Report From Edinbur h • Soul Man Review • Robert Hooks

Three Critics Look at She's Gotta Have It • Peter Wang Interview

World of Black Film Collectors Remembering Lorenzo

Tucker - The Black.
Gil Noble Plans Valentino
Like It Is Archive
Film Clips and News
Early Black Independents

Co-produced with the Black Film Institute of the University of the District of Columbia
 • ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Vol. 2, No. 4/Fa111986

'Peter Wang Breaks Cultural Barriers

Black Film Review by Pat Aufderheide
10 SSt., NW An Interview with the director of A Great Wall p. 6
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 745-0455 Remembering lorenzo Tucker
Editor and Publisher by Roy Campanella, II
David Nicholson A personal reminiscence of one of the earliest stars of black film. . . . p. 9
Consulting Editor Quick Takes From Edinburgh
Tony Gittens by Clyde Taylor
(Black Film Institute) Filmmakers debated an and aesthetics at the Edinburgh Festival p. 10
Associate Editor I Film Critic
Anhur Johnson Film as a Force for Social Change
Associate Editors by Charles Burnett
Pat Aufderheide; Keith Boseman; Excerpts from a paper delivered at Edinburgh p. 12
Mark A. Reid; Saundra Sharp; A.
Jacquie Taliaferro; Clyde Taylor Culture of Resistance
Contributing Editors Excerpts from a paper p. 14
Bill Alexander; Carroll Parrott Special Section: Black Film History
Blue; Roy Campanella, II; Darcy Collector's Dreams
Demarco; Theresa furd; Karen by Saundra Sharp
Jaehne; Phyllis Klotman; Paula Black film collectors seek to reclaim pieces of lost heritage p. 16
Matabane; Spencer Moon; An-
drew Szanton; Stan West. With a repon on effons to establish the Like It Is archive p. 20
Design
Roben Sacheli Early Black Independent Filmmakers
Typography by Mark A. Reid
Word Design, Inc. The history of two early black independent film companies p. 21
.Layout
Whatever Nola Wants, Nola Gets
Robin Lynch by Paul Matabane
Black Film Review (ISSN 0887-5723) is published
four times a year by Sojourner Productions, Inc., A critical look at She s Gotta Have It. With additional commentary by
a non-profit corporation organized and incorpo- Darcy Demarco and Carroll Parrott Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 23
rated in the District of Columbia. This issue is
co-produced with the Black Film Institute of the
University of the District of Columbia. Subscrip- Features
tions are $10 a year for individuals, $20 a year for Film Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p. 4
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4 Black Film Review
Film Clips
••••••••••••••••••••
Notes on Peop.le, Issues, and Events
By Bill Alexander and
Karen Jaehne
W
e still have a long way to go in
. increasing employment oppor-
tunities for underutilized
minority talent."
This grim outlook was voiced by Ken
Orsatti, national executive secretary of the
Screen Actors Guild, at a recent conference
on minority hiring in movies and television.
The conference was a joint meeting of the
SAG and American Federation of Televi-
sion and Radio Artists Ethnic Equal Em-
ployment Opportunity Committee.
Current industry statistics on minori-
ty employment released by SAG's affirma-
tive action office underscore Orsatti's words:
-Of the eight soap operas that em-
ploy hundreds of AFTRA members, only.
10 blacks are under contract.
- Minority performers get less than 10
percent of lead roles in motion pictures and
television combined.
-A "disproportionately high" num-
ber of negative minority role models-
criminals, prostitutes, pimps-are regularly
showcased on television crime shows.
-Black women makeup less than 5
percent of the women employed by motion
pictures and television.
- A recent study of the country's ra-
dio and television stations revealed that the
hiring of minority news announcers is at a
"virtual standstill."
- In Georgia, less than 1 percent of
all persons hired for television, commercial
and industrial film work were minorities.
Aware that the elimination of racial
discrimination in front of and behind the
camera requires a top priority assessment of
goals, expectations and strategies, Toey
Caldwell, a SAG national board member,
and Belva Davis, an AFTRA vice president,
issued a special industry-wide call to con-
vene the EEOC conference. Delegates from
more than 20 cities attended the conference
in March. Their purpose was to examine the
record of past union efforts and to explore
new ways of implementing EEOC goals.
At the conclusion of the conference,
the joint chairpersons noted in a statement
that the participants had "painfully con-
Henry Hampton
cluded that minorities still lag far behind
in equal employment opportunities."
Despite this glo.omy assessment, the
conference suggested remedies that may re-
sult in higher minority employment and
more of an jnclination to feature minority
performers in more balanced portrayals of
continued on page 34
This Issue's Contributors
Bill Alexander is a free-lance writer
. ... Pat Aufderheide is a senior editor of
In These Times and a frequent contributor
to natioal film magazines .... Carroll Par~
rott Blue is a filmmaker and an assistant
professor of Telecommunications and Film
at San Diego State University .... Filmmak-
er Roy Campanella, II produced, directed
and wrote Passion and Memory. He is cur-
rently developing several independent fea-
tures, including a comedy and two suspense
thrillers.
Darcy Demarco has written for In
These Times and other national publica-
tions .... Theresa Ford is a writer and psy-
chotherapist living in Washington, D.C.
.... KarenJaehne is a film critic who writes
for Variety and other national film publi-
cations .... Arthur J. Johnson has written
film reviews and about film for several
metroplitan Washington publications
Phyllis Klotman is director of the Black
Film Center ·Archive at the University of In-
diana .... Paula Matabane is a professor in
The Civil Rights Story
A six-part series on the civil rights era,
Eyes on the Prize, begins Jan. 21 on PBS
stations throughout the country. Produced
by Blackside, Inc., of Boston, the series is
narrated by Julian Bond. It covers the civil
rights movement from its beginnings in the
mid-1950s to the passage of the Voting
Rights Act in 1965. The film was produced
by Henry Hampton, founder of Blackside,
now one of the oldest minority-owned film
and television production outfits in the U. S.
While funding was obtained from PBS and
CPB, Hampton says "there were also peo-
ple holding house patties and twisting arms
across the country to raise mon~y." Prepa-
ration for the project included "civil rights
schools" for production staff. The film,
which was recently shown in New York, was
praised by poet Thulani Davis in The Vzl-
lage Voice. •
the Department of Radio, Television, and
Film at Howard University .... Spencer
Moon, a filmmaker, was an organizer of the
Black Cinema Series of the 1986 San Fran-
cisco International Film Festival. Black Fzlm
Review EditorDavid Nicholson is a former
newspaper and wire service report,-
er .... Mark A. Reid is a doctoral candidate
in Afro-American Studies at the Universi-
ty of Iowa .... Writer, actress, and film-
maker, Saundra Sharp lives in Los Angeles.
Black Fzlm Review has signed an agree-
ment with the National Writers Union. The
two-year agreement, effective Oct. 1, 1986,
includes: assignments made or confirmed
in writing; acceptance / rejection/ rewrite
notification within two weeks of submis-
sion; timely respon~e to queries; provisions
covering payment of expenses, responsibil-
ities of writers, and a dispute resolution
process. Copies of the agreement are avail-
able from Black Fzlm Review or from the
National Writers Union, 12 Astor Place,
New York, NY 10003.
