED BY CHANNEL FOUR TELEVISION

FOR INFORMATION AND AVAILABILITY CONTACT: THIRD WORLD NEWSREEL 335 W. 38TH STREET j N.Y./ N.Y. 10018 (212)947-9277

SHOWING SOON IN: NEW YORK CHICAGO SYDNEY LOS ANGELES SAN FRANCISCO ATLANTA BOSTON WASHINGTON/ DC HOUSTON PHILADELPHIA PITTSBURGH BERKELEY 2025 Eye Street, NW INTERVIEW 4 VVashington, DC 20006 ------Video Pioneer Philip Mallory Jones on the evolution of video as art (202) 466-2753 A DIFFERENT FREEDOM ------6 Editor Jacquie Jones Euzhan Paley, the young director from Martinique who brought us the lush Sugar Cane Alley, is back with afi 1m about apartheid that isn't so romantic Assistant Editor Peter J. Harris Consu Iting Editor BROTHER TO BROTHER: BLACK '"'AND FILM Tony Gittens (Black Film Institute) Essex Hemphill and Isaac Julien -- 14 Associate Editor/Film Critic British filmmaker Isaac Julien looks back at the begin­ Arthur Johnson nings of a controversy Associate Ed itors Pat Aufderheide Waiting for Langston ______12 Keith Boseman By Fred Brown, Jr. Victoria M. Marshall Looking for Langston captures the human struggle Mark A. Reid for inclusion Saundra Sharp A. Jacquie Taliaferro Negro Faggotry ------18 Clyde Taylor By Hilton Als Art Director Looking for Langston tries to create aspace in history for Davie Smith LOOKING FOR LANGSTON the intellectual, sexually transgressive Negro Marketing Director Jenice View Other Notions ------20 Advertising Director The creator of Ethnic Notions, nominated for an 1989 Emmy, discusses his upcoming work Jennifer Logan Tongues Untied, amulti-textural look at the Black gay community Found ing Ed itor 12 David Nicholson What's Wrong With This Picture? ------22 1985 - 1989 By David Frechette The Blackgaycharacter, when present, isaone-dimensional mammie/buddywhose entire Black Film Review (ISSN 0887-5723) is published presence is defined by hilarity four times a year by Sojourner Productions! Inc./ a non-profit corporation organized and incorporated in the District of Columbia. This issue is co-produced VIEWPOINT with the Black Film Institute of the University of the The Trouble With Rabbits ------.- -- 24 District of Columbia. Subscriptions are $12 ayearfor individuals/ 524 a year for institutions. Add $10 per By Sharon Stockard Martin and M. Belinda Tucker year for overseas subscriptions. Subscription re­ Toons step on historical toes quests and correspondence should be sent to P.O.

Box 18665) Washington l D.C. 20036. Send all other correspondence and submissions to the above FEATURES address; submissions must include astamped! self­ Film Clips ------3 addressed envelope. No part of this publication may Mickey Leland, Fall Line Up, Charles Burnette's To Sleep With Anger, more ..... be reproduced without written consent of the pub­ lishe r. Log 0 and contents copyright (c) Sojou rner Productions) Inc.! 1987) and in the name of individ­ Reviews: Festival Picks ------11 ual contributors. Filmfest DC's Mapantsula and FESPACO's Heritage African Black Film Review welcomes submissions from writers) but we prefer that you first query with a Calendar _------26 letter. All unsolicited manuscripts must be accompa- nied by astamped) self-addressed envelope. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts. Black Classifieds ------27 Film Review has signed a code of practices with the

National Writers Union l 13 Astor Place l 7th Floor, New York) N.Y. 10003. This issue of Black Film Review was produced 6 with the assistance of grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

ADRYWHITE SEASON FROM THE EDITOR

Luare a subscriber or a regular reader, you've already noticed some changes, a newformat, more pages, a new editor. Several ofyou have called or dropped us notes; most of which contained the same basic sentiment: ''I heard David Nicholson's gone! Is there still a BFR?" Well, we've moved, and we've changed; in short, we'vegrown. But because Black Film Review has always depended on the energies and contributions ofa great manypeople, it has always been movingand changingandgrowing. So, this issue represents a plateau in a staircase of many; it is not a beginning, and certainly, not an end. Ifanything, this issue is a tribute to BlackFilm Review'sfounder, DavidNicholson, whose vision has embraced the men and women who continue to inspire and realize the world ofBlack film. We offer it to him as evidence ofour intention to continue to explore and present that world. We've renewed our commitment to supporting the Black independ­ entfilm movement by providingour readers with more news and informa­ tion about thefilms andfilmmakers. We haveadded a calendar, so that our readers will know when and where they can see the films featured on these pages. And our commitment does not end there. We will also continue to bring forth perspectives that are often excluded or overlooked by the mainstream press. Ideas that challenge our own assumptions about Black images and the paucity of multi-cultural participation in the film and television industries. A ndin the wake ofthe "controversy"surroundingSpikeLeeandhis Do the Right Thing and more recently IsaacJulien and his Looking/or Langston, I would suggest that we all renew our commitment, that we all challenge some basic and ordinary assumptions about this movement. I encourage you to take part in the debate: Which Way the Black Film Movement? (see BFR Vol. 5, No.2) because it is no longer enough (it never was) to grumbleabout the lack ofpositiveimages on television orthe absence ofBlack people's names on movie credits. Movements need rrtany things besides heros and rhetoric. On that note, I encourage you to continue to support the work of Blackfilmmakers andforums thatpresent that work, andI thank allofyou who have helped and continue to help articulate the vision and the voice of Black film and Black Film Review.

2 . F i I ll1 c I I p s ••••••••••••••• l\Iicl~ey Leland (1944-1989) by Roy Campanella, II

When Texas Congressman Mickey Leland died tragically in a plane crash, this past August, African-American filmmakers lost an understanding fiiend and active supporter. He had a deep appreciation for the problemswe face and displayed his cormnitment by supporting congressional legislation to create the IndependentPrograrnmingService. I discussed the conceptofthe programming service with him during early lobbying efforts coordinated by the Association ofIndependent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF). He appreci­ ated the analogy I made between African-Americans culturally starving for images ofthem­ selves andAfricans physically starving from drought and civil war. Mickey Lelandwas an ex­ ceptionallegislatorwho provided much needed leadership on both these fronts. As a founding member and Chairman ofthe House SelectCormnittee on Hunger, Congressman Leland, 44, was traveling with a group ofU.S. and Ethiopian officials tovisit the refugee camp atFugnido on the Sudanese border,where more than 30,000 young Sudanese orphans receive U.S. aid. Mickey Leland played a pivotal role in making possible the u.S. financial aid. Thiswas his seventh humanitarian trip to Ethiopia. The tragic death of Congressman Leland is a loss for all ofus. He is survived by his wife, Allison, who is pregnant, and a three year-old child. • THE INDEPENDENT the only national magazine devoted exclusively to indepen­ To Sleep With Anger dent film and video production 7;Sleep WithAn~ an independentfeature written and directed by Charles Burnette, • Insurance: Group life, medical, disability has completed principal photographyin Los Angles. Burnette, critically acclaimed for his and equipment insurance at affordable Killer ofSheep and My Brother's Wedding; is working with an ensemble castincluding Danny rates, plus dental insurance for New York Glover, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Richard Brooks, Paul Butler, MaryAlice, Carl Lumley, and Vonetta McGee. and New Jersey residents To Sleep -with Angr?Y"is a co-production ofSony, EdPressman, and CuddyChubb, fihned • Festival Bureau, with current infonnation on a $1.3 million budget. No distributor has been setyet. Burnettewas the recipient ofa on over 400 international and domestic $275,000 MacArthurgrantin 1988. film and video festivals, and screenings of your work for visiting festival directors Blacl~-Owned Theatre Changes Hands • Advocacy in government, industry, and public forums to increase support for inde­ The Baldwin Entertainment Complex, the first Black-owned, first-run movie theatre pendent production has been sold. Economic Resources Corporation, a Black-owned, non-profitcorporation and a partner in the Baldwin Complex with MCA paid $1.2 million to buyoutMCA's share. The • Seminars on business, technical, and aes­ multiplex cinema, located in Los Angeles, has been financially troubled because ofthe high thetic issues (audio recordings available) overhead associated with its lease, contrary to published reports the theatre was suffering • Discounts on professional services, includ­ from low attendance. To protect their non-profstatus, Economic Resources Corp. has ing car rental, film labs, postproduction created Baldwin, Inc. a separate for-profit company to operate the facility. Nelson Bennett remains the chiefoperating officer. facilities, and equipment rental • Free semi-annual copies ofMotion Picture Fall Season Additions TV & Theatre Directory ($6.95 value) ~s, a new, one-hourCBS drama, starring Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid, focuses Join AIVF today and get a one-year subscrip­ on a popillar university professor and his socialite wife. In the fashion ofthe Thin Man tion to THE INDEPENDENT. Yearly mem­ Mysteries, Chance and Micki Dennis are witty, urbane crime-solvers in the nation's capitol. bership rates are $45 individual (add $12 for is the show's executive producer.. .Homeroom" a new sitcom setin an inner-city ele­ first class mailing of THE INDEPEN­ mentary school, stars stand-up comic, Darryl Savid. The series also stars PenneyJohnson and DENT); $25 student (encloseproofofstudent Bill Cobbs. The CastlerockEntertainmentProduction forAB(: has Topper Carew as one of ID); $60 library (subscription only); $85 or­ its producers...Two possible mid-season replacements includeAB(:'s Equaljustice (Thomas ganization; $60 foreign (outside US, Canada Carter, executive producer) focusing on a district attorney's office and New Attitude (George & Mexico). To charge (Mastercard and Visa), Jackson and Doug McHenry, producers) another sitcom set in a beauty parlor.Joe Morton call (212) 473-3400. Or send check or money stars in the former and Sheryl Lee Ralph and Phyllis Stickney in the latter.Ja' Net DuBois order to: AIVF, 625 Broadway, 9th floor, (G

Roy Campenella II is a director and inde­ The Association of Independent pendent filmmaker. Video and Filmmakers 3 Interview ••••••••••••• By Elizabeth Jackson

hilip MalloryJones is a man of few words. His presence is serious, powerful, contemplative and undeniably focused on "the image." His internationally touring exhibit, "leono Negro:

The Black Aesthetic in Video

Art," reflects the dignity of his convictions. The program, which

Jones curates, is the first globally touring collection ofvideo art by or with African diaspora artists.

