A music-driven feature film about African American music and freedom developed with Seal and Jeymes Samuel Eugene Bullard was one of the great American heroes of the 20th century.
A black American who as a nine-year-old ran away from the attempted lynching of his father, Bullard fought in both world wars, learned to fly and became the first black American fighter pilot, a champion boxer, jazz drummer, Paris club owner, one of the most decorated soldiers of the First World War and recipient of the Légion d’Honneur – France’s highest honour.
But Bullard was a man who faced racial prejudice all his life and who remained virtually unknown in America, the country of his birth. He returned to America in the 1940s after 20 years in Europe but found little had changed since his youth. Whilst Bullard had been abroad, his elder brother had been lynched by a white mob and despite Bullard’s fame and status in France as a decorated war hero he found it difficult to find work. He ended his working life as a lift attendant at the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.
Bullard’s story is emblematic of the forgotten ‘army’ of black American soldiers – men of fighting units such as the 369th Infantry Regiment, the ‘Harlem Hellfighters’ – who fought for freedom in Europe in the First World War and, remaining in France, created a cultural music-driven revolution in Paris in the decades following the end of the Great War. Inspired by the music of Sidney Bechet, Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith, Josephine Baker and King Oliver – the greatest jazz musicians and performers of the early 20th century – the film is being developed by the major recording artist SEAL and musician/filmmaker JEYMES SAMUEL.
SEAL’s album ‘Standards’ was one of the best-selling albums of 2017.
JEYMES SAMUEL has written and produced music for several artists, as well as written and directed a number of films; most recently he’s written and directed the short film LEGACY for Jay-Z’s 4:44 album. He was also Music Consultant on Baz Luhrmann’s remake of the film THE GREAT GATSBY, where he collaborated with Jay-Z on the project and brought together several critically acclaimed artists to create the soundtrack. SUGGESTED ACTORS FOR EUGENE BULLARD SUGGESTED MUSICAL TALENT
Seal Jeymes Samuel John Legend Rihanna Diana Krall
Mahershala Ali Michael B Jordan Donald Glover Chadwick Boseman John Boyega
SUGGESTED ACTORS FOR ADA ‘BRICKTOP’ SMITH
Max Raabe SZA CeeLo Green Jennifer Hudson Childish Gambino
Jennifer Hudson Queen Latifah Octavia Spencer Janelle Monáe Lana Del Rey Shabaka Hutchings Erykah Badu Jill Scott
SUGGESTED ACTORS FOR JOSEPHINE BAKER
Angie Stone Jon Batiste Jamie Cullum David Foster Melody Gardot
Rihanna Janelle Monáe Taraji P Henson
Madeleine Peyroux Gregory Porter Charlotte Gainsbourg Robert Glasper José James A BLACK REVOLUTION – PARIS IN THE 1920s Paris in the 1920s is often portrayed as the focus of a white, intellectual revolution – Hemingway, Picasso, Buñuel, Dalí – but the reality is that it was African American culture, given freedom to express itself in Paris in the decade immediately following the horrors of the First World War, that drove this revolution. A revolution in art, poetry, philosophy but most of all in music. It is here that Bullard and others, though still subject to deeply rooted racism, experienced a level of personal, political and artistic freedom unknown in their home country.
SIX MOMENTS OF FREEDOM is a music-driven film that claims back this intellectual and cultural revolution for the black musicians that inspired it.
The film has a strong central narrative. The hero with a dream, fighting for and realising his dream against impossible odds only for it to be taken away from him before he finally finds wisdom.
However, Six Moments of Freedom is not a straight catalogue of the extraordinary exploits of its hero fighting against racial prejudice.
Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia but his father was a French speaker from Martinique.
