Voice and Visibility: How New York City Filmmakers Changed the Narrative of Marginalized Groups on and Off Camera
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VOICE AND VISIBILITY: HOW NEW YORK CITY FILMMAKERS CHANGED THE NARRATIVE OF MARGINALIZED GROUPS ON AND OFF CAMERA Commissioned by New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment Authors: Erica Stein, Joshua Glick, Noelle Griffis, Michael Gillespie 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) would like to thank the authors of this report: Michael Gillespie, Joshua Glick, Noelle Griffis, Cortland Rankin, and Erica Stein, with added thanks to Erica for managing the project. For the interview sec- tion of the report, MOME would like to thank all the filmmakers and industry personnel who took the time to share their thoughts and stories. MOME would also like to thank Michael Kerbel and Brian Meacham of the Yale Film Study Center, Charles Denson of the Coney Is- land History Project, Marie Roberts of Coney Island USA, Rob Leddy of the Coney Island Film Festival, and the Indiana University Black Film Center/Archive. MOME is grateful to Professor Annette Insdorf of Columbia University for her assistance in conceptualizing the report and building the team of authors. Shira Gans, MOME’s Senior Director of Policy and Programs, is the primary editor and project manager for this report, and the following staff members also contributed: Anna Bessendorf, Policy Analyst; Janet Allon, Associate Commissioner, Marketing & Communications; and Kenneth Ebie, Director of External Affair and Deputy General Counsel. Finally, MOME would like to thank the late Susan Christopherson for her generous guidance in shaping and developing our interview question set and interview procedures. The Mayor’s Office and the authors are indebted to Prof. Christopherson for her ground-breaking work on cities and the entertainment industry, which informed the spirit of this report. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary Page 4 Introduction Page 7 CHAPTER 1 Breaking Boundaries in Cinematic Harlem By Erica Stein, Joshua Glick and Noelle Griffis Page 8 CHAPTER 2 Independent Cinema of the Lower East Side By Noelle Griffis Page 15 CHAPTER 3 Dreaming on the Edge: Cinema, Race, and Coney Island By Joshua Glick Page 20 CHAPTER 4 Los Sures: Voices of South Williamsburg By Michael Gillespie Page 25 Diverse Cinema’s Ripple Effect: Interviews with Prominent Figures in New York’s Film Scene Page 29 Appendix: Filmography Page 48 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY For more than 50 years, the New York City also served as training grounds for members Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment of underrepresented groups, helping them to has supported and strengthened the film in- later access creative and technical roles in the dustry by making it possible to capture the broader entertainment industry. iconic landscape of New York City’s streets. MOME’s mission includes expanding diversi- Harlem’s independent cinema boom during ty in the cinematic fields, both on and off the the late 1960s and late 1980s was exemplary camera, and promoting a wider array of neigh- in both regards, combining economic access borhoods as locations for shoots. As part of with new representations. William Greaves’ the yearlong celebration of MOME’s 50th an- Emmy award-winning public affairs series niversary, this report was commissioned to Black Journal was the first national television explore the ways in which a cross-section of news program produced by African Amer- New York City films has spotlighted the voices icans. Black Journal made the lives of peo- and stories of traditionally under-represented ple of color more visible to a national televi- people and communities. Looking at a small sion audience while pioneering an approach sample of films based in four diverse, quint- to filmmaking that involved African-American essentially New York filmmakers asserting control over each stage neighborhoods, this of production. The series portrayed the real From the black-cast films report tells the story of interests, desires, and concerns of African made in Harlem in the how the city’s filmmak- Americans while seeking to create a sense of 1920s to the gender- ers have given voice solidarity among viewers. and visibility to many norm breaking work groups and communi- Ossie Davis, the director of the popular film of the New American ties whose stories had Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), provided an- Cinema on the Lower not previously been other influential training program for people of told. color with his Third World Cinema (TWC) lo- East Side in the 1950s, cated in Harlem. TWC specialized in relatable, New York has always New York’s timeless character-driven movies for black and Latino skyline and cityscape audiences that provided an alternative to the been a capital of diverse, has served as both a popular “Blaxploitation” films (for example, independent cinema. backdrop and a pro- Shaft and Super Fly) that represented Harlem, tagonist for many films and black urban life in