Debuting inJuly of this year in

California, the collection will also tour , Havana,

Rio, London, Paris, ,

Nairobi, Dakar, Abidjan and BFR: You are probably one of the first Black veterans of video Ouagadougou. Inclusive in the collection of ten art, making use of the medium when Sony initially presented the are three ofJones' own video works, Mat Goes equipment in the American market 20 years ago. Can you recall that Around/Comes Around, Footprints and Dreamkeeper. time for me? Philip MalloryJones: I was Jones talked with ElizabethJackson for Black Film there at the start, before you could edit on the machines. The Review about the "Icono Negro" collection and his first time I picked up a video camera and started making a other works to date at the Robert Flaherty Film piece that was to be my thesis in the Cornell Graduate School Seminars in Aurora, New York, and in Los Ange- [III}, you'd turn on the camera ElizabethJackson, Ph.D. is Assistant Pro­ les, during the premiere of the exhibit. fessor at California State University at Barkersfield in the Department of Eng­ lish and Communications. 4 and start to record-you'd have people called your Soldiers of a ing that my audience confront to hold your hands over the lens Recent and Forgotten War (1981) a that in looking at my piece. for a full minute to allow the documentary. Would you set the My pieces are largely por­ machine to lock up. It was like record straight on this? traits, portraits are not fact, they going back to the early days of Jones: I use representational are a vehicle for the maker of photography to be working with images of people to make por­ the portrait to say something video in 1968 when I started traits of people, life, ideas, about the elements of the me­ making tapes. At that time places. They look "documen­ dium that they are making the portable machines didn't play­ tary," and for years I was faulted portrait in, and in video that is back, didn't rewind, no machine as being a failed documentar­ composition, light/dark, line, could play something recorded ian-but I have never made a movement, duration, sequence. on another, no editing 'til 1969. documentary in my life and have Soldiers was the only piece cut never tried to. Soldiers Ofa Recent from the series funded by ePB. BFR: What was III (Three) And Forgotten Warwas a 28­ The CPB approved it, paid me about? minute piece made on a Corpo­ all the money they had con­ J ones: This was based on a ration For Public Broadcasting tracted with me for it; the CPB shooting script and story I had (CPB) Commission as part of the Executive Director for the series ,witten for my graduate program series Matters ofLife and Death. and the producer approved it. in creative writing at Cornell. The piece consisted of the The chief engineer approved it. The story is loosely based on my reconstructed monologues of six But later they switched Executive experiences in Mississippi in Vietnam combat veterans. My Producers, and the new person 1968. title was setting up the purpose, didn't like it. Her chief engineer that is, these guys are back here, flagged it on technical grounds. BFR: The late 60s and early but what was it like to come back? This was a bogus excuse as far as 70s in the South were a very I wanted to examine what was on I am concerned. So it was never radical time for Blacks in this their minds. This was 1981. shown. In 1987, it was finally country. How did your experiences There were only two movies out exhibited at the Washington there shape your work? at that time, Deer Hunter and Project for the Arts in what was Jones: Follo\\ring that experi­ Apocalypse Now that dealt with the called 'War and Memories and ence, coming North again, I was war. the Mtermath ofVietnam." This seriouslv radicalized. I went I did very lengthy interviews was a mind-blowing collection of do\vn there radical; when I came with them, anywhere from four paraphernalia, memorabilia, back, I ,vas crazy. It took me hours to four weeks shooting- long extensive video and film years and years to overcome the just having them talk. Then I series and these really spooky first aspects of that experience reconstructed the tape, cutting room-size installations from 1968-1972. out a great deal and creating The video then went to the My early video had a lot to very concise portraits of these six American Film Institute show in do ,vith that political activity too, men from their speech-all cuts. 1987, to the National Video and so, to be experimenting in So the manipulation of it is Festival, and later to The Mu­ form was an across-the-board apparent. There are no cutaways seum of the Moving Image in proposition. The video reflected to cover edits, so the picture Astoria, Queens. It closed there t11is basic involvement in libera­ jumps allover the place as they in November of 1988. That has ti()n, and. it still does. The work talk, because they are moving been the extent of the exhibition now simply comes to a current and I am cutting out and rear­ of that piece. place with that involvement. ranging their voices, leaving the No,,, the work is attempting to picture as it is. Ifyou listen to BFR: We made a major jump speak to other people in other what they are saying, it is per­ from 1971 and III to 1981 and places, or perhaps the same fectly believable, understand­ Soldiers, I'd like to backtrack a bit people in other places. That is, able- sometimes very crazy and and talk about some of the proj­ not be language dependent, but scary, but believable. But look at ects in between. Let's go back to be able to communicate to an the picture and one can tell it is your time in the South and discusS audience in say Dakar, in a form highly manipulated, and that too The Trouble I've Seen (1976). that can't be mistaken as "televi- was part of the plan. Jones: The Trouble I've Seen is Slone. " I was not making a documen­ a bicentennial ode. A portrait of tary with Soldiers.1 wanted the Black rural Georgia, shot in BFR: Yes. Your work is differ­ audience to know, absolutely all about three rural communities ent from anything that could the time, as they are watching in the hills within a hundred possibly be deemed "mainstream," this that TV is fiction and one yet for lack of a better term, has to confront that}1 am insist- continued on page 28

5 6 ADIFFERENT ree By Pat Aufderheide

Dry White Season is the latest ofinternational films on South Mrican apartheid. It is distinctive for its unflinching approach-you won't be able to think, as you leave, that apart­ heid will end peacefully-and for its interweaving of two stories. One is that of the family ofschoolteacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland), an Afrikaner who has always played along with the system, thinking that "nothing can be done." The other is that of the family ofGordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona), the gardener at du Toit's school, whose son disappears in the 1976 Soweto riots and who eventually dies, tortured, while pursuing the truth ofhis son's death. Through both families, ·we come to see the meaning ofaparthied as a struggle for universal free-

1 dome Director Euzhan Paley comes from Martinique, and her first

continued on page 8

PatAufderheide is an assistantprofessorin the School of Communication at Ameri­ can University and a senior editor of In These Times newspaper.

7 continued from page 7 said. "It is very rare that a studio relationships, it was a film that in feature, Sugar Cane Alley, is a produces a film, gives the direc­ other respects could be mar­ lushly filmed and told tale of a tor control over the final prod­ keted," Weinstein explained. young boy growing up under uct, and then brings a director "And he let us go ahead with it. French colonialism, fiercely back and asks them about He didn't tell us how to do it. battling to get an education promotion. For instance, all the casting was without severing his ties to his "I consider my experience our idea. It was us that pursued origins and the rich Black with the studio an accident, and Marlon Brando-that was culture that nurtures him. A Dry I'm not sure it will never happen Euzhan's idea. And he did it White Season-a studio film (from again. I don't have actually any because of her, and the project." MGM), a thriller, a film with aspiration to become a Holly­ Paley had to explain'to major stars (including Marlon wood director, and that perhaps Brando that she couldn't pay Brando)-looks and feels very aided my endeavors this time." him what she would like. "And different. While in Washington, "They did give in to us again he said, 'What are you talking D.C., for a special screening of and again," agreed Weinstein, about? I don't want any the film sponsored by Congress­ "but Euzhan, don't forget that money,'" recalled Paley. In the man Ron Dellums for the Con­ we were also very good at end, Brando-a man with a gressional Black Caucus, Paley, screaming. And sometimes we passionate commitment to along with producer Paula screamed very loud." justice-did the part of human Weinstein, spoke with Black Film rights lawyer Ian McKenzie for Review about the making of the scale (basic union rates). film. It wasn't all smooth sailing. The project took two years to Winstein, who had In mid-production, Alan Ladd complete once MGM gave the loved Sugar Cane Alley, convinced left MGM. "I had enough go-ahead (Paley had been then-studio head Alan Ladd,jr. experience of studios-I headed working on the idea for four to go with the project. Why did one for a while-to know that all years before that), but Paley has MGM go for a contoversial bets are off in that case," said no complaints about her treat­ subject? "Laddie saw that it had Weinstein. "And I was in panic. ment from the studio. "I think I universal elements-it was a But the studio stuck with it, and am a privileged director," Paley thriller, it had strong human supported us."

8 And there was compromise. cock and "The film I wanted to do was a Orson Welles, film from a Black perspective," directed her said Paley. "Of course, you first cannot make a film about apart­ "movie"-a heid and exclude the whites, shadow­ because the whites are the cause play-at 14, of apartheid. But I wanted to and wrote her talk about apartheid from the first script at Black perspective, with Black 17. And she leads. says that it "And it is well known that the was the people who have the money and portrayal of the power to make the films Blacks in the don't give the damn about Black films she saw lead roles. Except if it's a big that made comedy, and the lead is a Black her vow to person who can make money for become a them. Then they will jump on it. filmmaker. That's why Harry Belafonte has So she's not had a project about South Africa interested in from the Black perspective for filmmaking at five years. In the Hollywood the expense system he is a star, but that's not of her subject enough." matter. "Ever since I was a Ii ttle girl, I Lat is why Paley didn't have been a plan for this to be a studio pro­ very inde­ duction. ''When I started think­ pendent per­ ing about the film, I wasn't son," she said. waiting on Hollywood. But the "I never problem is that the independent expected producers don't have much people to do anything for me, al­ have been blind, like you have money. That's what made me so though I welcome help. I been, and I beg you to open upset-more than Hollywood, I wouldn't be here today if I had your eyes.,,, am upset about the Black com­ waited on the white system to A Dry Mihite Season does not munity. We shouldn't be in this make me a filmmaker." stop, like Cry Freedom, with the situation. In the Black commu­ Paley finally chose a story self-congratulation of whites who nity there are people who have that could feature a white lead, have come to awareness. In­ money, who are not in show but doesn't feel that she had to deed, Ben du Toit is often as business. I would appreciate it if sacrifice her principles. "It's a irritatingly, and finally fatally, they would realize that ifwe want compromise in one sense, naive in his coming to awareness films from a Black perspective, because I couldn't make the film as he had been entrenched in we need Black filmmakers. from a Black perspective, and I his ignorance. And this, Paley "I also don't see why Holly­ had to look for a story with a said, draws on the strength of wood won't make a film for white lead. the novel. Black people. Yes, Hollywood "But when I read Andre "The main idea of the book does control distribution, but if a Brink's novel, I saw immediately was that it is not enough that Black filmmaker comes and the compromise I could do one man comes to awareness," someone has given him money without losing my soul. In 1979 she said. "I tried to show that to make his film and the subject it was a courageous, revolution- man seeing the truth and decid­ is good, I don't see why Holly­ . ary act on the part ofAndre ing to make a stand will not wood doesn't say, 'We'll distrib­ Brink, instead of talking about change anything by itself. At the ute the film. '" Black people and apartheid, to end, it is the Blacks who go on, Film and Black pride go take a white man, an Afrikaner, and the Blacks also welcome the together for Paley. She grew up and show what happens to him. Afrikaners who wake up. It's not loving the classic films of Hitch- It was very courageous to say, 'I continued on page 10