As a boy Bullard was inspired by the stories his father told of a country across the ocean – France – where all men were free but whose principles of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, symbolised by America’s Statue of Liberty, meant little in the deep south of America in the early 20th century. STOWAWAY TO FREEDOM A young man, Bullard joins a line of stevedores loading a German Cargo ship in New York Harbor. He sneaks away from the line and stows away, covering himself with empty grain sacks – we see him lying scared on a pile of sacks in the hold with the sun shining through the open hatchway. The grill on the hatchway is drawn shut, imprisoning Pitted one-on-one in the ring against one of Bullard in its shadow. his fellow boxers, and chief tormentors, he is Bullard manages to open a small grimy alone, totally self-reliant and free. porthole and gets a clear view of the Statue of FLYING SOLO – WAR HERO IN FRANCE Liberty as his ship steams past Liberty Island Bullard goes to box in Paris just as war is heading for Europe and ‘freedom’. He is declared. He signs up to fight for France discovered after the boat has put to sea and is in 1914. He becomes one of France’s interviewed by the angry Captain. The Captain most decorated soldiers and a well-known is intrigued by his wish to get to France and war hero. He is badly injured at Verdun. though very sceptical of his idealism, agrees Recovering in his hospital bed he sees a plane The film is constructed around an interview SIX MOMENTS OF FREEDOM connects these to set him down at first landfall in Europe. with Bullard in his small apartment in six key moments of ultimate freedom. Fleeting landing and taking off with trainees for the Harlem, New York, conducted by a young moments when he was able to break the FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE IN THE RING – newly formed French Army Air Service. He is black reporter from a music magazine. The social and racial chains that bound him and BOXING CHAMPION visited by some old friends whom he tells of reporter has a reel-to-reel recorder and experience unalloyed personal freedom. Bullard reaches Europe but instead of France his new ambition to be a pilot. They scoff at is researching a piece on Bullard and the On-screen, these moments explode in a riot he is set down in Glasgow in the middle of him and a rich friend of theirs bets him $2000 music scene in Paris in the 1920s. Bullard of colour, action and music, contrasting with winter. Bullard sees an advert for a boxing that he will never be a pilot. As soon as he is has an old record player and a pile of great the claustrophobia of the interview in his gym – he joins and starts training. He is able, he requests a transfer to the Lafayette early jazz recordings. But it is 1960 and the small dark New York apartment. treated well by the gym owner but faces Flying Corps, the squadron of expatriats flying background to their meeting is the unfolding regular casual racism from the white boxers for France, and becomes a pilot. story of the ‘Greensboro sit-in’. Four African ESCAPING THE LYNCH MOB already training there. But he trains hard and Flying solo for the first time as his biplane American college students politely asked High overhead shot of a nine-year-old black wins his first fight. soars above the French countryside, he for service at a lunch bar but were refused. boy running through the fields near his home remembers the freewheeling crows he Asked to leave, they stayed in their seats, in Georgia. He is running away from the saw as a boy and experiences a moment sparking youth-led protests throughout attempted lynching of his father. of true freedom. the South. Finally, he flops down breathless and Bullard and his interviewer hear news exhausted and looks up to the sky where reports of the sit-in on his radio and Bullard he sees a flock of crows freewheeling claims that as a black man in a white man’s against a clear blue sky. world he has never really been free and has only experienced six moments of true freedom in his entire life. A few of his musical army friends arrive of the congregation are his black jazz and to wish him well in his new venture and boxing friends, on the other side of church gradually start replacing the players until the are white French aristocrats. Everyone band is swinging. The club becomes hugely gets together when the music starts at successful and a magnet for the artistic and the reception. cultural revolutionaries in Paris in the 1920s. Bullard’s Paris club is famous throughout Bullard finally gets the $2000 dollars he won Europe and attracts all nationalities. He has in the bet with his friends and buys his own a large German clientele. As Bullard speaks club – L’Escadrille – with the legendary Ada German, he is put under pressure by the ‘Bricktop’ Smith. French Government to spy on his clients as the clouds of the Second World War gather He feels a totally free man when he receives over Europe. the keys to the club and throws open the shutters on the dusty building as the Paris When the Nazis finally invade France, Bullard light floods into the offices above the club. signs up to the French army again and is wounded in the defence of Orléans. Fearing Bullard marries the beautiful Marcelle reprisal from the invading German army Straumann who comes from a wealthy because of his colour and history as a spy, French family and whom he met in his club. he escapes to neutral Spain with his We see the perfect setting for a French daughters and they finally make their way Despite being a decorated war hero, racism DRUMMER AND PARIS CLUB OWNER country wedding – inside the church half back to America. is