Fall 1986
Film Clips
••••••••••••••••••••
New Work in Film, Video, and Other Media
By Spencer Moon
enegalese filmmaker Ben Diagoge
S Beye this summer presented a series
of screenings of his works in the San
Francisco Bay Area as part of a na-
tionwide tour sponsored by the Senegalese
government and the National Black
Programming Consortium in Columbus,
Ohio.
His short work, The Black Pn'nce ofSt.
Germaine, won first prize at the annual Na-
tional Festival of the Francophone Commu-
nity. The 1974 film, a satire, is about an
African in Paris trying to survive and find
a place for himself in a foreign land and
culture. Beye said the point of the film is
to show that for some Mricans there has not
"been much mental independence since
colonization." He said one irifluence on his
work has been psychiatrist and author
Frantz Fanon, who wrote extensively on the
colonial experience of blacks, and is perhaps
best known for his book, Black" Skins,
White Masks.
A second screening featured Beye's
1980 feature film, a docudrama on polyg-
amy called Seyseyeti,(A Man and Woman),
which included a cast of trained and nov-
ice actors. In the film, a young woman
leaves a polygamous relationship, then tells
her lover, "Of course 1'm not the same. Peo-
ple change ... " and refuses to be his wife
in another polygamous relationship. He is
confused and dumbfounded. A second
young woman tells another-in words that
resonate internationally- "The real fight is
between the exploited and the exploiters."
The last shot of the film is of the child
of the divorced mother. He is dejected be-
cause he is still a member of the father's fa-
mily without his mother for love or com-
fort . We see his pained expression as the
credits roll over his sad face.
Beye is currently working on a project
sanctioned by his government called
A&A-Africa and America-which is
designed to start an exchange of film be-
tween Africa and America. To that end,
Beye met with several Bay Area black film-
makers during his stay in the Bay Area and
viewed their work.
film at Howard who has 17 documentaries
to his credit, the film is intended as a
promotional work "with a little difference."
As Ford put it, "We want to avoid the term
tourism (film). We don't want to offer the
country as a brothel. Burkina Faso wants to
attract the kind of travelers with interests
other than baking in the sun."
Instead, the film will attempt to pro-
vide a visual definition of the English trans-
lation of the former French colony's
name - "Land of the People of Dignity."
"The film will promote the idea of the
dynamic energy of the people fighting
desertification ... the process of human be-
ings com bating the ravages of nature and
overcoming them," Ford said.
St. Clair Bourne It is hoped that the film also will help
Burkina Faso to attract the investment and
Hughes Biography to Air assistance needed to eradicate severe water
shortages and a "seriously advancing des-
St. Clair Bourne's Big City Blues, a
documentary about the new blues musi- ert," Ford said. The country needs help to
dig wells, obtain planting tools, irrigate
cians, premiered in August at the Bleeker
Street Cinema in New York. Shot in Chica- land and promote railroad construction and
dam building.
go, the film features guitarist Son Seals,
bandleader Queen Sylvia Embry, and Bil- The idea of a collaboration between
ly Branch. Bourne's Langston Hughes: The Howard and Burkina Faso's University of
Dreamkeeper completed this summer, is Ouagadougou's INAFEC, the Institute for
scheduled to premiere in December at the Cinematography Studies, began as an out-
annual Hoyt Fuller Film Festival sponsored growth ofFESPACO '85, the Festival of Pan
by the Atlanta-African Film Society. It is Africa Cinema. Ford attended the festival
scheduled for broadcast next September on as part of a contingent of black American
PBS. The one-hour film on Hughes' life independent filmmakers who had ,been in-
features commentary by James Baldwin, vited to participate. Following a discussion
Gwendolyn Brooks, Amiri Baraka, and of cooperative training and co-production,
Leopold Senghor, as well as Arnold Ram- Burkina Faso's president, Captain Thomas
persad, a professor of English at Rutgers Sankara, s~nt a letter to Howard Universi-
whose biography of Hughes was recently ty President James Cheek, which led to the
final agreement to co-produce the film."
published. Jazz pianist Stanley Cowell
We (Howard University) provided the
wrote the score for the film.
raw stock and production equipment. Bur-
kina Faso provided transportation, room
Howard, Burkina Faso and board for the American team during
its stay and full logistics for the 28-person
Cooperate on Film crew," Ford said.
As director, Ford insisted that the Bur-
By Arthur J. Johnson kinabe "give shape" to the production.
Howard University and the govern- "The Africans themselves must be the
ment of the West African nation of Burki- source of explanation of who they are," he
na Faso this summer completed a collabora- explained.
tive effort to produce a one-hour film about Accordingly, the Burkinabe developed
the people and problems of the country the film's narrative thrust in the summer
once known as Upper Volta. and fall of 1985. Then, with a budget of
Directed by Abiyi Ford, a professor of continued on p. 34
6 Black Fzlm Review
Peter Wang Breaks Cultural Barriers
By Pat Aufderheide
A
Great Wall, an independent fea-
ture made by Asian-Americans, has
met with approval from critics and
audiences both in China and the
United States. Directed by Peter Wang, and
produced by Shirley Sun, who collaborat-
ed on part of the PBS series Cities ofChina
as well as the award-winning documentary
Old Treasures from New China, the film
tells the story of how a Chinese-American
deals with the cultural and ethnic differ-
ences he finds when he returns to China
with his family to visit relatives. Wang him-
self (familiar to viewers of Chan is Missing
In
•••••••••••••••••••
Playing football atop the Great Wall of China.
for his role as the fry cook wearing a
Samurai Night Fever T-shin) plays the lead
role.
The encounter is rich in insights into
cross-cultural bridges and barriers. The
Americans are appalled-by- the Chinese fa-
mily's lack of privacy, while the Chinese are
shocked at the American son's casual
familiarity with his father. And while
generosity of spirit triumphs over cultural
preconceptions, the clash can be hilarious.
The story is told as much in production de-
sign and pointed framing as it is in dialogue
and incident. The sight of the new electric
blanket-a gift from the gadget-happy
Westerners ~ smoking as it shorts out on
Chinese current is a synoptic and typically
(Photo: Orion Pictures)
ironic image.
The film doesn't build its story on the
mis-meeting of cultures alone, some things
are shared across cultures. The youth of
both cultures face a common problem. We
see from the experience of the Chinese and
American youngsters that they are moving
into a new era without the help of the old
traditions. That problem extends to the new
China itself trying to modernize without
being able to meld the old ways with the
new needs.
Sharply perceptive and unfailingly
charming, the film does something rare in
Western movies. It locates character with-
in culture. In other words, although the
film is warmly intimate, the dramatic struc-
Fall 1986
ture is built around the realization that per-
sonal experience is always also cultural and
that even such values as individualism are
cultural ones. Wang is acutely aware of the
blinders that cultural assumptions create
and also of the universal need for some kind
of context and tradition. The double de-
sire to break through boundaries and to
have a room of your own with sturdy walls
all around defines the film's drama.
Produced in a period of liberalization
in China, the film has impressed Chinese
audiences unofficially, but the Chinese
government has yet to approve it. This sum-
mer, Peter Wang talked with Black Fzlm
Review Associate Editor Pat Aufderheide
about the making of the film, the ways in
which it reflects his own personal ex-
perience, and its official and unofficial
reception on both sides of the wall between
cultures.
BFR: How did you get the funds to make
this film?
Wang: From private investors, especially in
the Asian-American community. That's one
of the advantages of being a middle-aged
filmmaker. You know a lot of people who
are well-off, unlike yourself. The film came
in under $2 million.