9 continued from page 9 the children were in the street. Zakes Mokae, who plays the When the police react violently Black activist Stanley, who enough that the whites wake up, to the kids, it is easy to get the started the drama group Re­ but)t's important. Ben du Toit's feeling that they are probably hearsal Room with Athol Fugard; death is not important. What is troublemakers. So 1 wanted the Winston Ntshona, who is one of important is what happens next, audience to understand fully why the driving forces behind the with the next generation." the kids were in the streets, and Fugard-founded theatrical Paley also noted that, al­ why they were killed like that. company The Serpent Players; though the lead role is a white "Secondly, I wanted the andJohn Kani (who playsJulius, character, the major initiatives in audience to see the Black man in another Serpent Players veteran. the films are those of Black the same way we see the white (Ntshona and Kani co-wrote characters. To reinforce the man in his family. 1 wanted to Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, which has notion that, in the climactic show ho,v as a Black man he is been widely performed in the ending scene, the Black activist's respected by his community; he U.S.) Thoko Ntshinga (who shooting of the white policeman has a loving family; he is a very plays Gordon Ngubene's wife is not merely a response to dignified man. This is a man Emily) and Sophie Mgcina Ben's death, she incor­ porated flashbacks, recalling the brutali­ ties and murders that led up to the murder. "And I beg you to note," she said, "that this is the first time in a major motion pic­ ture from Hollywood that a Black man kills a white man, and that is the end of the story." Paley also added to the novel, including a crucial scene in which Gordon's sonJon­ athan confronts him. (She co-wrote the script, with Collin WeIland.) Gordon has forbidden his son to join the Soweto school children's protest demonstrations. His son tells his father to look at his own life: A man who is respected as a leader in his community, a from another time, who decided (Margaret) are both well-known man who might have been a to submit himself to the system, actresses; Mgcina is even better lawyer, is only a gardener. but that doesn't mean he didn't known as a jazz and gospel "I wrote that scene with know what is going on. He singer. Jonathan because I wanted made a choice many Black Palcy sought out South people to understand why the people made before 1976, Mrican actors to play the Black children were protesting. This is before the kids said, 'That's roles. "I djdn't want to cast not a question ofwhite or Black. enough, you already paid the American actors, when South I am Black, and I have no prob­ price.' So it showed the differ­ Mrican actors could speak for lem with my skin. In fact, I am a ence between these two gen·era­ themselves. When I approached kind of citizen of the world, with tions of Blacks." them, though, I said, 'If this is Mrican, Caribbean, white, and A Dry lVhite Season showcases too dangerous for you, I can cast Asian blood. some of the astounding Black Americans.' But they explained "But 1 did want specifically acting talent in South Mrica. that being Black in South Africa the white audience to realize why Among the male players are continued on page 31

10 R eVleWS. •••••••••••• FESPACO By Mark A. Reid Quincy has witnessed the death of a performance by co-scripter Thomas Black youth, nearly the age of Mogotlane (he gets you both to pity and The 1989 Festival ofPan-Mrican Archiebold, he begins to question his to empathize with a man whose bravado Cinema - internationally known as loyalties. He denounces the colonial hides the panic ofnot knowing himself) FESPACO - marked its 20th year in system, retrieves his tribal fetish and dies - is a character that many directors Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, attracting only after securing his heritage and would shy away from creating in a drama representatives from Africa and all rejecting theirs. located in Soweto. But Panic is the pivot corners of the African Diaspora. This like most films from Africa and the on which the crisis of apartheid spins. year's festival paid tribute to Ababakar Diaspora, Heritage is a mixture of Panic is both exploiter and victim in Samb, Paulin Vieyra,jean Michel traditional folklore and modern Africa. this system; he thinks he's getting away Tchissoukou and Oumarou Ganda ~ho It is an inspiring film, portraying a con­ with something, hut discovers there's no distinguished African filmmakers temporary problem world-wide-the escape. And that reveals the inevitability have died in the last few years. crisis of cultural assimilation-incorporat­ of the conflict around him. ing both a technically-skilled film style The film, whose heroes are mem­ Ansah ~ s Heritage Africa and African fetish worship. bers of the United Democratic Front Gets Best Picture and whose arch-villains are the white' police and the callous white bourgeois Filmfest DC exemplified by Pat's mistress, clearly Kwaw Ansah's Heritage Africa takes sides. But it also illuminates the (Ghana, 1988) received the Etalon de By Pat Aufderheide contradictions within Soweto, not only Yennenga-FESPACO's Oscar for Best through Panic but through characters Picture. It is the first anglophone­ In its third year, Filmfest DC like Pat -whojust wants a decentjob; African film to be awarded this prize in continued to bring the cinema ofAfri­ Sam's desperate mother; and the Black the 20-year history of the festival. The ca to the people ofWashington. town council members who are getting film's star, Kofi Bucknor, received spe­ Included in this year's festival's section rich off Black misery. Mapantsula is well­ cial mention for his leading role as a on Contemporary World Cinema, was told, although its central device ­ civil servant caught between colliding Mapantsula, the first film about apart­ showing Panic's story in flashback while cultures during colonialism. heid to be filmed in South Africa. he's injail- can sometimes be confus­ Heritage is the story of a man who ing ifyou're not paying attention. Films has received his education and training Panic in South Africa such as Woza Albert.' and Voices ofSarafina.' through the British colonial system, a have left American audiences expecting man who rises easily through the system Even if Mapantsula (Thief) were not superb performances from South content with its rewards, including a a rousing tale, itwould be fascinating as African actors, and Mapantsula's cast, coveted District Commissioner position. the first anti-apartheid feature made drawn from a pool of Black 1V and stage As he rises, he casts off his African name inside South Africa by South Africans. actors, delivers. An Australian, English Kwesi Atta Bosomfi, in the same way he ' (South African director Oliver Schmitz and South African co-production, casts off his traditional religion, care­ is the child of German immigrants.) But Mapantsula was approved by South lessly. Now, Quincy Bosomfield, he it worksjust as well as entertainment as it African officials as a gangster film - like blindly aligns himself against the Gha­ does at political argument. It's a kind of many made in South Africa today for nian unionist in a labor strike, further entertainment that leaves you thinking, Black audiences, and indeed like one we distancing himself and his family from and a kind of partisanship that steers their community. see Black audiences watching in the clear of easy answers. film. Its $1.5 million budget was raised When his son, Archiebold, defies Panic, the thief of the title, is a from South African investors, most of the principles he has set down and slips formidable anti-hero. He's notjust a whom were only looking for tax advan­ out of an Anglican mass, the boy is thief but a bully and a mooch. All tages and also assumed it was a gangster entranced by an African fetish dance. around him, Soweto residents, including movie. The African National Congress, Like the Black overseer he has become Sam (Eugene Majola), the son of his which has conditioned its stance on the Quincy beats his son and then allows a~ landlady, are mobilizing a rent strike. cultural boycott to approve some Anglican cleric to cane Archiebold in But Panic's busy stealing from unsus­ projects that support the movement, has front of his colleagues. Later, pecting whites and brawling with rivals praised the film. And predictably, it has Archiebold dies from these beatings, in Black bars, with a little police been banned within South Africa in and Quincy's wife leaves him. He informing on the side. His girlfriend Pat theaters, though it is available in video remains a trusted and loyal civil seIVant. (Themba Mtshali), who works in an there. In his final assault to his heritage, Quincy English-speaking household, is his Mapantsula is a welcome, and turns over his community's tribal fetish unwilling source of cash and potential unexpected, suspense drama. Made to the British colonial governor. burglary prospects. When Sam disap­ without the sanctimony of a Cry Freedom, Yet Kwaw Ansah dramatizes the pears and Pat leaves Panic for union and developing characters from the possibility of radical change. After organizer Duma (Peter Sephuma), the heart ofSouth Africa's crisis, it has both thief is forced to take sides in the a topical urgency and an enduring uni­ Mark Reid teaches film and television at political struggles going on around him. versality. the University ofFlorida in Gainesville. Panic - rendered in an excellent

11 • Waiting for Langston

By Fred Brown, Jr. "rr .l.. here is a level where the mockery of people, even their hatred, is moving, because it is so blind." So saidJames Baldwin; and so says London-based filmmaker IsaacJulien's Lookingfor Langston in which the camera is the real critic. Panning over bodies, almost too perfect for even Madison Avenue commercials, men dance and embrace; men kiss. And in one fell swoop, Black gay men are given presence on screen along with the intricacies of their lust, self-hatred and racism. This controversial film, nestled somewhere between the and New York's contemporary under­ ground scene, is an opera ofmovement. Bodies move in shad­ ows without a central character or plot; images move from the abstract to the penetrating. Sound croons and then thumps from Bessie Smith to Bruce Nuggent, from subways to rain. Ifit sounds seductive it is. But without Hollywood's flair for the sleazy. Without the grotesque exaggeration the mainstream audience might expect-even want-from a film about the nuances and contradictions of Black gay life. It is, in fact, the beauty, the absence of mockery, the nostalgia that informs the thick lips and rainbow hues ofJulien's vision. And if it sounds as though I have forgotten , I haven't. His poetry along with that of D.C. gay poet Essex Hemphill provides the fabric from which this film is spun. But the film is less about Hughes than it is about the search for a place in one's own history, a battle against one's own silence.Julien's nameless characters are engaged in a constant battle-against snowy black and white photography, against bursts oflight and againstJulien's seeming reluctance to include or recognize them. That is, after all, the sum ofour humanity-whether we are Black or gay or both. But then symbolism is rarely popular; homosexuality is still a cultural taboo; and Lookingfor Langston has still, as of this printing, not been seen by its audience. Legal problems with the Hughes Estate has caused the several planned U.S. screen­ ings to be cancelled (although an edited U.S. version ofthe film is scheduled to be released in New York this fall). And so, most ofAmerica will have to continue looking...waiting for Langston. Fred Brown,jr. is a Washington-basedfreelancewriter. BlackFilmReviewEditorj acquie jones contributed to this review. 12