as endemic in France as it was in his home The war is finally over and Bullard is a hero country. Bullard is attempting to hitch a ride in France. A convoy of soldiers is making its from the Front in a French army lorry. He is way back from the Front and local dignitaries refused entry by a racist Lieutenant. They hastily assemble the town band to greet them scuffle. The Lieutenant tries to have him in the village. The convoy arrives in the village court-martialled but charges are withdrawn and a platoon of black American soldiers when the commander of the battalion informs disembarks from a lorry. A Nieuport biplane the Lieutenant that if he had 20 men like flies low over the village and lands in an Bullard the war would have been over in adjacent field – it is Bullard. The band strikes three weeks. up desultory versions of La Marseillaise and the American National Anthem – Bullard In 1917, the United States enter the war. The signals to a number of the soldiers to join the United States Army Air Service convenes a band, seizes the drum sticks himself and the medical board to recruit Americans serving in band finally starts to swing – the village ends the Lafayette Flying Corps for the Air Service up partying with the soldiers until late into of the American Expeditionary Forces. Bullard the night. is desperate to fly for his own country. He passes the medical examination but despite Bullard makes his way to Paris and finds work being a decorated war hero and experienced as a drummer and manager at the legendary fighter pilot, he is the only one of 29 pilots Paris nightclub Le Grand Duc. On his first who is not accepted for the new unit – only night as manager the band, a motley crew of white pilots are chosen. French vaudeville musicians, is playing to a small bored crowd. THE SUBLIME MUSIC OF SIDNEY BECHET waiters and the musicians. He is interviewed Arriving back in America, Bullard immediately by Dave Garroway on The Today Show but finds that the fame he enjoyed in France had America does nothing to acknowledge his not followed him to the United States. He place in history as America’s first black pilot. struggles to get work. He takes a job as a perfume salesman, security guard, At the end of the film, the reporter gathers and interpreter for Louis Armstrong, up his tape machine, leaves the flat and eventually becoming a lift operator at the walks down the dingy stairs to the exit of the Rockefeller Center. apartment block.
He is unknown in America but France hasn’t Eugene Bullard selects a vinyl of Sidney forgotten him. In 1959, the President of Bechet’s classic performance of ‘Petite Fleur’ France, General Charles de Gaulle, comes to and puts it on his record player – he opens America. He wants to give the great French the blinds of his apartment, flooding it with war hero France’s top honour, the Légion light, sits back in his armchair, shuts his eyes d’Honneur. Embarrassingly for the Americans, and is transported to freedom by Bechet’s no one knows who or where Bullard is. sublime music. Finally, the FBI track him down doing his job at the Rockefeller Center. He makes his way The reporter opens the doors of the apartment to an elaborate ceremony in New York City, block and walks out into the street, blinking eventually gaining entry to the ceremony. The into bright sunshine. On screen is a montage platform party are all white, the only black of Bullard’s six moments of freedom. faces in the room being those of Bullard, the
CLOSING CAPTION lorry that refuses to pick him up as he makes On 23 August 1994 – 33 years after his death, his way back from the Front in France because and 77 years to the day after the medical of his colour – are contrasted with things that should have allowed him to fly for his opening up for him – the open porthole through own country – Bullard was posthumously which he sees the Statue of Liberty as he sails commissioned into the United States Airforce. out of New York Harbor and fills the dingy hold that he is hiding in with light, the shutters of his Throughout the film, images of things closing club that he throws open to the Paris sunshine and of imprisonment – the ‘grille’ of the when he first gets the keys – to underscore the Rockefeller Center lift, the hatch cover of the key themes of the film – the power of music ship he stows away on, the tailgate of the army and the fleeting nature of personal freedom. THIS TREATMENT HAS BEEN CREATED BY SIX MOMENTS PRODUCTIONS
TANYA SAMUEL MBE Tanya Samuel is a TV and film producer with over 15 years of production experience. She has worked on various film projects, most notably producing in Hollywood the award-winning Western short “They Die by Dawn” starring Michael K. Williams, Rosario Dawson, Jesse Williams, and Bokeem Woodbine. She is working closely with Jeymes Samuel on several film projects, currently in development with partners in Hollywood, which bring untold stories of African Americans to the screen.
CAROLINE ROBERTS - CHERRY Caroline Roberts-Cherry is a Grierson award winning director. She won a BAFTA for the classical music film Ten Pieces. Her black led film King Lear starring Don Warrington, Rakie Ayola and Alfred Enoch was released in cinemas as part of Black History Month in 2017. She sits on the advisory council for England at Ofcom and was the BBC’s Diversity and Independents Executive.
MIKE MORRIS Mike Morris is a former Managing Director of Channel 4’s commercial business – 4 Rights. He has financed and distributed many of Channel 4’s most iconic films and series including the UK’s most successful independent film – The Inbetweeners Movie.
SixMoments.com
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