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RWN Dec1994.Pdf (4.462Mb) RICHARD WRIGHT SPECIAL :31 /\ C:< :30'( ISSUE Volume 3, Number 3 December 1994 Wright Film Biography Released Richard Wright-Black Boy, the new film biography of Richard Wright, premiered on December 2, 1994 at the Smith Robertson Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, Wright' s former school house. Attending were Julia Wright and her son, Malcolm, and Joanna Newsome, Wright's half-sister, now over 90 years old and living in Port Gibson, MS. The gala event brought together a host of friends of Mississippi Educational Televi­ sion, the film's sponsor and the production staff, notably the executive producers, Jef Judin and Guy Land and the film 's director Madison Davis Lacy, Ir. of Firethorn Pro­ ductions. Richard Wrighl-Black Boy made its tele­ vision debut December? onMississippi Edu­ cational Television and will air nationally on PBS in 1995. Funding was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Corpo­ ration for Public Broadcasting. The Ford Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Black Prograrruning Consortium, Southern Educational Commu­ nications Association, Independent Televi­ sion Service, and The Foundation for Public Broadcasting in Mississippi. It is distributed by California Newsreel of San Francisco. Richard Wright-Black Boy will be shown at the Modern Language Association Con­ vention in San Diego, the College Language Association Conference in Baton Rouge, Northeastern University in Boston, and at other educational venues to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Wright's autobiography. To celebrate this landmark event for Wright studies, the Richard Wright Circle, which has been actively working for the past three years to bring together an international community commilted to furthering scholar­ ship on the life and work of Richard Wright, has produced this Special Issue dedicated to Photo of Richard Wright by Carl Van Vechten c/o California Newsreel both the book and the fllm .• Special Issue Page 1 Richard Wright: A Cinematic Life Julia Wright reviews film biography "He stood in a box in the reserved section of a movie house ... These people were frameworkofa T.V .documentary. And laughing at their lives, he thought with amazemen t. They were shouting and so, along with the excitement of the yelling at the animated shadows of themselves .... No; it could not be done; he challenge and the willingne s to help, could not awaken them. He sighed." came the awareness that wearing three - Richard Wright, "The Man Who Lived Underground" hats (as the wri ter's daughter, as one of the interviewees, and as Special Con­ sultant) was going to be a difficulL These words were written by Rich­ The mind boggle to think that his acrobatic feat to say the least I was ard Wright almost a decade before he short life, spanning so much history, eventually to relinquish the Special invested so much of his creative and was a series of se ular and humanistic Consultan y: perhaps I knew too much performing energy into the 1951 film rites of passage beyond the power hun­ about my father's painful day-by-day version of Native Son. Yet, almost gry TUsades which threaten not to end ordeal to wish lO be associated with presciently, they reflect Wright's dis­ with the century: racism , nazism, com­ surgical editing decisions taken at a illusion with the sea change the fllm munism, colonialism, and religious more detached distance. And it would media of that day wrought in oneof the fundamentalism. have been difficult LO follow the logic most powerful novels of this century. All this, I felt, was great stuff, excit­ of these decisions without access to aL Wright did n04 in the end, recognize ing material for an educational docu­ least a wide selection of the rushes. lL his own stamp in the truncated version mentary. And so, needless to say, I is to the film team' credit, that we of Native Son which directorial cuts was delighted when, five years ago, a were able to work out a more flexible and cold war censorship had turned Mississippi/ETV production team and informal approach to my advisory into a mediocre whodunit Also the headed by Guy Land and Madison position-which leaves me today more criticism of his portrayal, in the fi lm,of Lacy approached the Richard Wright freedom and objectivity to review both his own central character, Bigger Tho­ Estate with a documentary project. I the excellent points and the fla ws of mas, was blunt and hurtful- and did also welcomed the news that a solid the completed fi m. not always take into account the chal­ budget had been allocated by the Na­ First and foremost, the documen­ lenge faced by our first African Ameri­ tional Endowment for the Humanities