By Essex Hemphil

wanted to do, to make. In a sense, Black gay history becomes very saacJulien is a young all of the films that I've made problematic because of all the and unassuming man. He usually have had some kind of dabbling different sequences and all the lets his work speak for itself. As a with those notions-be it in member of Britain's internation­ hidden nuances in Black Ameri­ Territories with the two Black boys can history. I had to look to ally known S~nkofa Film/Video dancing while the UnionJack flag America because that seemed to Collective, this is a luxury he can burns or in Passion ofRemembrance. be where most of the Black gay well afford. Sankofa has produced But specifically dealing.with. Black history was located. Hughes was a some of the most innovative work gay experiences was qUIte dIffi­ perfect subject because there to emerge from Europe in the cult. Langston Hughes was seemed to be so much contro­ past decade. The Collective's brought to my attention by a latest film, however, the brain­ versy around him as a person in young Black man, Derrick relationship to his sexual identity. child ofJulien, has caused an McClintoch, who I collaborated It was very interesting-one could uproar in the with on Young Soul Rebel (which is have easily embarked on a project although it has toured Europe a script I'm in preparation for). receiving awards and praise. This called LookingforJimmy, James Although I had heard of Hughes, Baldwin. It was obvious, the timeJulien is speaking up. What Derrick was the person who was different prices some Black gay follows is an excerpt from an really responsible for bringing his artists had to pay for being out. inteIView conducted in London work to me in a detailed way. Also by Essex Hemphill. reading Black Men, Mite Men Hemphill: So, in terms of the (Sunshine Gay Press)-there Essex Hemphill: What motivated research, how much time did you were some of Hughes' poems in put you put into it, pulling together you to create Looking for Langston? there-that opened up the space IsaacJulien: The idea to make the elements that compose Looking to make s.ome kind of interroga­ for Langston? a film around Black gay experi­ tion of his sexual identity. ences was an idea that I always I wanted to do a film about Julien: Serious research Black gay identities which would started two years before I began not be a straight fOIWard film shooting. I correlated all of the biographies-Arnold Essex Hemphill is currently editing Brother about sexuality, because one then to Brother, an anthology ofBlack gay Iitera­ had to try to historically anchor it. Rampersad's, Faith Berry's-the ture, scheduled for publication in the Fall Obviously, trying to talk about letters and -writings that he had of 1990. exchanged between all the 14 different artists. I spoke to Arnold worried about how it was going to Julien: Well, obviously, it was Rampersad at length. I spoke to be received in America. We made quite expensive because I live in Joseph Beam,Jewel Gomez, a initial copyright clearances with England, and I was going back­ number ofBlack gay artists. Mark the British publishers of Hughes' wards and forwards. That was one Nash and I saw St. Clair Bourne's work in London (Serpent's Tail), of the reasons that it took a long The Dreamkeeper, an interesting and we sought to get the copy­ time; I was trying to engage with and quite important film. We pro­ right clearances from the Hughes Diaspora type relationships in the ceeded to contact the researcher estate, which we did not obtain. work. I wanted to make the on that project, the archivist, Hence, the second version of the connections between Black gay Linda Novak. She was very helpful film. identities in the present and along with Arnold Rampersad in But the initial research and Black gay identities in the past giving us inform,ation. Novak was ideas were propelled by meeting and to also make the film exist in our consultant on the project ini­ people such as yourself and also the space that was somewhere in tially. In the winter of 1987, the by your poems. I wanted to make between the two places [U.S. & heavy research was done-heavy this relational shift between the U.K.]-mid-Atlantic, as it were. in the sense that Hence, the we had to go to a British voice­ number of differ­ over, the British ent archives in narration. Washington and New York and get Hemphill: material. This was You consider very difficult Looking for because one Langston to be a cannot really meditation, and I obtain a large think we need to amount of moving be clear about images around that-a medita­ that particular tion as opposed period in the to a documentary twenties. So we which is what St. had to put adver­ tisements into Claire Bourne newspapers and created when he things like that. presented The response was Hughes in The quite minimal. It Dreamkeeper. His became more diffi- approach was to cult when we tried to obtain past and the present which I was take Hughes' work, provide actors inteIViews. We tried, for example, able to do by using your poems and actresses delivering and to inteIView an actor who was and Hughes' poems. I wanted to reenacting the work itself. Hughes' secretary, and we tried to , do the same things visually. The Julien: I agree with you in get in contact with his [Hughes'] choice to shoot in all Black and resisting the notion of classifying estate several times but were white and the relationship be­ the film as a documentary; unsuccessful. The estate wasn't tween the archive and the con­ obviously, the choice I made not to sympathetic even in those very structed vignette in the film helps make a documentary was a very early stages. On my first visit, I to make it seamless, as it were. important one. I did think of ended up going to the It was a project that in its cQnstructing a series of inteIViews Schomberg, ordering up photo­ making from an initial idea to its with different people who knew graphs, talking with Roy DeCar­ execution was about 2 1/2 to 3 Hughes or were around during ava (who knew Hughes very well), years ofwork. the Harlem Renaissance. That going to Gunner van der Zee, became too constricting because going to Robert Mapplethorpe. Hemphill: Is that a typical the idea was to have desire exist There was a lot ofwork around length of time for you to spend with in the construction of images and the picture, visual research. a work? Because of the subject for the story-telling to actually And on my second visit, I matter-looking at Black gay construct a narrative that would realized that making this film was issues, because of Hughes as the ~nable audiences to meditate and going to be a dangerous project­ key subject-were there additional to think, rather than be told. This in the sense that I was always roadblocks? continued on page 16

15 continued from page 15 Hemphill: You created a pas­ thanjust Black gay audiences. But tiche of very important historical the Black gay men who have seen was a question I thought about elements. There is footage of the film have congratulated me very seriously; and it was a risk, Bessie Smith singing St. Louis Blues on it. I think that very soon in the but I think a risk that's paid off. Black gay communities, there will T.he Dreamkeeper already existed; I which is juxtaposed against Black­ berri in Blues for Langston. There is be a debate about the film be­ dIdn't see any point in duplicat­ cause there have not been very ing that approach. also the reel of footage from the work of Oscar Micheaux which is many Black gay films. juxtaposed against footage of There have been different Hemphill: Are you satisfied with critiques about the film. There the outcome of Looking for lang­ present day New York. There are photos of Countee CUllen, James was one review which spoke about ston in terms of the issues that you representation of black-skinned Baldwin. How did this weaving of were attempting to address? men, for example, and tried to Julien: Oh, most definitely. In images begin for you? compare the way Sankofa gets many respects, I feel that it is the Julien: Ifyou are talking funded and its patrons, Channel most satisfying film I've done to about Black gay identities, you're 4, who are indeed white men and date in the sense that the risks I talking about identities which are juxtapose that with the Harlem ~oo~ ~nd following my own never whole in the sense that Renaissance. This is what one IntuItIve mode ofworking paid there is always a desire to make reviewer has put forth, what that off. I wanted to dwell on the them whole, but in real life, psyche and the imaginary as well experiences are always fragmen­ as the factual. tary and contradictory. So, basi­ cally, this is a hybrid ofdifferent Hemphill: It's a very sensual material coming from different film. I've read reviews where its moments in history. Onejust been considered provocative; its can't really seriously try to tackle been considered poetry on film or Black gay identities and not find the film itself is considered po~tiC yourself drawing from one histori­ in the way it moves. What inspired cal moment to a more contempo­ you to go with the Black' and white rary one. So, that hybrid dictated setting, the fact that men are the structure of the film, the presented in tuxedos, those ele­ choice to make everything Black and white. ments that make it elegant, stylish. Also, blues is very important What inspired that? in relationship to Black culture, Julien: There were a number and specifically in relationship to ofreferences that I wanted to Black gay identities, because appropriate; because if one songs and the blues were the first wanted to try to look in an archive sp~ces where one would actually to find images ofBlack gay dance hear Black gay desire. That's the ~alls, one would be undertaking a reason why there is Bessie Smith Journey that would have no with Blackberri or "Freakish Man beginning because they don't Blues" in that section. exist. Sensuality and desire were issues that weren't really at stake. Hemphill: How has the response But there were issues that were at been in the United Kingdom and in stake; it was very important to Europe to Looking for Langston­ construct images of dreams. One from the general audience as well can only view that world [the as Black gay men and women? Harlem Renaissance] or review it from an imaginary position. Once Julien: In response to its theatrical showings, it was very one accepts that are a number of well received. In fact, it won the historical moments that one can Gay Teddie Bear Award for the grapple with and debate over the .. . ' best gay film ,at the Berlin festival. rest IS Imaginary. I wanted to In relationship to audierices, I e~ploit that. Drawing all those h~~e. dIfferent photographic references that the work isn'tjust from a historical context those crItICIzed and debated around its . ' ~uthor bei:pgJ~lack thIngs were influential in its look. and gay. I'd hke to reach Wider audiences

16 means in relationship to Black this film? What you've done is there had been a lot of contro­ art. taken a Black cultural icon and versy surroun(ling Hughes' sexual I'm more interested in basically undressed him-which identity anyway; it seemed to met questions of Black commodifica­ goes against the Black middle class to be a very important area to tion. I think that is a more realis­ belief that its important to project dwell in, even if it meant being at tic approach at the end of the the right image. With Looking For odds with different audiences, 20th century, because I think the Langston, you seem to have said, different sections of the Black debate has shifted from the "Yes, the right image must be community. I thought it was im­ Harlem Renaissance. But I think projected when it can be, but that, perative to, at least, suggest and there are things we can learn perhaps, what's best for us is that visualize some of those anxieties. from it; in the film, I was pointing we have a more realistic picture of I was really much more out ways in which Black artists the icons we elect or that come interested in complementing ,were taken up and then thrown Langston Hughes' works, poeti­ , out. into being." cally speaking, rather than deal­ Julien: My role as an artist is ing with his sexual lifestyle. That Hemphill: This legal battle that to uncover fictional constructs is the reason it is a poetic, experi­ you're facing over copyright with which surround Black cultural mental text. There isn't a charac­ icons. I think demanding a space Looking For Langston must be one ter in the film called Langston for these issues to be debated of the risks you factored in making Hughes because, again, I wasn't should be my role as well. Indeed, particularly interested in celebrat­ ing his own specific lifestyle. I was more trying to comment on how I imagined this lifestyle would have existed and the role of the Black artist versus the Black commu­ nity-where sexual difference plays itself, either in disowning or accepting the differences. These were the kinds ofquestions I was interested in. So in terms of the Hughes estate's response, I was rather surprised. I never really antici­ pated it to be such a demonstra­ tive one. Although I was wary that they [the Hughes estate] were being extremely sensitive and constructing a number of closures around Hughes' sexual ideNtity, the actual responses from Hughes' publisher in this country had been so supportive, enthusi­ astic. I was rather surprised and disappointed.

Hemphill: You've created a classic piece-time will prove that. You've opened up a film dialogue about sexual difference within the Black community. Are you going to explore the issue further? Julien: I am only beginning to deal with questions of the Black family.

