Spring Film Focus
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Spring Film Focus Film Spring VOLUME 27 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING/SUMMER 2011 | $10.00 Deriving from the German weben—to weave—weber translates into the literal and figurative “weaver” of textiles and texts.Weber (the word is the same in singular and plural) are the artisans of textures and discourse, the artists of the beautiful fabricating the warp and weft of language into ever-changing pattterns. Weber, the journal, understands itself as a tapestry of verbal and visual texts, a weave made from the threads of words and images. A Different Kind of Oscar Until fairly recently, the name of Oscar Micheaux was virtually unknown, and studies of film had few references to what is, without doubt, the single most important pre-World War II African-American filmmaker (and an accomplished novelist and essayist as well). Last year, as part of its Black Heritage Series, the U.S. postal service decided to honor Micheaux with a stamp of his own (by noted stamp artist Gavin Kelley), thus recognizing his achievements as being on a par with those of Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and his contemporary Paul Robeson (who made his debut in Micheaux’s film of 1924, Body and Soul, about an escaped convict turned minister). Ironically, for all of his contributions to film, Micheaux may have been shy about being photographed himself. Equally likely is that he was not deemed important enough to be photographed at the time, which might explain why the postal image honoring him is based on a portrait that was included in his first novelThe Conquest (1913), which he would later adapt into The Homesteader (1919), his first feature film meeting with critical and commercial success. Micheaux’s work—which includes over forty films and numerous novels between 1919 and 1948—was first ignored as cheap entertainment for a narrow African American niche market and did not receive serious attention until a print of Body and Soul was rediscovered. In 1991, the U.S. Library of Congress also acquired a 35mm print of a silent film titledLa Negra from the Filmoteca in Madrid in exchange for a print of Dracula (1932). The film turned out to be Micheaux’s lost film about racial strife and the emerging New Negro in the post- Reconstruction South, Within Our Gates (1920). Shortly thereafter, the Museum of Modern Art acquired a partial print of Micheaux’s Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), on the Klu Klux Klan, from the Cinémathèque Royale in Brussels—complete with intertitles in Flemish and French. These serendipitous finds redirected the scholarly focus from Micheaux’s prolific career as a writer, producer and director of sound films to his earlier silent work that is no less meritorious and challenging (especially in view of his tight budget constraints). Given that Within Our Gates is often seen as Micheaux’s response to W. D. Griffith’s controversial The Birth of a Nation (1915), which portrays African Americans as subhuman and sexually aggressive, the film provides a much-needed corrective and complicates facile readings of Griffith’s ground-breaking (and hate-mongering) epic. These days, Micheaux has been immortalized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the Directors Guild of America honored him with a Golden Jubilee Special Award in 1989. That same year, the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame also recognized him with a posthumous award. His legacy is palpable not only in his significant oeuvre, which is still in the process of being rediscovered and restored, but also in the films of Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, Robert Townsend, and Melvin Van Peebles, who continue the controversial themes of Micheaux’s best work. For a young man who once homesteaded on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, which resonates with the eponymous sled in Citizen Kane (1941), how could it be otherwise? Front Cover: M. Shane Christensen, Dotted Teapot, soda-fired stoneware VOLUME 27 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING/SUMMER 2011 | $10.00 EDITOR GLOBAL sPOTLIGHT Michael Wutz 2 Margaret Rostkowski, Wanderlust—A Conversation ASSOCIATE EDITORS Kathryn L. MacKay Brad Roghaar with Richard Grant Russell Burrows Victoria Ramirez 15 Richard Grant, Patrice and Gustave—An African Love Story MANAGING EDITOR Elizabeth Dohrer ART EDITORIAL BOARD 85 M. Shane Christensen, The Ancient Battle of Fire Susan Clark, Eastern Sierra Institute Katharine Coles, U of Utah and Clay Gary Gildner, independent author Duncan Harris, U of Wyoming FILM FOCUS Richard Grant.........................5 Diana Joseph, Minnesota State U 41 Delia Caparoso Konzett, The American Century— Nancy Kline, independent