BFR: Were the investors satisfied with the
result?
Wang: Oh yes. People tell me, "I'm glad
you made it-you said something I want-
ed said." Better yet, they say "Do you need
more money?"
BFR: Do you find that people got the mes-
sages you wanted them to get?
Wang: Sometimes I'm frustrated when peo-
ple fail to see what I want to say. But I made
the film to be enjoyed on several levels. On
the surface, it's very entertaining. There are
jokes, both in Chinese and in English, and
there's the ping pong. People who are bilin-
gual of course are going to get all the jokes.
And there. are so many different kinds of
characters that people can see a lot of their
own images in the film. Many people can
identify with Paul, the American who goes
to a foreign country.
BFR: I found Paul a fascinating character.
He didn't seem wholly likable and often
seemed to dominate the frame in a kind of
alarming way. Were you trying to make us
see him in some way from an insider's view?
Wang: Paul is typical in that way. Ameri-
cans in foreign countries often leave that
kind of impression - aggressive, self-
righteous, a little insensitive. A lot of
tourists go overseas looking for Coke and
McDonald's and when they find it they're
happy.
I think this is terrible. I am appalled
by the way American tourists behave. Look
at the mainlanders in Hawaii. They concen-
trate in Waikiki. They shamelessly show
their flesh. I think the men need bras. Their
flesh isn't pretty, but they could care less.
Those bodies, oh my Lord. It's as if they
didn't care what they did, since they're not
at home. It may reflect the chauvinism of
the powerful.
Not all are like that. The good side of
Americans is that many show curiosity
about the culture and are outgoing and
friendly.
BFR: Is Paul then supposed to carry your
criticism of the "Ugly American"?
Wang: There are aspects of that, but that's
not all I wanted to do. It's interesting that
the actor, Kelvin Han Yee, isn't like that
at all in person. He's a good actor. For me
the character he plays represents the extraor-
dinary desire of an Asian-American kid to
be more American than the Americans. It's
overcompensation, a very interesting
phenomenon. Some want to be the first
Asian-American pro football player in the
country.
BFR: You've set up the film to be a study
in contrasts, East and West.
Wang: Yes, and I looked for parallel situ-
ations. The film points to rnany contrasts,
differences in culture. But the bottom line
is the common ground of humanity.
BFR: You mean by that, I take it, the com-
mon ground of cultural conflict across na-
tional borders and generations.
Wang: Yes. In China, there is a saying that
the older generation always forces the kids
to drink ginseng soup and you have no
choice but to swallow it. Human beings
have a tendency to be lazy. Every genera-
tion thinks it invented ultimate truth.
What makes civilization so challenging is
that you know it but you don't know it. Ev-
ery milestone is made for newcomers to
crash.
BFR: It sounds like you're speaking from
experience.
Wang: I'm the youngest·ch,iJd"ina: family
of seven. My father's a very funny guy, al-
though he didn't know it. He was very old-
fashioned, and he didn't want me to have
any involvement in acting. So I studied en-
gineering and science and then I gave it up.
I think the youngest child in a family can
afford to be the black sheep.
BFR: Has your family seen the film?
Wang: My brother in San Francisco has. He
was a little put out, I think. He was origi-
nally resolutely against my giving up my
profession. He told me, "You've told every-
body your life story. Great. What are you
going to do for a script for your next film?"
Fortunately, I have some ideas.
BFR: Did you have cross-cultural problems
in the filming in China?
Wang: Yes. At first we thought it was be-
7
cause of the language. I had hired Asian-
Americans who promised me they spoke
Chinese but didn't, and Hong Kong assis-
tants, who promised me they spoke Eng-
lish but didn't. Shirley Sun and I ended up
having to relay a lot of messages and smooth
over misunderstandings.
As time went on, we came to realize
that language is only one problem. The cul-
tural difference is what pulls people apart.
Americans are very straightforward and
frank. The Chinese are proud and don't al-
ways explain what's bothering them. And
they closely observe hierarchy.
I had hired a smart, young, Asian-
American girl straight out of NYU film
school as a production assistant. She spoke
a little Chinese, so I put her in charge of
liaison with the Chinese crew. Well, they
were in their twenties and thirties and they
were professionals and it was total humili-
ation for them to take orders from this
young woman. It took me a long time to
get to the bottom of the trouble.
BFR: And yet with your personal back-
ground in several cultures, I would have
thought you could have foreseen this.
Wang: Well, I'm probably more American
than I want to admit at this point. I left
the mainland as a child, and I left Taiwan
to go to college in America.
BFR: The character you play seems a lot like
you. He's someone who knows the terms
and limitations of both cultures, who's a bit
of a rebel by personality and who actively
enjoys the individualism of American life,
savoring it because he knows the alterna-
tive and finds it confiningly conformist.
Wang: Right! Exactly! Print it!
BFR: This movie is very much about cross-
cultural misunderstandings, but also very
much from a Western perspective. It focuses
on questions of privacy, of individualism.
I have the feeling that a Chinese filmmak-
er would have structured the encounter
quite differently.
Wang: I think that's probably true. I did
approach it from a Western perspective. But
that's appropriate to the changes that Chi-
na is facing. In China, the old traditional
values are disappearing whether you call it
communism or capitalism or modernization
or what. And then there is a crisis in the
definition of what socialism is. Socialism
did not have a clear-cut definition, and
when they take off in a new direction, they
try to pick up Western terms and values and
figure out how those terms fit into that i11-
defined socialism. So the question of what
do terms like privacy and individualism
mean to them are questions for now.
You know, I think this is a very polit-
ical film. On the surface it's apolitical. I
never mention communism or capitalism.
But it's full of value judgments and state-
ments. I only give you the topic sentence
8 Black Ftfm Review
and you have to fill in the blanks after that.
Look at the scene where Leo goes into
the Chinese computer room. It's sterile, al-
most a sanctuary, and people visit the holy
machine in their white gowns. In the States,
you see him at work where people are all
using the machines, and it's casual. There's
a guy in his T-shirt with his belly hanging
out.
BFR: Was that guy an actor?
Wang: No, he's the vice-president of the
firm!
BFR: But what did you want to say with
that contrast?
Wang: It shows the way the Chinese socie-
Wn'ter-director Peter Wang (r) as Leo Fang, with Hu Xiaoguang in A Great Wall.
ty and government feels about their com-
puters. They've imposed new technology on
traditional culture. Superficially they ap-
prove of Westernization, but at root they
don't buy the culture within which the tech-
nology works. They send students to the
U.S. to bring back the technical know-how
and they bring the most modern computers
to China, but nobody's using it. So I am
making a strong statement. Forget it! Not
this way. It'll take another 50 years to real-
ize what you want to do in terms of tech-
nical modernization.
Another scene is the Chinese boy's
Gettysburg Address [delivered atop a crum-
bling statue in a park built in the middle
of Beijing]. On one level, it's comic and it's
also telling you about a fascination among
the younger people with those principles of
individual liberty.
Another example is the sight of the old
man doing his Tai Chi steps in the disco,
where the young people are learning to
dance to Western music. The old and the
new.
BFR: This film has been received well in un-
official showings in China, but hasn't been
approved for showing by the Chinese
government. Do you think they're reacting
to your criticisms of the political system?