17 •

By Hilton Als

ENERALLYSPEAKlNG, the Negro fag And so, it is impossible to ask a question about the artist is rarely called upon to be, simply, Negro fag's self if he has succumbed to the belly custodian of his role as artist, creatar, that laugh that hurts. The aggression, the violence is, his role as Negro, as faggot, must behind his desire to please, entertain, amuse, is the typify, if not outweigh, his claim to violence he may feel toward himselffor being the "creation." His work, in that context, is progenitor of laughter that eventually kills (him­ never his; it belongs to his experience as self), several varieties ofwhich (ifyou know a Negro a Negro, a faggot, and is classifiable as fag) signifies what he knows isn't generally heard: such because everything he produces A ha ha hee hee (i.e. my boyfriend, white, is in the must be reduced to the maudlin lan­ next room. This is the laughter one Negro fag guage of self-defense: I am the Negro reserves for another at a cocktail party: it also can­ fag, I have suffered. He adopts this cels any hope ofsame sex desire.) voice-ofwhich art may, or may not, showevi­ Mmmm... heeya...yahee...(This laughter is meant to dence-in order to choke its recipient satiate his primarily who mayjust have white audience's desire asked: how are you?) for the truly other And finally: Other. The construct is, Pshaww haw (I am therefore, not restricted silencing myself.) to his role as artist but Of these varieties infuses his role as social of laughter the sad being, as well. figure ofLangston He smiles. He Hughes employed inspires laughter that the last two most kills (himself). This readily,perhaps,and laughter-his greatest because of his inabil­ ally because it is his ity to deal, in a public greatest defense­ way as man, as artist chokes his audience up. with the first. Within the past few years, this "most HiltonAls is a writerwho earnshis living at notable of Negroes" The Village Voice.

18 the very first Negroes to be in make it bleed again (or for vogue: his financial, psychological once)? The Negro fag who laughs dependence on white patronage; in Lookingfor Langston, a medita­ his relationship to the other tion on the life and works of Negro fags of his generation Langston Hughes, is the possessor (Alaine Locke, Countee Cullen); of laughter which the filmmaker his terrible secret, which did and has looped-that is, this laughter does continue to alienate the appears (but is not heard) Negro fag from complete racial through the nearly circular image allegiance (Elderidge Cleaver: of, alternatively, violence and "The only place in the revolu­ shuffling that appears at the end tion for women and fags is on of the film, a film in which histori­ their backs," and so on). cal reenactment is created in Rather than reveal any of this order to disappear.Julien's Hughes preferred to smile. reenactment of the mood, the Laughter killed Langston atmosphere, the tone, of an Hughes. environment meant to harbor In several titles, Laugh­ and nourish the intellectual ing to Keep from Crying, Negro, sexually transgressive and among them, Hughes es- at liberty in it, acts as a metaphor tablished authorial dis­ for the filmmaker's own desire to tance; the titles can be belong to such a society himself­ read as critique on the wherein, being Black and British function of laughter in and gay and an artist are the (Zora Neale Negro life, laughter as the result conditions by which one can have Hurston) has become yet another of degradation, oppression, vio­ a life rather than being, perpetu­ bloated figure in the cannon of lence. But within the text proper, ally, at odds with the extreme Negroes ofAchievement to be Hughes betrayed that distance by effort of trying to live. Julien's rendered pale and sexless assuming the role of comic with deliberate intenveaving ofseveral through the (one hopes) quite no relief, no critical facilities, no kinds of text-song lyrics, verse, witless machinations of biogra­ relationship to his anger. Instead, historical analysis-denotes a phers, critics, theorists-gener­ he gave us the bright face of the profound involvement/effort ally, other Negroes ofAchieve­ Negro who is down, but manages with the idea of resuscitating a ment-\vhose relationship to the to sing the blues, slap five, dance, history which is only whispered, if subject bears witness to what they play the dozens and philosophize. at all; and when it is, it is in fear, what they must uphold: He may be seen as the literate, fag snatches, fragments. But what do hopelessly bourgeois negritude, version of hard-workingJames we know of these snatches, these psycho/sexual tidiness, making (John Amos) on Good Times, the fragments that literally disappear Hughes the owner of an alto­ less niggerish version of George at the end of the film. Where do gether clean home. In Arnold (Sherman Hemsley) on The they go? Rampersad's major, two-volume JeJfersons. Because this is a memory­ study of the poet, the issue of And he was, as Rampersad based film and exists because of Hughes' homosexuality is re­ remarks, so "psychologically the circular nature of gossip, of stricted to veiled references about dependent on the regard of lore-Langston did this, Countee a number of male secretaries, his Blacks" that he couldn't tell his meant that, and so on-it is fundamental asexuality- a posi­ fag story without fear of losing continually burnished by discov­ tion upheld by other critics (most that regard. Hughes never ery: that is, in found material: notably, Greg Tate, of The Village achievedJames Baldwin's resolve Bessie Smith on a bar stool Voice, and Darryl Pinckney in The to get past the idea that he had to wailing, Langston reading one of New York Times Review ofBooks, love every Negro he met. Cloaked his seemingly tireless and tire­ who would consider the idea of in laughter and desire for "these some series ofverse. The result of Hughes faggotry brushing up darker people," Hughes did not which is thatJulien's discovery of against the hind legs of his achieve­ make room for his ambivalence. this world is really the discovery of ment not merely abhorrent but It is impossible to love all o~ a history which has not included sacrilegious). anything without it smelling of him in it. Julien's desire here is Yet none of Hughes' own self-hate. His faggotry was his the desire for a wedding, that work reveals the enormous hatred. between past and present, in tension under which he must How does IsaacJulien attempt order to create for himself a have operated either, as one of to restructure Hughes' heart and future.

19 •

By Ron Simmons

Marlon Riggs' masterpiece, Ethnic Notions, a humorous look at the relationship of Black people to Hollywood, took America by storm in 1987. Capturing several festival awards, the film is currently under consideration for a national Emmy Award. Its sequel, Color Adjustment: Blacks in Prime Time is not far off. Riggs' has already received funding from the American Film Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to com­ plete the film. In the meantime, however, this "army brat," raised in Georgia and West Germany, is working on a project closer to home. While in Washington, Riggs talked to Ron Simmons about this project for Black Film Review.

Ron Simmons: For some time now there has been speculation about when the Black gay man would speak up. For over a decade, Black women have been vocal in affirming the strength of lesbianism in their lives. Filmmakers such as Michelle Parkerson, and writers such as Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde, have given Black people and the world glimpses of women loving women through their works. Gay brothers, however, have hesitated in revealing themselves for obvious reasons. The Black community is so vehement in its denuncia­ (Photo: Ron Simmons) tion of homosexuality that few brothers dare to confess to such "sins." "Faggots" have been ridiculed and spoken of with absolute scorn by some of our most brilliant writers, scholars and leaders-Imari Baraka, Haki Madhabuti, Nathan Hare, Robert Staples, Frances Cress Welsing, Molefi Asante, and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan-most of whom view homosexuality as one more pathology resulting from white racist oppression. Prisons are pointed to as gay breeding grounds. The fact that most Black gay men are introduced to homosexuality by their peers during pre-adolescence is ignored. This attitude and ignorance is also evident in Black film where the super-macho Black stud is alive and well. Any character discovered to Ron Simmons, Ph.D. is an independent be gay is ridiculed and Ultimately cast out. Examples of this can be mediaproducerand an assistantprofessor found in many of the early blaxploitation films, Uptight and Come Back in the Department ofRadio, 1V and Film Charleston Blue, for example, as well as contemporary films such as at Howard University.

20 Beverly Hills Cop and School Daze. ing and nourishing ofyour confront certain issues in the The silence and secrecy continues spirit. You embrace all of that Black community, the gay as any light generated by the lovingly and equally. community, and America at Black gay dynamic falls unseen Tongues Untied is explicitly a large. into the void that you often speak point ofview work. It does not In Tongues Untied there is of. attempt in any fashion to address anger and there is rage. There is Marlon Riggs: In doing docu­ questions of so-called "balance" pain and there is frankness in mentary work, I've noticed there or "objectivity." I am a gay man. I language that I know is trouble­ are certain safe political subjects am making this work from that some for television in this coun­ that we, as Black filmmakers, can perspective. There is no debate try. It's not that you will see or deal with: racism, Mrican-Ameri­ about whether my life is right or hear a lot. It's not a porno­ can history, culture. Yet within wrong. It is right - period! graphic work, but there is eroti­ all of the excellent works there cism. You will see two men was this glaring void, this glaring Simmons: One cannot help but touching. For many, that is absence, as if the subject of admire your courage. Given the explosive. We 'can deal with a homosexuality within the Black success of Ethnic Notions, few slap on the back. We can deal community didn't exist. All these artists would risk a very promising with the high-five, but when it things we were talking about, future by producing as provocative comes to Black men tenderly our history, our legacy, our a work as Tongues Untied. touching...lt's too much. People culture, excluded any mention Riggs: My feeling is that either laugh or they draw away. of same sex relations, excluded there are imperatives in one's I'm not going to sacrifice my any mention of those relations life .I think people during the work in order to get it on pllblic within the context of the lives of 60s, more so than now, realized television. The distribution will people we consider heroes. This what that meant. There are some be through colleges and uni,rer­ void was very troubling and it be­ things you've got to do. You sities. It will be through a num­ came more troubling as I don't know all the conse­ ber of film festivals, gay and watched it over time. For me quences-but you've got to do it lesbian as well as mainstream. It there is a desperate need to because you know its right. will be through Black film and address that absence, to address There is no alternative. video festivals as well as white. that void. For me, Tongues Untied was a There will be community screen­ The Black community is only clear answer to the question: ing through organizations like beginning now to realize the 'What will you do to correct the Gay Men ofMrican Descent in extent of bisexuality and homo­ wrong that has been done to our New York, the D.C. Coalition of sexuality within our community, community as Black gay men?" Black Lesbians and Gays and the but its here. We might as well National Coalition for Black acknowledge it and move on. Simmons: Given the difficul­ Lesbians and Gays. I want Tongues Untied to show ties and hostilities Black I call Tongues Untied "experi­ the multiplicity of our conditions filmmakers encounter in the film mental" video for lack of a better within the Black community and and video industry, in general, you word. It crosses many boundaries how we deal with issues of might seem naive to many people. in terms of genre. It is documen­ sexuality and race, gender, class, A large part of the success of tary. It's personal biography. It's political consciousness and Ethnic Notions had to do with its poetry. It's music video. It's responsibility, and identity. "vogue" dance. It's "verite" broadcast on PBS [Public Broad­ footage of people just talking, Identity is a big issue. As some casting Stations]. That system would phrase it: 'What are we speaking directly into the cam­ granted you access to millions of era as if the camera is a person first? Black or gay?" viewers. That same system can I try to invalidate that argu­ and the audience is right there. just as easily deny that access if It's extremely provocative at ment. Part of the message of the they feel a work is too Black, too video is that the way to break times, which is something that I loose of the schizophrenia in political or too gay. like to do. And something that is trying to define identity is to Riggs: I realize that Tongues new for me. It's humorous too. realize that you are many things Untied will not be broadcast on Tongues Untied tries to undo within one person. Don't try to most public broadcast stations. the legacy of silence about Black arrange a hierarchy of things Not because it deals with homo­ gay life. It wants to affirm: 1) that are virtuous in your charac­ sexuality; we have seen works who we are, 2) what our exis­ ter and say,"This is more impor­ that deal with being gay or tence is in all of its diversities, tant than that." Realize both are lesbian on public television in and 3) that we are a great value equally important, both inform the last few years. It's more the your character. Both are nurtur- form and frankness with which I continued on page 22