tary- BlackBoy- is a fitLing tribute to can best-selling author in the acting of and other sources. As it turned out, this the fiftieth anniversary of the publica­ his own literary hero-which was un­ funding enabled a wide range of inter­ tion of the book. And the fil m is , in precedented in Hollywood-dominated views to be conducted on both sides of more ways than one, true to the ambi ­ film history. the Atlanti ,in time to capture on cel­ tious standards it set for itself. It is One cannot help being aware of the luloid the stories and recollections of refreshing to find that in these days of screen potential of many of Wright's those who had, as peers or contempo­ hysterical zapping mania when the tak­ works, but I am personally convinced raries, crossed Wright's path in vary­ ing of one's own tel visual time is an that Richard Wright's own life-story is ing degrees of closeness. HislOri cally, act of creative courage-the film,B/ack supremely cinematic. The historical I fell the project was beautifully timed Boy, takes the full hour and a half adventure in time and space which for I was aware of the fact that succes­ required to teU a complex but intensely took a barefooted predelinquent hun­ sive generations of witnesses often take dramatic story. Another real quality gry black boy from the southern kitch­ their stories with them. Then, shortly which makes the fi lm highly recom­ ens where his mother worked early in after I formaUy accepted serving as mendable is the sheer quantity of inter­ the century-4O the literary paternity Special Consultant to the film, Madi­ views Madison Lacy and his sensitive of Bigger-a mythic urban character son Lacy received an Emmy for his cameraman, N. Killingsworth, col­ who still haunts America- begged film Eyes on the Prize: the project was born lected both in lh US and Europe. I treatmenL His story took him from the with a silver spoon in its mouth. consider some of those interviews to post-feudal rural South to the sophisti­ At no time have I had cause lO be anthology pieces. Another out­ cated intellectual turmoil of post-war regret my initial enthusiasm, but it is standing quality ofthe8/ackBoy docu ­ France, from Roosevelt's New Deal to true, I had not realized that, asa mem­ mentary is the attention paid to the the historical Bandung Conference at ber of the family, I was both too close main turning-points in Richard the epicenter of the first rumblings of to the subject of the film- and too Wright's life: the national events which third world national independence ris­ distant from the technical and creative the publication ofNative Son andB/ack ings, from the harassment of choices which must necessarily be Boy turned out LO be, the decision to McCarthyism to the disillusion with made to fit a complex life-story into join the Communist Party and the rea­ the power politics of communism . ... the time-structure and production sons for leaving it, and- above all- Page 2 Richard Wright Newsletter the complex many-layered motivations longer hear what Kwame Nkrumah, mentary is a little like a new house not for choosing exile. Last but not least, Eric Williams, C.L.R. James, Franz quite "lived in" as far as its main char­ an unparalleled search for television Fanon, Gertrude Stein, Jean-Paul acter is concerned, I heartily recom ­ and newsreel archival footage featur­ Sartre, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, mend it because it gives us, at least, a ing Richard Wright turned up some Simone de Beauvoir, and Chester few celluloid stepping-stones towards real nuggets in the form of a few rare Himes would have had to say. And so, a living knowledge of Richard Wright. and precious celluloid minutes show­ for that very reason, the few surviving I particularly recommend it to the pa­ ing a very private, guarded man who, French witnesses to those Jesser known tience of all young viewers who may having been once bitten by the me­ later years should have been given wish to find out what happened to the dium, may have been twice shy for that some space: Maurice Pons, Suzanne child who started out burning curtains reason. Lipinska, Rem i Dreyfus, Jean and killing a kitten-and who ended up Overall care and attention paid to Pouillon, ctc. advising prime ministers and simply the accuracy of biographical detail is However, apart from four brief changing American culture .• attributable, I think, to a bright galaxy dramatizations of cinematic moments of scholar-consultants. But paradoxi­ in his best known fiction and poetry, I cally, if the film does fail in part, it is admit I do miss more of Wright's exactly here, where its ambition of own words-especially from his non­ excellency is at its highest.
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