Wang: Well, yes and no. No one ever told
me why the film hasn't been released there,
but one of our Chinese production people
gave me some unofficial hints. He kept tell-
ing us we would have problems all the way
(Photo: Orion Pictures)
through, and I think he was right. He said,
for instance, that showing the old man fart-
ing was inappropriate. Showing naked flesh
and bathrooms would be seen as indecent.
It's this kind of thing, not any political
statement, that I think really irks the
authorities.
BFR: So it's a reaction of prudery rather
than political objection.
Wang: Yes. I think also I didn't put in
enough pictures of the new high-rises and
demonstrate the progress of the country. It
was too tuned in to old Beijing, not enough
to the four modernizations.
Politicians don't go deep anywhere in
the world. It's a pity that in all recorded hu-
man history people's fate is decided not by
the people who really know, but by lesser
beings making decisions on another basis.
And that's true everywhere, in every polit-
ical system.
BFR: That sounds to me like an engineer
speaking.
Wang: You got me. And why is that true?
Because if a guy knows too much, he
couldn't bear the consequences of making
a decision. The courage to decide comes
from stupidity. Look at [Sylvester] Stallone.
He can shoot, because he doesn't bother to
know. Would [Albert] Einstein ever drop
the bomb? Never.
BFR: What are you working on now?
Wang: My next film will be a very serious
comedy. It's called Laser Man. It's about a
scientist who blunders across a conspiracy,
using a technique he invented, to develop
a deadly weapon. There's an international
assassination plot. The hero doesn't want
to know about it and it's his 10-year-old son
who pushes him to pay attention. There's
a happy ending by the way.
BFR: Do you find that the humor in A
Great Wall works equally well with Chinese
and American audiences?
Wang: Even in translation, a lot of U.S. hu-
mor doesn't work in China. They laugh in-
stead at the colloquial jokes and references
in Chinese and they love the part where
Paul is running for the bus. That's a part
of their daily lives. And they were very
moved about the theme of the exam. When
the boy finishes the exam and his father
gives him a Coke.
The film came across well for a youn-
ger generation, under 35. They loved it.
Over 45, a lot of people think it's not
proper.
BFR: I imagine that the Cultural Revolu-
tion 3:nd aftermath left a lot of people un-
willing to indulge in irony.
Wang: Well, of course there's a sense of
caution. I get very impatient with it. When
I heard the objections to the old man fart-
ing, I said "Well, excuse me, I'm sorry. I
didn't know that Chinese people don't fart
since the Revolution. You people have
made great advances that we should know
about."
BFR: Although you've been very ambitious,
your filmic style is low-key narrative. A very
familiar "look" for Western film-goers.
Wang: I call it disarming. There are tril-
lions of ways to tell people stories. I've been
an antiwar activist. I've been through call-
ing and yelling and screaming. And you can
raise awareness that way up to a certain
point, but no further.
Film is something that you need heart
appeal for. You can't analyze. If you use
logic, you lose a lot. A sense of humor is
my best weapon. If you come to my film,
you might see something there but at least
you'll have a good time. •
Fall 1986 9

Remembering Lorenzo Tucker

At 78, Tucker was living proof that age
By Roy Catnpanella, II need not drastically diminish one's charis-
ma. Sitting beside him I was reminded of
orenzo Tucker's long and prestigious a very brief encounter I once had had with

L film career began in 1926 when, as

a struggling young actor, he had a
chance encounter with the ambitious
and talented filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.
Handsome and charismatic, a stage and
vaudeville performer, Tucker went on to
star in such Micheaux classics as Wages of
Sin (1928), Daughter ofthe Congo (1930),
.and Temptation (1936).
His uniquely appealing screen perso-
na made him a genuine matinee idol, in-
spiring audiences to dub him "The Black
Valentino." The American cultural land-
scape through which Tucker and many
others traveled was more foul than fair. But
in a more truly egalitarian world, it would
not be hard to imagine Valentino being
dubbed "The Italian Tucker."
The almost total inability of major stu-
dio productions to depict three-dimensional
black characters has its roots in their unwill-
ingness to establish meaningful creative ties
with black filmmakers. The modern Holly-
wood studio makes deals, not pictures. Stu-
dio executives approve "creative packages,"
rather than genuinely overseeing a produc-
tion from conception to completion. Thus
the depiction of black screen characters with
a viable connection to our sex and love life,
either on mythic or realistic levels, is and
has been historically the province of black
filmmakers operating outside the context
of a major' studio.
Lorenzo Tucker is at the heart of this is-
sue: black sexuality on screen. Throughout
his life, he understood where he fit histor-
ically, for he did everything on screen his
white counterparts did; ~nd all this at a
time when the odds were against him and
filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux..
I met Tucker for the first time while
preparing to shoot interviews for a
documentary film, Passion and Memory.
My focus was the careers of Stepin Fetchit,
Hattie McDaniel, Bill Robinson, Dorothy
Dandridge, and Sidney Poitier. Tucker had
worked with Fetchit in vaudeville. In ad-
dition' since he had performed in both in-
dependent and studio productions, he
provided a knowledgeable outsider-insider
perspective. And, of course, he lived and
breathed a fascinating history of his own.
Most of the famous actors I have met
are shorter than I expected them to be.
Tucker was taller. He was dignified and
cool, without being aloof or condescend-
ing. His sense of dignity seenled natural,
and his coolness was a function of his clas-
sic style rather than any assumed attitude.
We quickly became friends.
Cary Grant at Paramount Studios. Tucker
had the same extraordinary presence. Of
course, he had not enjoyed the same level
of fame and fortune, but that does not ne-
gate the reality that he possessed the same
"equipment."
Such a contradiction could easily leave
someone bitter. But that was not Lorenzo
Tucker's way. While he did not accept the
venal prejudice that prevented a man of his
tremendous talent from becoming a
"romantic heartthrob" for all female movie-
goers, he clearly understood the social roots
of racism and that his potent screen image
symbolized a sexual threat to the power of
white males.
The legitimate anger he. felt was not
swallowed and digested into self-destructive
bitterness. Although he was less insecure
than most artists, there were fleeting mo-
ments during some of our long discussions
when, if you looked closely into his sensi-
tive eyes or listened to the inflections in his
rich voice, the pain of all the rejections he
had experienced would emerge.
As we got to know each other better
I was deeply touched by how helpful and
concerned Tucker was with Passion and
Memory. His contribution to the produc-
tion went far beyond granting an interview.
He helped me reach people I never would
have been able to otherwise contact. When
I experienced resistance from those who
would "rather not be bothered,' he inter-
vened if he thought it would help. And it
often did, for he was very persuasive when
he wanted to be.
It may seem odd, but Tucker and
Stepin Fetchit, total opposites on screen,
were life-long friends. When·'3.· series of
strokes left Fetchit an invalid with almost
no capacity for speech, Tucker regularly
visited him at the Motion Picture and Tel-
evision Country House and Hospital.
Passion and Memory explores how
American film has portrayed blacks and
how some black artists have transcened
stereotypes and other limitations to make
a unique and significant contribution to
American film. Of the five stars whose
careers are examined, Stepin Fetchit was the
most difficult to place within the above con-
text. Donald Bogle's book, Toms, Coons,
Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks, of which
Passion' and Memory is an adaptation,
provided intellectual assistance. But it was
Lorenzo Tucker who constructed the neces-
sary emotional and historical bridge.
