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The Souls of Black Film: Art and Politics

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The Souls of Black Film: Art and Politics THE SOULS OF BLACK FILM: ART AND POLITICS By FRANKLIN DAVID CASON JR. A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Franklin David Cason Jr. 2 To my parents, for everything 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere appreciation and thanks to my committee chair, Robert B. Ray for carefully reading and correcting the original draft of this dissertation. I also offer my most sincere thanks to the other members of my committee, Mark A. Reid, Maureen Turim, Gregory L. Ulmer, and Nora Alter, for their insights, support, and encouragement throughout my graduate study. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.............................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF FIGURES....................................................................................................................... 6 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 10 The Task of the Black Film Critic ...................................................................................... 10 Which Way to Black Film Criticism? ................................................................................ 16 Why Avant-Garde Jazz? .................................................................................................... 29 Why the Souls of Black Cinema?: Post Souls and Alter-Destinies ............................. 35 2 SOUL ON SCREEN............................................................................................................ 44 Art and Politics at the Crossroads .................................................................................... 44 The Soul of Harlem: Art or Propaganda?........................................................................ 55 Beyond Category ................................................................................................................ 64 3 THE POLITICS OF SOUL ................................................................................................. 77 A Taste for Aesthetic Resistance ..................................................................................... 77 Children of Aesthetic Resistance...................................................................................... 92 4 THE PLEASURES OF BLACK CINEMA....................................................................... 115 Excess ................................................................................................................................ 115 Realism, Automatism, and Cinephilia ............................................................................ 121 Motivation and Excess ..................................................................................................... 135 Excessive Pleasures: To See With Wonder ................................................................. 147 5 ALTER-DESTINIES .......................................................................................................... 150 An Aporetic Discourse on African American Art Cinema............................................ 150 The Black Film Does Not Exist ....................................................................................... 163 The Souls of Black Film: or The Poetics of Black Cinema ......................................... 170 LIST OF REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 177 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..................................................................................................... 187 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 1-1 Joachim Kühn, Ornette Coleman and Jacques Derrida, La Villette Jazz Festival, July 1997: photo by Christian Ducasse. ..................................................... 10 1-2 Passing Through (Larry Clark, 1977) .......................................................................... 33 2-1 A Morning Bath (1896) .................................................................................................. 48 2-2 Black and Tan (1929) .................................................................................................... 66 2-3 The repo-men ................................................................................................................. 67 2-4 Clothing and dialect contrasts ...................................................................................... 67 2-5 Symbolic bottle of gin..................................................................................................... 68 2-6 Introducing the song ...................................................................................................... 68 2-7 Fredi Washington's glamour shot ................................................................................ 70 2-8 The subjective kaleidoscopic image............................................................................ 71 2-9 Abstracting Washington's frantic dance...................................................................... 71 2-10 Renaissance-like graphic silhouettes.......................................................................... 75 3-1 Sun Ra's Arkestra in Cry of Jazz (Edward O. Bland, 1959) .................................... 88 3-2 ―Oh Alex! You know we've got souls!‖ ........................................................................ 89 3-3 Child of Resistance (Haile Gerima, 1972) .................................................................. 95 3-4 Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1992) ................................................................ 108 3-5 Step-printing abstraction ............................................................................................. 108 3-6 Manipulation of time and light..................................................................................... 109 4-1 Maxine Sullivan still from Greta Schiller's Love To Be in Love (1991) ................ 118 4-2 Haile Gerima and crew member are stopped and searched. ............................... 122 4-3 Early street scene. ....................................................................................................... 123 4-4 Wig shops are introduced. .......................................................................................... 124 6 4-5 Wig shop and Dorothy on-screen together. ............................................................. 124 4-6 Dorothy frets over her loose wig. ............................................................................... 125 4-7 Luann's look. ................................................................................................................. 126 4-8 T.C. behind bars sets the pan in motion................................................................... 136 4-9 The pan slows down briefly to focus on each prisoner‘s gaze.............................. 136 4-10 The pan continues from prisoner… ........................................................................... 137 4-11 … to prisoner…............................................................................................................. 137 4-12 …from look to look… ................................................................................................... 137 4-13 …until a prisoner's back interrupts the pattern. ....................................................... 138 4-14 The cut to Dorothy's close-up..................................................................................... 138 4-15 Dorothy eats the pie..................................................................................................... 139 4-16 Some of Dorothy‘s looks are direct addresses. ....................................................... 141 4-17 Other shots are more voyeuristic............................................................................... 142 4-18 Some images accompany voice-overs. .................................................................... 142 4-19 Other images appear as parts of montage sequences. ......................................... 142 4-20 All of the preceding examples lack strong narrative motivation............................ 143 4-21 The photogénie close-up. ........................................................................................... 143 4-22 Dorothy looks at the poster… ..................................................................................... 144 4-23 …and begins to suspect she is being stared at…................................................... 144 4-24 …by the gaze of the woman in the poster................................................................ 145 4-25 The interaction ends in extreme close-up… ............................................................ 145 4-26 …strongly linking the two women‘s images. ............................................................ 145 4-27 Dorothy kills the policeman......................................................................................... 146 5-1 John Cage Meets Sun Ra (Meltdown Records, 1986)........................................... 150 5-2 Dorothy in focus with the poster out of focus behind her....................................... 155 7 5-3 The camera racks focus, sharpening
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