21 . to our community and ourselves. Wh~t I.want to do with Tongues Untzed IS to start the dialogue What's Wrong With and preserve our lives in a form that people can see and address, This Picture not only now, but years to come. People will see there was a vibrant Black gay community in By David Frechette these United States in 1989. Is there a Black gay answer Simmons: Other than the to Spike Lee? Someone who's sUbject matter, does being gay in­ willing to make films dealing fluence your work? Is there a honestly with the sizeable Black "gay" sensibility that permeates gay and lesbian communities in your style, your perspective? Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., . Riggs: In doing Ethnic No­ Philadelphia and throughout the tzons, I realized that an approach United States? In the wake of E~di~ from someone who was part of a Murphy's homophobic dIatrIbes and the not-so-benign ~ore "straight Black" perspec­ neglect exhibited towards Black tIve would have been angrier in tone, would have been more gays and lesbians by other vehement. You know-"Look straight African-American artists t~e Black gay community is in ' what the white man has done to dIre need of positive film images. u~! Fuc~ed ~s over throughout hIstOry! I dIdn't want to do that. This need was addressed to The voice I heard, the some extent at the 1989 New voice I.embraced as I was writing York International Festival of the scrIpt was a woman's voice. I Lesbian and Gay Film in New York this Summer. Melanie ~ever heard, in my mind, narra­ South African oppression with tIon for Ethnic Notions in a man's Chait's Out in Africa (regrettably shown only once and in an the movement for lesbian and voice. Never. It was always a gay rights. woman's voice. I don't know if as awkward time slot) was a brief but stirring documentary about But this film in no way offsets a straight man I would have the lack ?f ~iversity in Black gay heard that voice; or, if hearing it, two openly gay South African activists, one ofwhom was a and lesbIan Imagery in main­ I would have accepted and stream cinema. Comic Aunite embraced it. Black man, Simon Nikoli. He was one of a group of 21 Blacks Tom relief is still seen on the arrested for anti-apartheid "hit" T.V. series Designing Simmons: When does your Women where Meschach Taylor creative voice hear a man's voice? activities in Soweto and one of 11 who were acquitted of treason tends to the needs of his white Riggs: When I'm getting charges. Dissatisfied with the mistresses. You will remember ve?ement, ~ts definitely a man's him from Mannequin (1987) VOIce. And It's a voice reminis- lack of support he received from GASA (Gay Association of South w~ere he portrayed a flamboyant cent of a .Mart~n Luther King, Jr. Mrica), Nikoli helped found WIndow dresser friend of a or how I ImagIne Frederick GLOW (Gay and Lesbian Or­ straight white boy (Andrew Douglass must have sounded. It's ganization of the Witwa­ McCarthy) who falls in love with a resonant voice. A voice that tersrand). His steadfast belief in a department store dummy. draws on our church tradition. I h~s convicti?ns and his loyalty to Then there was Larry B. Scott, a was trained in that. My parents hIS companIons won him their lovable, musclebound queen in expected me to become a respect. Nikoli becomes for the both Revenge ofthe Nerds (1984) preacher. I didn't. I became a it~ ,?e~er a genuine Black gay hero, and subsequent 1987 sequel. filmmaker, and that's my plat­ lInkIng the struggle against AntonIO Fargas, turns in two form-my podium from which I m~morable'gay performances. In , preach these days. MIchael Schultz's Car Wash David Frechette is a native New Yorker (1976) he was the tart-tongued, who.has written about film and popular fing~r-snappingqueen Lindy, mUSIC for The Amsterdam News, Right On, and In Paul Maszursky's Next CQ; Essence, Black Enterprise and the Lon­ Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), he don-based Black Music magazine.

22 was Bernstein, a "tragic" figure ton, D.C.-based independent with neither gay nor straight filmmaker, will continue to "In a world awash with false im­ Black friends. The list goes on challenge sexual stereotypes with ages of Africa, information is a vital and on... her new film, tentatively titled tool for action. This directory will Hollywood has consistently The Life and worn ofAudre Lorde. prove indispensable." treated the Black gay character This film can only build on her - Kassahun Checole, Publisher, as a mammie/buddy, an almost previous works including Storme: Africa World Press always finger-snapping queen The Lady oftheJewel Box. The whose entire presence is defined Jewel Box Revue was an elegant by hilarity. troupe of interracial female And what about our most impersonators billed as "26 men lauded Black filmmakers. How and a girl," that toured the U.S. can we forget Spike Lee's homo­ during the 40s and 50s. Storme, phobic take on Black lesbians in the "girl," is the kind of Black the highly acclaimed She's Gotta lesbian survivor who, with the Have It (1986). Lee has lesbian exception of Mabel Hampton friend Raye Dowall hanging and Petty Powell, has seldom around straight sexpot Tracy been seen on-screen and never CamillaJohns like a hungry in a fiction film. vampire, giving credence to the Texas-born, California-based divisive myth that gays and Marlon Riggs is one of the only lesbians are forever waiting for openly gay Black filmmakers in the chance to seduce their the U.S. (the other, New York's straight friends. Jack Waters works with experi­ Though most of the actors mental films such as his epic The involved in these films try to Ring My Way, an installment of AFRICA humanize their portrayals, their which was recently shown at The A Directory characters, however cute or New York Lesbian and Gay loveable, remain cartoons. In Experimental Film Festival). of Resources these films, the gay characters Riggs' first film, Long Train seldom have a love interest, and, Runningwas a powerful vide­ compiled and edited when they do, are never allowed otaped documentary about the by Thomas P. Fenton to display any affection towards Oakland blues scene from the and Mary J. Heffron them. Eunuchs make poor role 40s to the present. His current 1987. 160 pages. models. ' project, Tongues Untied, explores Annotated. Indexed. Illustrated. It would appear that Black American Black gay life through Orbis Books ISBN 0-88344-532-8 gay and lesbian filmmakers poetry, music, and interviews should be responsible for depict­ (See interview with Marlon ing positive film images of their Riggs, p. 20). Another explorer ORGANIZATIONS BOOKS community; but, unfortunately, is Britain's IsaacJulien who, PERIODICALS PAMPHLETS & we are still largely deprived. One together with the other members ARTICLES AUDIOVISUALS highly respected Black gay of the Sankofa Film and Video playwright/novelist/filmmaker Collective, has recently made Other 160-page directories in the died recently without coming Lookingfor Langston, a surreal, Third World Resources series: out of the closet despite the fact sumptuously photographed, Asia and Pacific (1986); Latin that most of his work displayed a black and white meditation on America and Caribbean (1986); pronounced gay sensibility. Black gay creative artistry (See Women in the Third World (1987); Those closest to him choose to interview with IsaacJulien, p. Food, Hunger, Agribusiness (1987); deny his gayness, thus robbing 14). Considered the "Black gay Middle East (1988); Human gay Black filmmakers of a role hope,"Julien is due to com­ Rights (1989). Each directory is model and further distorting gay mence shooting his first full­ $11.45, postage included. history. length feature, Young Soul Rebels, A few brave souls have a thriller set in the 70s, in March Order from: spoken out on film~ choosing to of 1990. Third World Resources swim upstream against the 464 19th St., Rm. 100 current of the homophobia in Oakland, CA 94612 USA the Black community and the sexism and racism in Hollywood. Michelle Parkerson, a Washing-

23 Viewpoint ••••••••••••• By Sharon Stockard Martin and M. Belinda Tucker TheTroubleWith Rabbits

Lis summer, the seven to an all-human audience; the "help me, massa" and "please, minute cartoon, Tummy Trouble, configuration, reminiscent of mister bossman" as we are featuring Roger Rabbit, has been the "All Negro" revues that shuffled by association through a credited with helping make performed before well-heeled, hundred Hollywood versions of Honey, I Shrunk The Kids a box­ all-white patrons, in places like the "colored boy." office bonanza. To understand Harlem's famed Cotton Club in Like on-screen, media­ the appeal of this seemingly times not too long past. And like created Blacks, schooled in innocuous short, go back a year the real thing you don't see a shucking and jiving, the Toon and realize that the rabbit is single coon, I mean toon, in the community was "invented" to en­ much more than it seems. audience. tertain and amuse. Early car­ In 1989, the creators of Who On stage is the sultry song­ toon characters were Framed Roger Rabbit introduced a stressJessica, whose curves, pout racial state­ brand new community of car­ and bone structure suggest a ments, tooned characters, co-mingled distant but distinct African human and animated forms and heritage. Jessica is married accumulated praise as being the to Roger. This most revolutionary achievement mismatch and to have emerged from the film her industry in some time. at­ Actually, underlying the trac­ lovable shenanigans of Roger, tion to his sexy wife,]essica and the Roger black-cloaked villain was a as­ running commentary on the tounds Black experience, a racist frame­ and work camouflaged by thick dismays, curtains of laughter. suggesting The division between the some races was achieved by creating quality of overlapping human and car­ bonding left tooned worlds. Though they unspoken in a work side-by-side, there is an G-Rated film. unspoken barrier between the Roger's two-their very essence. The overwhelming cartoon characters reside in a personality is one lawless, dilapidated part of town of hysteria and known as "Toontown." The place helplessness. and the name bear an eerie Falsely accused of resemblance to "Coontown," a murder, frightened, term often applied in recent bugged-eyed and history to the rundown commu­ incapable of solving nities in this country to which problems on his own, Blacks have often been rele­ he desperately seeks gated. help from his human Our human "hero" enters a savior. His plaintive cries seamy hall of entertainment, sound uncannily like where an "AII-Toon" revue plays