He gave me a realistic context for
Fetchit and the conditions under which he
Lorenzo Tucker, the Black Valentino, in a
1931 photograph. (Photo: The Tucker Collection)
worked. Off camera, for instance, Fetchit
was as independent and flamboyant as any
of his white counterparts. Under no circum-
stances. did Tucker make apologies for
Fetchit's screen image.
Tucker believed that if we. could un-
derstand the complexity of forces at work
regarding any historical figure or incident,
we would better be able to use and embrace
the whole of our history. He saw little val-
ue in dealing with such issues from an ar-
rogant, "blacker-than-thou" perspective.
And he disliked the "crabs in the barrel"
mentality that so often permits narrow-
minded individuals to clothe their jealousies
in righteousness. In essence, Tucker hoped
that our learning process would give us an
appreciation for how we have survived and,
in unique cases, overcame one of the most
profoundly dehumanizing and oppressive
systems of racial discrimination ever devel-
oped.
Passion and Memory aired on the Pub-
lic Broadcasting Service a few months be-
fore Lorenzo Tucker died on Aug. 19. Mak-
ing the film had been such a long, uphill
struggle and he had helped in so many cru-
cial ways that it would have been depress-
ing had he left without seeing it. Fortunate-
ly, this was not the case.
Acting rests on faith; the actor must
have the courage to jump from the diving
board of faith to the pool of imagination
below.
In this sense, fine acting is believing.
Lorenzo Tucker was a true believer. •
10
Quick Takes From Edinburgh
Festival was 0 ppartunity
To Discuss Art andAesthetics
By Clyde Taylor
The Third Cinema Conference hosted by
the Edinburgh International Film Festival and
the British Ftlm Institute had all the markings
ofa famtly reunion. For three lively days, the
Ftlmhouse set the stage for irrepressible charac-
ters, absent legends, shiny new personas, run-
I argued that the
struggle over control
ning feuds, old and new alliances, all saunter-
ing toward that heightened sense of self
sometimes caught in consummatory group pho-
tographs. Beyond the task of se/frecognition,
the group also had the serious task ofrefiOning
of truth is more im-
the ambigiuous concept ofThird Cinema. The
portant than the isola- quick takes that follow should not be confused
tion of the truth-that with an officialportrait, coming as they do from
a heated, much i~volvedpartisan.
the role ofpower and
knowledge in control-
ling the esthetic cate-
F
ilm theoretician Teshome Gabriel
gory was more crucial (Ethipia/UCLA) early achived both emi-
nent presence and legendary absence at
than esthetic percep- the Third Cinema Conference in Edin-
tions. burgh through the videotape he sent of a speech
that came over clear, crisp, commanding, and
larger than life. So did its message, which
brought to the concept of Third Cinema the
power of popular memory, not merely oral tra-
dition, but those collective transmissions that
preserve and advance a people's destiny over
remembered trials and victories.
How did the conference reflect on the is-
sues of ideology and esthetics? In recent debates
in the United States, this question has had to
do with rather rigid support for "positive"
over "negative" images-an example is the fu-
ror over the depic~ion of black men in the film
The Color Purple-as opposed to a more sup-
ple interpretive director / audience dialogue.
These issues were present at Edinburgh,
but in new and more challenging accents.
Indian-British filmmaker H.G. Nazareth, for in-
stance, rebutted Haile Gerima's keynote speech
for its cultural nationalism which neglected class
and gender. "Anti-racism," Nazareth said, "is
another kind of burrow, another kind of tun-
Black Film Review
nel." This rather novel position was hastily ex-
plained to me as the outcome of an anti-racism
campaign mounted by white leftists in London
and characterized by paternalistic channeling.
I am sure there is more to it than that.
Nazareth had another, connected com-
plaint. His documentary on wife-battering in
the Asian-British community, Fearful Silences,
was taking heat from that community. I, for
one, could sympathize with his particular strug-
gle: the need to sort out ethics (not esthetics)
in conflict with community self-defensiveness.
But Nazareth could hardly have found a
worse, foot-shooting defender of his own position.
At one point, he quoted a remark by Hanif
Kureishi, the Pakistani author of My Beauttful
Laundrette, to the effect that he did not care
about a Pakistani community that objected to
images of itself. Gerima's countering advice to
Nazareth was haunting: if he did not start a
unifying dialogue here and now, his film would
be an exotic episode, forgotten by the funding
agencies that will work to divide and dismiss him.
My own entry into the esthetics versus
ideology debate was described as a "bombshell"
by Gerima, who was up to his best verbally
provocative form throughout the conference. I
argued that the struggle over control of truth
is more important that the isolation of the truth,
that the role of power and knowledge in con-
trolling the esthetic category was more crucial
than esthetic perceptions. We ought, therefore,
to forget the project of constructing a Black
Cinema Aesthetic, ought to overthrow the cat-
egory of esthetics altogether (as it is com-
promised by Eurocentrisms and racism), and at-
tempt to build Black/Third Cinema as a tool
for what Sylvia Winter calls "the rewriting of
knowledge. "
As people reshuffled to defend their posi-
tions against this unsuspected line of attack, a
curious tension surfaced. It arose from the ques-
tion of whether I was aware that India had an
ancient tradition of art and aesthetics. Because
I was more interested in sharing than dividing
Fa//1986
over ideas, I replied merely that all peoples had
ancient traditions of creativity and interpreta-
tion. Ne~ertheless, a gulf was exposed at this
point between Indian and African world views.
The best of Third World traditions was ex-
pressed in England among Pakistanis, West In-
dians, and others who united under one descrip-
tive banner as "blacks." But this does bnot
prvent some subcontinental sentimentalizing
over an Aryan kinship with Eurocentric interests,
for both ego and material gratifications, and at
the expense of the decolonizing process.
On a panel from the United States, film-
maker Ayoka Chenzira lodged the thoughtful
argument that the search for positive images had
led to self-stereotyping and finally to self-
censorship of all images, except those of a new
character type, a neuter personality as evidenced
by Diahnn Caroll on Dynasty, and the figures
on The Cosby Show.
A jet-lagged Charles Burnett confessed that
his community was disoriented and dispirited
beyond reach of films and filmmaking to offer
hope of relief. [See accompanying article - Ed. }
Gerima saw the hope for Third Cinema in the
evolution of a dynamic between audience/com-
munity, filmmaker / storyteller, and activist / crit-
ics. But he also saw the black film movement
in a crisis formed by its openness to petty bur-
geois corruptions.
One could feel warm affinities between the
Afro-Americans and the Afro-British that came
out of their shared semi-colonialsm, even while
noticing their differing historical postures. As
filmmaker Menelik Shabazz (Barbados/UK)
noted, the street uprising of 1981 made the cur-
rent black British film context possible. [See ac-
companying article - Ed. } The vitality and spirit
one feels in this movement springs from its
closer connections to these rebellions than in the
U.S. movement, and therefore to the cool-out,
fool-out funding that follows. Some of the
young black British that I talked to seemed con-
fident of the funding of their next films, even
as their last ones were just being finished.
The young bloods of the Sankofa, Ceddo,
and Black collectives were refreshingly aware,
serious, and articulate, well-versed in their own
and other theoretical positions. They seem to
have profited from the earlier struggles of ar-
ticulation and purpose in the black film world
and, so armed, feel no need to be defensive in
the face of Western theory. This sophistication
has doutbless benefitted from the presence of
Jim Pines, coordinator of the conference, eth-
nic affairs officer at the British Film Institute,
and author of Blacks in Film. But with all their
awareness of the need for unity, one could gath-
er the waiting tensions between a Caribbean-
based cultural nationalism and the cos-
mopolitanism of gender, sexual orientation, and
class among the British-born.