author & translator James A. MacMahon, Utah State U America’s Global Vision and the Image of the Fred Marchant, Suffolk U WWII Combat Soldier Madonne Miner, Weber State U 51 Walter Metz, A Dreary Life on a Barge— Felicia Mitchell, Emory & Henry College From L’Atalante to Young Adam Julie Nichols, Utah Valley State College 67 Matthias Piccolruaz Konzett, “It’s Not Every Day Tara Powell, U of South Carolina We’re Gonna Be The Same”—Wong Kar Wai, Bill Ransom, Evergreen State College Auteur-Flaneur of the Camera Walter L. Reed, Emory U Scott P. Sanders, U of New Mexico EssAY Daniel R. Schwarz, Cornell U Andreas Ströhl, Filmfestival Munich 97 Billy J. Stratton, Alone on the Colorado—Glen James Thomas, editor and writer Canyon, Edward Abbey, and the Birth of Radical Robert Torry, U of Wyoming Environmentalism Robert Van Wagoner, independent author 130 Ian R. Mitchell, Organized Labour and the Layering Melora Wolff, Skidmore College of the American Southwest SPECIAL EDITING Sherri L. Vance FICTION M. ShaneC hristensen........85 EDITORIAL PLANNING BOARD Bradley W. Carroll John R. Sillito 28 L. Annette Binder, The Last He Knew Brenda M. Kowalewski Michael B. Vaughan 77 Steve Himmer, I See What You Mean Angelika Pagel 114 Michael Fedo, The Titlist 121 Ryan Crawford, Bacon and the Spear ADVISORY COMMITTEE 138 Ron McFarland, Naseby Meri DeCaria Barry Gomberg Elaine Englehardt John E. Lowe DeAnn Evans Aden Ross POETRY Shelley L. Felt Robert B. Smith G. Don Gale Mikel Vause 22 Robin Carstensen, Pantoum: Song of a Borderland LAYOUT CONSULTANTS and other poems Mark Biddle Jason Francis 26 Tim Bellows, Late Fall, Zhu Jiang River and EDITORS EMERITI Tracing Threads Brad L. Roghaar LaVon Carroll 37 Michelle Bonczek, A Roadside Attempt at Attraction Sherwin W. Howard Nikki Hansen and other poems Neila Seshachari 110 Anne Wilson, Balance and other poems 117 Laura Stott, Is this dark too much for us? and EDITORIAL AssISTANT Ximen McMillan other poems EDITORIAL MATTER CONTINUED IN BACK 151 READING THE WEST Film Focus...........................41 GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT Margaret Rostkowski Wanderlust A Conversation with Richard Grant Richard Grant is the author of American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers and Bull-Riders and God’s Middle Finger, Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre. The first book is an histori- cal and personal exploration of the wandering tradition in America, growing out of Grant’s long interest in nomadic sub-cultures that live outside the bounds of society. His second book took him on a journey to northern Mexico, a place for which he says he has “an unfortunate fascination.” The story of this journey is not an easy one to follow, filled as it is with a sense of a society rich in tradition, stories and danger. Jim Harrison says Grant has “far too much of the mad dog in his character, and I am surprised indeed that he survived his journey.” Richard Grant has been a contributor to magazines, both in the United States and Great Britain for twenty years, writing on everything from the sex industry to environmental is- sues. He has just published his third book, Crazy River, on his travels in a two-man dugout canoe in Central Africa. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, where Margaret Rostkowski talked with him in February, 2009. 2 WE B E R TH E C ON T EM P OR A R Y W E S T I had assumed that all skies in the world were pretty much the same size and I wasn’t prepared for this one. It had risen up during the night and spread itself outwards and doubled or tripled in dimensions. I got out of the car and stood in the West for the first time, turning a slow circle and following the unchanging horizon with my eyes. Gazing up at the sky, dizzied and awestruck by this stark new world of space and light and wind. —American Nomads Rostkowski: You were in Texas, weren’t book to be God’s Middle Finger and the Brit- you, when you experienced that sky? ish publisher said, “We can’t have god in the title,” and I said “Why not?,” and he said, Grant: Yes, up on the Llano Estacado. The “God died a long time ago. He doesn’t have Staked Plains. If you’ve written about a mo- much of a reputation. If you’ve got god in the ment, your memory of it is there. You also title it’s absolutely a sales death.” remember how you describe the moment, better than you remember the actual mo- Ah, that’s great. That’s wonderful. ment. So you better hope you wrote it down right. So this one’s called Bandit Roads in Britain. You got it right. That’s the big sky and a You rely a lot on magazines. That’s where description I love. you publish your work. Some people get freaked out by it. People in That’s how I made a living for twenty years. the 19th century got seasick out here. But And it’s never been harder.