general, as stereotypi- over the past five decades. From the black- cally crime ridden. cast films made in Harlem in the 1920s to the gender-norm breaking work of the New TWC ran a filmmaking apprentice program for American Cinema on the Lower East Side in several years that successfully placed many the 1950s, New York has always been a cap- of its young African American and Puerto Ri- ital of diverse, independent cinema. Harlem, can graduates on professional film and tele- the Lower East Side, South Williamsburg, vision sets. One of Davis’s graduates, Jesse and Coney Island all boast a tradition of such Maple, crafted her own nuanced, realistic filmmaking. These neighborhoods are also depictions of neighborhood life and the deep home to groups that have been marginalized ties between residents in films like Will (1981) due to race, class, gender, or sexuality. The – the first feature film directed by an African films produced in each neighborhood gen- American woman. erated revolutionary new images that chal- lenged, subverted, or expanded mainstream The vibrant African American film tradition cinematic representation. These productions Greaves, Davis, and Maple nurtured existed 4 alongside an LGBT community that had roots in of color faced, as well as the looming threat of Harlem dating to the early 20th century. In Paris Vietnam, winning critical recognition at presti- Is Burning (1989), Jennie Livingston document- gious venues, including screenings at the New ed the gay and transgender families of choice York Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. formed around the drag subculture that origi- Their larger legacy was demonstrating, for the nated in Harlem. In doing so, she questioned first time, the potential of alternative film forms, assumptions about gender, race, and sexuality. especially experimental techniques, to enable Unlike previous films focused on the queer expe- self-expression for at risk children and teenag- rience, Paris Is Burning was a critical success at ers. major film festivals and received wide distribu- tion, winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, The neighborhood’s independent film tradition and voted best documentary by New York Film continued into the 1980s, finding greater expo- Critics Circle Association and GLAAD. The film’s sure and popular success with Susan Seidel- success helped to usher in the New Queer Cin- man’s fiction film Desperately Seeking Susan ema movement, which both made LGBT imag- (1985)—a film that at its core is about women es more common in independent cinema, and taking control of their own narrative and image, refused to tailor those images to the desires of and therefore, their lives. As Crystal Moselle’s straight audiences, instead focusing on people documentary The Wolfpack (2015) demon- and stories as rebellious as those featured in strates, independent film is still integral to the Paris Is Burning. character of the Lower East Side. Moselle’s sub- jects, five first-generation Peruvian-American Each of these films contests and subverts the brothers, escape a stifling childhood through dominant urban crisis image of Harlem by of- their love of film and find connection and artistic fering authentic stories that emanate from the inspiration on their neighborhood’s sidewalks. neighborhood. Each of them also contributed to Moselle’s film shows how independent filmmak- a renaissance of black independent cinema that ing still plays an important role in helping op- made behind-the-scenes roles newly accessible pressed groups tell their stories, express their to people of color, inspired and paved the way identities and foster connections. for directors like Spike Lee, and formed a crucial part of the city’s cinematic heritage, as has been Independent filmmakers in Brooklyn were also recently recognized with major retrospectives using innovative techniques to change how at Film Society of Lincoln Center and Brooklyn communities were depicted. Diego Echever- Academy of Music. ria’s documentary Los Sures (1984) drastically changed how a predominantly Latino area of Waves of immigration and a history as an artist’s South Williamsburg was represented. During the colony generated a long-standing tradition in 1980s, this area was the poorest neighborhood the Lower East Side of low-budget, do-it-your- in New York, and its people and their struggles self amateur and independent filmmaking. This were largely ignored. Echeverria’s documenta- tradition provides new forms of representation ry not only made the neighborhood’s problems for many traditionally underrepresented groups visible, its then-unusual voiceover technique al- as well as a creative outlet and lifeline for young lowed residents to speak for themselves for the people. first time. The film has been cited as an import- ant influence by many New York City filmmak- In the late 1960s, Puerto Rican, African Amer- ers. Recently, it inspired neighborhood residents ican and Asian American teenagers from the to make their own films, sharing their own expe- neighborhood directed their own films with the riences and points of view.