11
So there was a wide diversity, yet mutual
sympathies among the shapers of black world
cinema. The slight strain in the dialogue be-
tween them and delegates from Asian commu-
nities remained and will have to be more open-
ly approached in the future. I was made vaguely
uneasy by the estheticism of Laleen]ayamanne
(Sri Lanka/ Australia). Her attempt to "figure
the body through work on gesture, filmic fram-
ing, and how the voices in the film work in re-
lation to the images" may have had some power-
ful revelations about feminism's struggle over
the female body, but I had missed her film,
Song olCeylon, and was therefore mystified by
her~discussion .
o n a panel from
the United States,
I had seen Trinh Minh Ha's (Viet- filmmaker Ayoka
nam / France / U C- Berkeley) Reassemblage Chenzira lodged the
(1982). A curious mix of lovely images of Sene-
gal and turgid semiotic jargon, it produced in thoughtful argument
me a discomfiture that carried over to her prese- that the search for
nation in Edinburgh. So my comments were
blunt. I found her way of uttering strings of iso- positive images had
lated quotations from herself, alternating with led to self
quotations fromn others slide-projected over-
head to be mannered. There was also something stereotyping.
facile in openly expressing her ambiguous role
vis-a-vis African imagery as "the inappropriate
Other." She had described this as an undeter-
mined place both in and out of a host culture
"like two sides of a coin," but I reminded her
of a legacy of Asian middle-man traders in Afri-
ca. But Menelik Shabazz was even more blunt,
the urgericy rising in his voice as he asked twice,
"who do you make films lor?"
Her latest film, Naked Spaces, was rich
with marvelous images of African people and
architectural surroundings, but turned out to be
more self-indulgent than exploitative, its pace
dictated by the drawn-out pomposity of its nar-
ration. Those who did not fall asleep left be-
fore it ended.
Trinh Minh Ha's position between two
stools was troubling to me. On one side, I felt
sympathy with her interrogation of some bur-
densome legacies of Western esthetics in non-
Western contexts. On the other, the esthet-
ic/ political no-man's land she chose for herslf
was located above certain battles she had to
know were going on. I made an association here
between her posture as "inappropriate Other"
and ]ulainne Burton's self-description as "nei-
ther / nor" in relation to First and Third worlds.
Were they both not refractions of the medieval
position of "unmoved mover?"
Burton (Euro-American critic/UC-Santa
Cruz) had claimed this murky ground in a
speech marked by an aggressively apologetic
stance on the outskirts of self-destruct. The
apologetic note had to do with a Summer 1985
Screen article in which she attacked Gabriel's
book on Third Cinema for being insufficiently
dependent on Western feminist and avant-left
12
film theory. The agression came in her self-
description as "mediator" of critical ideas, in-
nocent to the historical and implied dominance
over Third World critical ideas being mediat-
ed. Burton's confusion was a reminder-and
there were others - of the persisting temptation
to revert to notions of Eurocentric priority even
in the act of trying to liberate ourselves.
By the time we arrived at the final session,
the debates had generated a populous swirl of
ideas, opening new vistas in their striking and
contentious relation to each other. But how did
these relate to Third Cinema, which had gone
vinually unmentioned all this time? From its ori-
gin in an essay by Argentine film directors Fer-
nando Solanas and Octavio Getino, the concept
of Third Cinema has been based in Third World
struggles and particularly in an identifying mili-
tant commitinent. But the authors left open the
assumption of participation from Westerners.
In his book, Third Cinema and the Third
World, Teshome Gabriel had more fully ex-
plored its theoretical inferences, but more as a
framework for criticism and ideological reflec-
tion than as a manifesto for filmmakers. At
Edinburgh, the dialogues were resolutely test-
ing the limits and capabilities of the concept.
So it fel to Kenyan Noveilst Ngugi wa Thiongo
to sum up the preceding discussions, like a mas-
ter giving grades. Perhaps by design, his sum-
matory statement also provided regrounding
and new visions for Third Cinema.
One of the resonsibilities of the artist, Ngu-
Er film to act as an
agent for altering peo-
gi said, is to ourselves, a responsibility born out
of the capacity to dream, to feel. Because of that
responsibility, we should not be afraid of ex-
amining the issues of form. On the other hand,
ple's behavior, a the artist does not live in isolation, but is a prod-
uct of society.
politicization must be In the Third World, we are products of two
taking place. ~Because
the black community
lacks leadership, it Film A5 a Force for Social Change
lacks direction.
The following is an edited version of a paper
Los Angeles filmmaker Charles Burnett deliv-
ered during the Third Cinema Conference at the
Edinburgh Fzlm Festival in August.
f one has any interest in film as a means to
I transforrrl society, one can certainly sym-
pathize with the frustrations of the main
character in the novel Bread and Wine by
Italo Calvino. The hero, a revolutionary hiding
from the police, disguises himself as a priest.
Villagers mistake him for a real priest. Despite
his attempts to explain that their social condi-
tion could be improved, that certain things-
food, shelter, and the right to happiness-
belong to everyone, the villagers can't conceive
of those things as a pan of their reality. Instead,
they are something to be obtained in heaven.
Black Fzlm Review
traditions. One is the imperialist tradition,
which has three aspects: The economic, the po-
litical, and the cultural. The cultural aspect is
where we function as carriers of values. It is here
that one of our most important activities takes
place-the development and preservation of the
concept of self. But under imperialism, these
cultural tasks are threatened because the con-
trol of the economic and political make possi-
ble efforts to control the images of the world.
The second tradition is the tradition of re-
sistance. Under imperialism, the people strug-
gle to control their own labor power for control
of their political destiny and for their culture.
Where the two traditions collide, can there
be a neutral image? There can only be an aes-
thetic of domination or one of liberation. The
former attempts to control images of the world
to the advantage of the dominators, while the
esthetic of liberation searches for and cultivates
the beauty of resistance. The search for a univer-
sal esthetic can never be anything but contradic-
tory when the esthetic of domination pervails
over the esthetic of liberation.
But we of the Third World are in fact the
mainstream in literature and in cinema. Weare
the mainstream because we are the majority,
making an esthetic from our struggles.
Even in the absence of his magnetizing
delivery, the recollection of Ngugi's words,
merely paraphrased her, ring with the memory
of their perfection. If the conference, with all
its confrontations, had posed a complex of ques-
tions, then Ngugi's words offered, I think, the
most thoughtfully adequate responses.
To have participated in this dialogue at
Edinburgh was wonh three to five years develop-
ment through more solitary channels. It was per-
haps the most productive Third World film con-
ference I have been to. •
The question is how does one who is dis-
satisfied with the way things are going set about
transforming society? To whom and- to what
should one direct his message, and what will be
the spark to motivate people to alter their habits
when even the realization of death itself has
failed.
For film to act as an agent for altering peo-
ple's behavior, another dynamic has to have oc-
curred, a politicization trillSt be taking place. Be-
cause the black community lacks leadership, it
lacks direction. In part, the situation exists be-
cause the black middle class moved away. Over
the years, a vacuum formed, and in the isola-
tion, people of daring gained control. The iro-
ny is that there is a conspiracy to hide what is
happening.