24 The final coup is the bill. as thinly veiled as Roger. In racist portrayal of the African­ Despite all of his good intentions Disney's "Song of the South," the American population ever­ and the suffering that he under­ disguise became threadbare. The which received accolades for its goes because of it, Roger's dark fur of the bears, foxes and technical contributions in one of expected to pay for his own rabbits. Black cows sitting on the ·more astonishing separations victimization. His suffering is his fences instead of door stoops, ofform from content, a separa­ fault and his responsibility. That loitering and signifying. Blues tion only recently called into judgement is reminiscent of the songs. Voices that were undenia­ question. Who Framed villain. The evil bly meant to be Black spoken by Roger Rabbit's technical black-cloaked human was actu­ actors who were more than likely merits have allowed us to blind ally a Toon in disguise, reinforc­ white. America returns again ourselves to its ominous underly­ ing the message of Tummy and again to act out its minstrel ing message. At issue is the Trouble. Despite past inequities fantasies of race and inferiority regeneration of images originat­ and their fourfdation for today's in the arenas of humor and ing 'with stereotypical messages prejudices, the films tell us that childhood indoctrination. in a manner that disregards or Blacks are essentially responsible Despite his white fur and the fails to recognize its original for their own failings. goofy clown voice of Howard content. The resurrected forms The creators of public Fleischer, Roger Rabbit is Black, of these offensive images, now images are often seduced by Hollywood's original whipping sanitized, can turn up anywhere their faith in the transitory boy. In the very first scene of the with an air of respectability. nature of America's collective film, Roger is subjected to a With the release of Tummy memory. Young Americans don't barrage of abuses-any of them Trouble, the attitudes of Roger know their history. Older Ameri­ capable of destroying human Rabbit's creators emerge again, cans won't recognize it. The life. But Roger survives each but are now given more ground racial attitudes embedded in the death just in time for the next cover. The rabbit is poised again two Roger Rabbit films seek to atrocity. Then when his physical in his role of Mammy to little nullify certain lessons of the past: reflexes-seeing birds instead of Baby Herman. More an ineffi­ Who Framed Roger Rabbit? allowed stars-ruins the take, he begs the cient Butterfly McQueen than a us to find humor in director for another chance to stoic Hattie McDaniel-s, Roger is discrimination; Tummy Trouble be beaten again. overwhelmed by the task at invites us to find pleasure in its Blacks, whose cinematic hand-ehildcare. Baby Herman pain'. images have been largely puni­ cries inconsolably, then swallows tive denigrations and very a rattle that Roger offers as a public lynchings, survive distraction. Roger panics and psychological slayings to relive takes his charge to the hospital them again and again. Roger where a series of mishaps dis­ Rabbit is too silly to recog­ lodges the rattle but passes it nize his own oppression. back and forth between the Likewise, our pain be­ stomachs of the baby and the comes absorbed by the rabbit in what turns into a new humor/absurdity of the sport of shared misery. Of moment and our course, Roger is the only one humanity is dimin­ made to suffer mightily for all ished. his caring. The hoopla sur­ In this one institution of rounding the re­ help, he comes up against lease of Who Framed enough issues of the Black Roger Rabbit? Am·erican experience to fill a conjures up a mini-series. He's pursued by similar herald­ hypodermic needles (drugs in ing, seventy-odd the community), tempted by the years ago, of bottle (alcoholism), thwarted by Birth ofA elevators (upward mobility), Sharon Stockard Martin is a playwright Nation-a manhandled by medical authori­ and arts and entertainment critic. movie that ties (police brutality) and is M. Belinda Tucker, Ph.D. is the Assistant was argua­ bombed into complete annihila­ Director of Research for the UCLA Afri­ bly the most tion (genocide). can-American Studies Department.

25 Calendar ••••••••••••

October 28-29 How to Finance Film, Video and lV, 14-15 How to Finance Film, Video and lV University ofWisconsin Fall Film Series. University ofWisconsion Fall Film Seri~s pres­ Washington, D.C. ents this seminar focusing on how to raIse (See October 14-15 listing for full details) funds for your feature film documentary, short subject or other creative project. Charlotte, N.C. November For more information Program Director Robert Lewis or 4 Mwe Bana Bandi (Zambia) Kristina Tuura Linda Smith and Pavi Takala University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee A musical documentary on the songs and dances 929 N. Sixth Street of children in a Zambain village. Milwaukee, WI 53203 414-227-3236 Speaking in Toungues (USA) 1988 This film brings together musician Milfred Graves 14-15 Producing Ultra-Low and Low Budget and Doug Murray on an invocation of the Features, New York, University of Wisconsin Fall healing musical spirit ofAlbert Ayler, the 1960s Film Series. avant guard saxaphonist who died suddenly and New York. mysteriously. (See above entry for full details). (See October 21 listing for full details)

16,30 In Pursuit of Authenticity: Contemporary 19 Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame American Indian Warriors Film Series Independent Cinema Series 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00 pm. Two films, Powwow Highway (1989) and War Party (1965) ,which feature contemporary American Contact: Indian warriors and entertaining action within the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame context of the cultures of the Cheyenne and the Oakland, CA Blackfeet. (415)465-0804 Contact: 21 ORl, 1989, Brazil, Raquel Gerber Smithsonian Resident Associate Program "Ori" means head or Black conscience, as it Carmichael Auditorium, Museum of regards time, history and memory. The film American History follows the process of Black movements in Brazil 8 p.m. and America through its leaders and ideology 357-3030, for ticket information and documents African culture transmigrated to the "new world" exploring fundamental ties 2-5 The Virginia Festival ofAmerican Film between Black communities in Southern Brazil. This year's theme "Rights, Liberties and Freedom" Contact: will focus on the four area's of civil, human, Black Heritage Film Festival political, and individual rights. Include~ in the Black Heritage Resource Center festival will be a screening ofJames Baldwzn: The Langston Hughes Community Library Price ofthe Ticket, followed by a discussion. Other 102-09 Northern Boulevard ~ films being screened in conjunction with this Corona, NY 11369 panel are: I Heard ~t Through. the GraPev.ine, The (718)651-7116 Negro and the Amerzcan Promtse, My_ Chzldhood:James Baldwin's Harlem, andJames Baldwin: From Another 28-29 Producing Ultra-Low and Low Budget Country. Other films being shown are Intruder in the Features, University ofWisconsin Fall Film Dust, Brotherfrom AnotherPlanet, and The Road to Series. Brown (on Brown vs.the Board of Education). Atlanta, GA. (See October 14-15 listing for full details).

26 For more information: Orlando, FL. The University ofVirginia (See October 14-15 listing for full details) Box 3697 Charlottesville, VA 22903 16 Omega Rising (England/Jamaica) 1989 804-924-FEST This film explores the history and the role of women in the Rastafari Movment. 4-5 University ofWisconsin Fall Film Series, (Part of the Black Hertitage FilmFestival. See Producing Ultra-Low & Low Budget Features. October 21 entry for full details). Milwaukee, WI. (See October 14-15 listing for full details) . . c I a s s I f I e d s 11-12 University ofWisconsin Fall Film Series, How to Finance Film, Video and TV. Atlanta, GA. (See October 14-15 listing for full details)

11-12 University ofWisconsin Fall Film Series, How to Succeed in the Film Industry. Orlando, FL. (See October 14-15 listing for full ~etails)

18 Visions ofthe Spirit (USA) 1989 An intimate portrait of Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker. (Part of the Black Heritage Film Festival. (See October 21 listing for full details)

18-19 Atlanta Mrican Film Society presents the Hoyt Fuller Film Festival For more information: Atlanta Mrican Film Society P.O. Box 50319 Atlanta, GA 30302 404-525-1136

18-19 University ofWisconsin Fall Film Series, Producing Ultra-Low & Low Budget Features, and Making a Good Script Great. Washington, D.C. (See October 14-15 listing for full details). December 2 Krih? Krahl (Haiti/USA/Canada) 1989

This method of storytelling is used to re-create the nightmarish history of Haiti under Papa Doc Duvalier and his son. (Part of the Black Heritage Film Festival. See October 21 entry for full details).

2-3 University ofWisconsin Fall Film Series, Making a Good Script Great.

27 PHILLIP MALLORY JONES

continued from page 5 the material deciding what was boundaries. there or not there, and after, I'd My ultimate goal is to take miles ofAtlanta. That grew out drive down and shoot for an­ the collection to FESPACO in of my mother's research in Black other 10 days or so. I spent a Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, oral history. Mom (Dorothy summer doing this. The Trouble and to present video art in the MalloryJones) would take her I've Seen runs 10 minutes. context of the largest and most little raggedy-assed tape re­ I did this film on an Ameri­ important Pan African cinema corder, a sack full of snuff and can Film Institute grant. I festival (which also claims to be a candy and go off into the hills in applied for that about five cinema and television festival , search of old Black people. She times-finally got it in 1976. It though last year they treated spent about two or three years turned out that that was the first video like the poor stepchild).1 doing this, on her own time, videotape they funded. want to come with this important recording whatever she could. collection ofvideo art and have She taped their memories about BFR: Explain the basis for your it be an integral part of the their grandparents, stories "lconoNegro: the Black Aesthetic FESPACO program, regularly they'd heard, what their lives in Video Art" collection. scheduled, well presented and were like. Songs. She'd send me J ones: I want to communi­ beginning to advance the cri­ the tapes, and I'd listen. We cate with my kin in other places, tique of video art by Pan-African finally hooked up. I drove down and I want to encourage others people. That is my ambition. to Atlanta and spent about 10 to do the same. And that is days down there shooting with where "lconoNegro" is appropri­ BFR: How are you defining the her. I'd wander around shoot­ ate-to gather the work from term "Black" in "Icono-Negro: the ing in the yard. Kids, people various parts of the African Black Aesthetic of Video Art"? sitting around doing what they world, or, some other under­ Jones: We run into all kinds do-cleaning fish, washing standing of groupings like of problems with definition. clothes, braiding hair. "Black," and begin the process of What is "Black" in one place is Gunilla (my wife) and I mapping where we are. This is not necessarily "Black" in an­ would spend a week looking at what artists do; they mark the other. In London, Asians are