The response to films that sounded the
Fall 1986
alarm and tried to dramatize concerns that were
eroding the foundation that makes a society a
society was, "This makes us look bad." Middle-
class blacks wanted to emphasize the positive.
The inner-city wanted Superfly. Neither had any
substance, however, both were detrimental.
There is a difference between illusion and
inspiration. The difference in concerns clearly
marked the direction, consciously or uncons-
ciously, people who lived on opposite sides of
the tracks were going. Surprisingly, there are a
large number of people with reactionary and/ or
chauvinistic points of view in the inner city.
Commercial film is largely responsible for
affecting how one views the world; it reduces
the world to one dimension, creating taboos and
fostering superstition, concentrating on the
ugly, creating a passion for violence and reflect-
ing racial stereotypes, instilling self-hate', creat-
ing confusion (rather than reflecting clarity). In
later films that strove for reality, the element
of redemption disappeared. As a consequence,
the need for a moral position was no longer rele-
vant. There was no longer a crossroads to face
and to offer meaning to our transgressions. The
bad guy didn't have to atone for his sins. We
could go on enjoying life victim.izing innocent
people. -
In essence, then, commercial film is anti-
life. It constantly focuses on the worst of hu-
man behavior to provide suspense and drama,
to entertain. The concerns are generally about
a young white male. The rest of society and its
problems are anathema. Any other art form
celebrates life, the beautiful and the ideal, ex-
cept American cinema.
The filmmaker, then, is always asked to
compromise his integrity. And if the socially
oriented film is finally made, its showing will
generally be limited. The very ones it is made
for and about likely will never see it. To make
filmmaking viable, one needs the support of the
community. You must become a part of its
agenda, an aspect of its survival.
A major concern of story-telling s-hould be
restoring values, reversing the erosion of all those
things that conspire against better lives. One has
to be prepared to dig down in the trenches and
wage long battles. The problem is that we have
all been given a bad name by a few adventurers.
The issue is that we are a moral people, and the
issue need not be resolved by a shoving match
(or taken on blind faith), but should be con-
tinuously presented in some aspect of a story - as
did, for example, Negro folklore, which was an
important cultural necessity that not only
provided humor, but was a source of symbolic
knowledge that allowed one to comprehend life.
A good summary of this theme is in Men
in Dark Times, by Hannah Arendt, who states
that "however much we are affected by the
things of the world, however deeply they may
stir and stimulate us, they become human for
13
us only when we can discuss them with our fel-
low .... We humanize with what is going on
in the world and in ourselves only by speaking
of it and in the course of speaking of it we learn
to be human." ~
Solidarity and humanity occupy the same
space. And nowhere is a common bond more
necessary than in the inner city. It seems that
the object of all films shou1d be to generate a
sense of fraternity, a community. However, for
an independent filmmaker, that is the same as
swimming against a raging current.
One of the features of my community is that
it does not have a center. It does not have an
elder statesman and, more important, it does not
have roots. In essence, it is just a wall with graffiti
written on it. Life is going to work, coming home
and making sure every entrance is locked to keep
the thugs out, thinking about how to move up
in the world, or being a member of a street gang
standing on neighborhood corners, thinking
about nothing and going nowhere.
Commerczalfilm reduces the
world to one dimension, creating
taboos andfostering superstition.
In both cases, what is missing is not only
the spiritual, but mother wit. Even though there
is a church on every other corner, it only holds
services one day a week and it is not a domi-
nant part of the life of the community. The
community may be like a ship that has lost its
rudder, but it seems that those of us who ob-
serve tradition and have a sense of continuity
can at least see the horizon.
External forces more than internal forces
have made the black community what it is to-
day. There has always been the attempt to de-
stroyour consciousness of who we were, to deny
the past, and to destroy the family structure. For
us each day has not a yesterday or a tomorrow,
thereby making the use of experience a lost art.
While we have always lived in a hostile en-
vironment, it was not one where parent and off-
spring turned guns on one another. The inner
city is now characterized by people whose be-
havior is irrational. The perception is that peo-
ple are dangerous. Everyone is paranoid and
rightfully so, for you can witness people chang-
ing character within a breath.
How do you place a chair for someone who
can't sit still? In trying to find the cure, what
person do you address? It is not a matter of in-
forming someone of the truth, the facts, the
reality, it is only when he finds he cannot live
with himself that he has stopped deluding him-
self. The way back is redemption.
14
If film is to aid in this process of redemp-
tion, how will it work its magic? It seems not
getting a satisfactory answer to that old ques-
tion of why are we here is what makes man's fate
intolerable. I think it is the little personal things
that begin to give a hint at the larger picture.
The story has the effect of allowing us to com-
As black filmmak-
ers, we must be con-
prehend things - feelings and relationships-
we can't see. The story may not give you an-
scious of our audience,
ensuring at all times Culture of Resistance: Reflecting a
that the images are
representative and True Image
meaningful. Cinema The following is an edited version of a paper
presented at the Third Cinema Conference at
must convey social the Edinburgh Film Festival in August by the
realism rather than de- Ceddo Fzlm/Video Workshop of London.
fine social realism.
eddo is a workshop made up of people
C from Africa, the Caribbean, and Britain.
Besides the passionate desire to see our-
selves as we are, using film and video,
our common bond is our African heritage. As
Africans living in the Black Diaspora, we recog-
nize that we are vulnerable to many European
cultural influences and Eurocentric ideas of good
and bad, superior and inferior, beautiful and
ugly. This invariably impedes our vision, while
simultaneously discrediting and undermining
our cultural and historical heritage.
This conspiracy to strip us bare and farce
a process of acculturation on us has left many
Africans alienated from themselvs, oscillating
between a black and white world in a state of
confusion and of negativity. A quest for stabil-
ity, a seeking out of our history and a reaffir-
mation of truth, becomes real for some of us
when we are ostracized from this society.
The issue of cultural nationalism, that is,
whether we are speaking, dramatizing, and
documenting from a black British perspective
or as African filmmakers living in Britain is not
an issue Ceddo finds problematic. Black Brit-
ish cinema is not exclusively informed by our
experiences here in Britain, and to advocate that
it is is an insult and injustice to the ancestral
voices of our mothers and fathers and the strug-
gles they have waged on our behalf.
As black filmmakers, we must be conscious
of our audience, ensuring at all times that the
images are representative and meaningful. Cine-
ma must convey social realism rather. than de-
fine social realism. The popular mythology of
the "mugger" and the "whore" will not neces-
sarily be excluded from black film, but it will
be placed within a context where those charac-
ters can be understood and are three dimension-
al and fully developed.
Our cameras must go freely and easily into
Black Fzlm Review
swers, but it will allow you to appreciate life.
And maybe that is the issue, the ability to find
life wonderful and mysterious. If the story is
such, film can be a form of experience. What
is essential is to undertand that one has to work
to be good and compassionate. One must ap-
proach it as a job. But until there is a sharing
of experience, every man is an island and the
inner city will always be a wasteland. •
the community, speaking directly to those about
and for whom we presume we can make films
without any reason, save that we are black and
our subject matter is black.