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"In terms of teaching, sharing, caring, healing and liberating, Home Girls is one of the most important books in the history ofBlack women's writing. -Alice Walker ______I_~~~_9_-2_~?_!Z?_-_~_~:_1_~_~_!~:~?_, __~~£~~. _ o Please send me your free complete catalogue listing over one hundred titles. (No purchase necessary) Quantity Title Price Amount Name _ Healing Heart $ 8.95 Home Girls $13.95 Address _ Add $ 2 postage and handling for the 1st book and $.50 for each additional book City State.__-.....Zip _ TOTAL KITCHEN TABLE: WOMEN OF COLOR PRESS, P.O. Box 908, Latham, New York 12110 28 Black. ~'Black" has moved out of images. I was aiming for no York in 1987, you exhibited a a racial/ethnic designation to a language dependence. This gets piece called What Goes Around political designation, and so in presented in North America, Comes Around, a particularly curating this collection, the Central America, Caribbean, sensitive piece that is a real panel and I had to confront that. South America, Europe, Africa departure from what might be So this collection is a very and can be interpreted in vari­ considered your "style" of media­ reflexive kind of thing. We ous African cultures. That is the making. gather this material, sort it out, point of the project. Working J ones: Yes, this was a real select work that presents a towards a trans-cultural language break for me from the work that particular, coherent, passionate in sound and image construc­ preceded it; the purpose of statement by what are called tion. The budget for Dreamkeeper which was a direct address to the "Black" people in the world, that was about $6,000. woman who had most recently are working in this form as art. broken my heart. I was trying to This is important because Black BFR: Would you speak a little make hand-made video. No people historically have been in on some of your more recent art budget. I spent $250 on acetate the vanguard of creative inven­ pieces? How about Ghosts and animation film for this three­ tion in art. Small gauge video is Demons produced in 1987, which minute film. I drew 400 brush 20 years old now, we are into the thematically deals with Third and ink drawings rotoscope from second generation of Black World people? VHS video that I shot myself. I video art makers and it is really Jones: This was four channels set up a camera on a tripod and time now to establish that we in a grid, all black and white did movement in front of it, have a particular position, a imagery that I found in the air passed by it, then single framed. particular set of operating (broadcast television images) this video onto a monitor with principles and codes. We are that I then processed electroni­ clear acetate over it and made beginning to sort out the codes. cally to remove all the color and these drawings. They reflect We have done it in other forms. to abstract them into high sequential posture changes to This form is old enough now contrast black and white to try assimilate movement. I recorded that we can do it. We can look at and minimize the context in a voice track with text that I had the work and discuss it in the which these images are familiarly written and made sounds gener­ same way, with the same kind of seen. These are all images of ated from a mirage synthesizer rigor that we talk about other Third World people. The sound which has a library of samples. I forms, and we can do it in terms track was also found in the air, used flute, tabla, wind-chimes, ofwhat Black people are doing. sounds that I collected off short generated some wave sounds. wave broadcasts. Howls, whistles, I produced the piece one BFR: Tell us about high speed telemetry signals, time expressly for her to see­ Dreamkeeper, one of your own coded voices, growls, screams­ but then I liked it so much that I pieces included in the you find all kinds of things in the got more ambitious about it, "lconoNegro" exhibition. air. These images were all shot the whole thing over again, Jones: Dreamkeeper is a three around us, what is constantly did the drawings again as well as channel installation of audio and going around the world as the the audio, and virtually recon­ video. Here I am working with image ofThird World People structed the piece as one that footage shot in Angola last and the images of victimization, was cleaner in its execution, summer. Three VCR's, three deprivation, weakness, and the more unified in the style of tapes, on three monitors, hori­ connotation that Third World drawing and more accessible to a zontally arranged. Each channel people are unable to take care of wider audience in terms of text. I displays a set of keyed video themselves. was pleased with the outcome. images to break up each channel I put the four tapes together ,into three levels; foreground, to go on the grid of monitors. BFR: Earlier this year you mid and background. What I am The images have a rhythmic completed'a piece called Foot­ trying to work is three channels kind of movement across this prints. horizontal and three channels field. Conceptually, what this Jones: Footprints is an eight deep to make these planes across piece represents for me is my minute, three channel installa­ these fields of three monitors. bad dream and Third World tion and is the beginning of my The other thing I was aiming people's collective bad dream. series of developing language for in the piece was to develop a The budget for Ghosts and and emotional progression as a narrative structure based on Demons was about $200. narrative structure. I completed emotional progressions with it in May of 1988, and it went images. I gathered sounds that BFR: At the Flaherty Film into the Museum of Modern Art were constructed to go with the Series Seminars in Aurora, New in'New York.

29 PHILLIP MALLORY JONES This piece consisted of really a crime to perpetrate that political agenda is imposed upon images I generated in my living kind of idea. It participates in me, I will resist it all the way. But room and a soundtrack that was the brutalizing of many people. as media-makers, as makers of constructed similarly, with effects It dehumanizes people, destructs messages and interpreters of the and vocalizing. To me it tells the history, and continues a very messages, that gives us a great story of this spirit. There is a unfortunate and dangerous deal of power. Consequently, we female form that repeats in it. system. This was on Evening have a responsibility and an This spirit is very powerful, Magazine, going into millions of accountability to our commu­ playing with thunder and light­ people's minds! nity. As media-makers, our ning, with the sun, tides, wind accumulated experience can be and rain. In the process of her BFR: Will the availability of used to address perceived social being, there is another spirit that new technologies (satellite, cable, responsibilities. comes in and ou't, which is more home video) in the hands of the We're getting ready for the raw, potentially malevolent, Black media-maker alter the day after tomorrow; the struggle definitely sexual. There is a presentation of on-screen images will take many forms. Our talent, confrontation between the two of people of color? experience and communications and finally a resolution where Jones: Yes, in that the oppor­ skills will be essential to meet the female force comes back into tunity to treat portraits and that end, which absolutely won't balance again. The intentron is environments differently. Tech­ happen without us. to trans'pose various African nology has gotten smaller. There are a great deal of motifs or image construction Smaller format recordings can ways to address these perceived into this electronic medium. be cablecast, can be broadcast. needs-from concrete grass Footprints cost about $35,000 This can allow for a much roots television to the potentially because I bought all the equip­ broader diversity of approach esoteric nonsense that I some­ ment that I used to make it. and access by makers to different times indulge in. It all changes places and people. In that way, consciousness. We are not BFR: Much of your work, as the portrayals can change. limited to one way of thinking, you interpret it, deals with motifs People don't have to come into a one language or one history; we concerning people of color: the studio, sit in front of a camera need it all, and media should be Third World, Africa. You obviously and talk. big enough to understand that feel quite strongly about the The amount of money that we need it all. display and representation of such has to be spent to make an motifs. image and get it on the air has Jones: Oh yes. A couple of changed-it's gone down. Also, weeks ago 1 saw this piece on it's possible, that for a lot less Evening Magazine, produced money (relative to broadcasting) locally in the D.C. area. They buy one can get very wide distribu­ syndicated packages of human tion of the message. It's not cost interest stories. They covered a prohibitive to buy time on story on a new book that has satellite. '8edtetut • •• come out on Picasso. They These things can be done, ALTERNATIVE VIDEOS conducted interviews with the and they will be done more and white woman who wrote it, more as this kind of technology BUY OR RENT showed work, interviewed rela­ and use becomes incorporated UNIQUE BLACK VIDEOS tives, friends and associates of into various struggles. But it is Picasso. The contention of the going to take people who under­ CLASSICS piece was that Picasso's work is stand that this kind of technol­ CHILDREN the result of a deranged white ogy is there, people with the DOCUMENTARIES man's personality. That he was a p~ssion to do that kind of organ­ HEALTH schizophrenic, misogynist, sadist, IZIng. LITERARY ADAPTIONS wife-beater-and that this is what MUSIC his work is about. It totally BFR: Are there any final ACTION discounts Picasso's involvement comments you would care to and appropriation of African make, or words of wisdom YO.u'd imagery as if it never happened. care to lend to a new generation This book presupposes that this of aspiring Black media-makers? SEND 1.00 FOR OUR CATALOG immense, critical body of work is Jones: I think that Black P.O. BOX 270797 the product of a fucked up white producers should be account­ DALLAS, TEXAS 75227 man. This is dangerous! This is able to their own visions. If a

30 FREEDOM continued from page 10 solution to express the people's think. If they are in a theater in a suffering. That's also true about democratic country, and they is always a risk; being in the film Black music in the U.S. As a cannot stand to see it, then what wouldn't make it any worse. little Black girl in Martinique, my about the real people who are "And they told me that it was soul music was the blues." going through it? It's real hell, the first time they had read a A Dry lVhite Season may be the after all; it's notjust a film." script so faithful to the situation most openly violent of the recent The film will assuredly shock in South AFrica, so accurate films about South Africa; some those who expect to see another about the situation of the whites of its torture scenes provoke film like the winsome Sugar Cane and the Blacks. The fact that chilled horror in the audience. Alley, but Paley makes no apolo­ Ben du Toit was the lead never For Paley, it was not a choice to gies. "In America and in Martin­ bothered them. They said the show that violence, but a neces­ ique, there are many injustices, film was important for interna­ sity. "You don't talk about the but not like that, not since tional audiences because they situation about South Africa slavery. In all my life in Martin­ know we are fighting to survive without being honest. Ifyou ique, I never saw this kind of but they don't know why the cannot, do something else. You situation. I don't know even one system exists, and they don't must not say as a filmmaker, I white man who could do what know that some of the whites are don't want Americans to dislike the smallest part ofwhat we victims of their own system." it. They have Rambo, and can see showed in this film." Paley isn't surprised that all the blood and violence there. Mter completing her U.S. ~ Black South Africa is so rich in But in my film, the violence is tour, Paley returns to her office acting talent. "It's the same not exploitative or manipulative. in Paris, where she is planning thing with music. The best, most It's the truth, in the context of another film. And it will be in deeply felt music, in 90 percent the film. yet another style and tone. "It's of the cases, comes from coun­ "If audiences cannot take it, a love story, shot in the Carib­ tries where this is the only then maybe it will make them bean," she said.

/tfAPANTfvtl; ETHHIC HOTIOHS "It's about time a feature film has come out that presents An award-winning documentary on the stereotyping South Africa from a black perspective. " -Spike Lee ofBlack Americans.

':A terrific movie." - The Guardian, (UK) ':4 superb video that handles the critical issue of racism sensitively but objectively. " -Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Harvard University AVAILABLE FR0l':1

31 Blad~Fihn IIIOI!JDOrn the vision. the voice. From LA. to London and Martinique to behind the surface and challenge ordinary Mali. We bring you the worl~ ofBlack film. assumptions about the Black image. We feature actors and actresses- that go against Ifyou're concerned about Black images in the grain, and we fill you in on the rich comrn.ercial film and television, you already history ofBlacks in American filmmaking know that Hollywood does not reflect the multi­ -ahistory that goes back to 1910! cultural nature ofcontemporary society. You know thatwhen Blacks are not absent they are And, Black Film. Review is the only confined to predictable, one-dimensional roles. magazine that brings you news, reviews and You may argue that movies and television shape in-depth interviews from the mostvibrant our reality or that they simply reflect that reality. movement in contemporary film. You In any case, no one can deny the need to take a know about Spike Lee butwhat about closer look atwhat is coming out ofthis power­ Euman Paley or IsaacJulien? Soulemayne fulmedium. Cisse or Charles Burnette? Throughout the African diaspora, Black filrmnakers are Black Film Review is the·forum you've been giving us alternatives to the static images looking for. Four times a year, we bring you film that are produced in Hollywood and giving criticism from a Black perspective. We look birth to a whole new cinema...be there!

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