This free and easy style can be attained if
there is a relationship of trust between the film-
maker and the community, a trust that will have
to be earned through hard work. For too long
the community has been excluded from the
image-making process. It is the responsibility of
"Third World" filmmakers concerned about the
oppressed masses to make film and video acces-
sible to their communities. The community
must realize it can control the images that are
produced and, more revolutionary, that it can
use film and video for political and cultural ex-
preSSion.
Cinema can become the griot of our wider
international village, passing on our history and
culture, not in the traditional oral fashion, but
in the new cinematic way. The message should
be the experience of oppressed peoples every-
where and the power of the filmic language
should transcend national boundaries.
As a relatively new art form, emerging from
technologically advance-a ··societies,cirtema:is
bound to be steeped in the idiosyncrasies of
those cultures. It is not surprising, given its his-
tory, that cinema in the West is inherently rac-
ist, sexist, and patronizing in its espousal of
middle-class values. "Third World" cinema must
be radical and political. It must be an alterna-
tive genre that will destroy the myths and as-
sumptions about black women and black men.
A cinema that runs counter to the domi-
nant Eurocentric ideology must take a complete
departure from the language of the colonizer.
Yet as Africans living in the Diaspora, one
might argue that we are seated in a privileged
position - we can borrow what we like or think
is good from European art forms and combine
that with any knowlege we might have of the
African and the Caribbean. If we need a refer-
ence point, we have our literature to illustrate
the richness of our culture. But if we choose to
borrow from our ex-colonial masters, we must
 Fall 1986 15

critically examine the tools that are employed.
We must develop a critique that is devoid
of internalizations of superior and inferior. We
must develop a critique that will also take into
consideration the restraints or demands that the
.~olonizers tools put on our art, and any precon-
ditions that call for the self to be given up.
Within the context of this paper the role
of the filmmaker is to reclaim and redefine our
history and in so doing to relieve us from cul-
tural domination and self-hate.
Ceddo, our name, is taken from the title
of Ousmane Sembene's film. It means "culture
of resistance." The emergence of the black work-
shop sector came out of a crucial time in our his-
tory in Britain when the black community react-
ed violently to racist oppression. The uprisings
of 1981 manifested not only black people's dis-
enchantment with the social and economic or-
der, but an inability of the host community to
see us as we are. Frightened of a war on main-
land Britain, the authorities poured money into
the black community to solve the problem of
the "racially disadvantaged" and culturally
alienated youths.
Ceddo was born in this context. We want-
ed to produce images that would begin to trans-
form or create an image of self. It was crucial
to produce, otherwise we could not enter or par-
ticipate in this transformation process. The pow-
er that the black community vested in us in 1981
has to be returned to it and the only way that
Ceddo can do that is to make sure we are reflect-
ed on the screen as we are.
So, what is the state of Black British Cine-
ma? Within its short history, it has achieved
some positive goals. Yet it stands at a neo-
colonial or post-independence stage. We have
been "given" our independence but not the
freedom to develop as we will. An analogy with
Third World countries in receipt of aid from the
West is appropriate here. Black British Cinema
is still dependent on aid, advice, and technolo-
gy from the West.
This--is t~e for the workshops, as well as
the independent sector, are at this juncture. Al-
though receiving grant aid to which they -like
many "Third· World" countries - are entitled,
they are made to feel grateful for an act of
"philanthropy.'~ Such grants should be consid-
ered, instead, for what they are-the miserly
repayment for many years of exploitation of
resources and labor.
Thus development of black British cinema
is controlled. Although it is conceded that we
are doing good work that needs to be en-
couraged, the financial commitment is lacking.
The autonomy -of the black British filmmaker
is impeded by preconditions and criteria that
seek to determine the films we produce.
Cinema is a powerful tool for implement-
ing change within our communities. Our adver-
saries are not unaware of this factor, therefore
the instruments we need to effect those changes
are kept from us, or at least blunted.
How radical can black British cinema then
claim to be? It can be radical if it elicits the sup-
port of its community. It must hold discussions
with the community about cinema and race in
order to produce the greater benefit and merit
for that community. It must give "ordinary peo-
pie; " people who heretofore have remained
voiceless, a voice, allowing them to speak with-
out censorship.
The most radical aspect of black British
cinema in the "Third Cinema" context is the
reversal of roles and notions within the domi-
nant ideology of cinema. Instead of trying to
decode a language that is mystifying, we must
employ a language that is universal, breaking
down structures that we are uncomfortable with
and erecting new structures that are familiar.
But most important, instead of being the
re~ipients of information, we must become the
givers of information defining our own time,
our own space, and our own histories. •

Published quarterly, Cineaste covers the entire world of

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16
Collectors' Dreams
Tracking Down Lost Franzes andLobby Cards
By Saundra Sharp
he voice on the telephone is cool. "Look,"
T he says. "I was cleaning out Pop's garage
and I found a bunch of stuff that looks
like some films. Big metal cans, some-
thing about 'homesteader' written on a couple.
I was gonna throw them out, then I remem-
bered you're into that stuff."
That's one of the more pleasant dreams a
film collector can have: a cache of recovered
T here are fewer than
two dozen private black
prints, in mint condition. And free.
Collecting films, along with the trappings
that go with them-lobby cards, press kits, ad-
vertising posters, books, theater one-sheets, and
collectors of films and photographs - is an expensive adventure. First
you have to find them, then you need the mon-
film memorabilia. Their ey to buy them, a place to store them properly
collections are valued at and, sometimes, a few thousand dollars to re-
store mutilated prints. So why bother?
$10,000 to $75,000, and "Curiosity," says Henry Sampson, a nuclear
they may spend any- engineer with the aerospace program. "I saw a
lot of these movies as a youngster in segregated
where from a a few hun- theaters in Jackson, Miss. And I'd wonder, 'Who
dred to several thousand made these things? Why? Why did they stop
dollars a year acquiring making them?' At one time, there were more
than 150 black-owned theaters in the country."
additional items. James Wheeler, founder and director of the
new Concept East II cultural center in Detroit,
says, "I get emotionally involved in the old
films. I put myself back in that period of time
and understand what kind of struggle these peo-
ple had to go through to get their films made.
We have access to more equipment now, but
I don't think we're making any better films."
Los Angeles archivist and film history
teacher Mayme Clayton says, "When Edison in-
vented the first camera, blacks were right there.
Even though it [the black image filmed] was
derogatory, we were right there. So historically
we need to collect everything we did. We might
have to put an explanation on each one, but
still .... "
Edison films featuring blacks date from the
BLACK FILM 1890s-which means there has been almost a
full century of African-American involvement
HISTORY in the motion picture. What happened to those
~
Black Ftlm Review
films? Where are they today? The answer is part
of the nightmare film collectors have. Far too
many prints have been lost to fire and flood,
thrown in the trash by unconcerned relatives,
cut to pieces by censors, stolen from unsecured
repositories, left to deteriorate in damp base-
ments and unheated attics. In other words, they
are gone.
Fonunately, many fine prints - from' silents
to talkies-survive, including early feature films
by the first black independent producers and
directors. However, it is clear that the majority
of the most valued films extant are in the hands
of white collectors and white-controlled institu-
tions, and therefore not generally available to
blacks. Which makes the black collector as valu-
able as the films themselves. There are fewer
than two dozen private black collectors of films
and film memorabilia. Their collections are val-
ued at $10,000 to $75,000, and they may spend
anywhere from a a few hundred to several thou-
sand dollars a year acquiring additional items.
Their combined collections cover prints as far
back as Bert Williams in the 1916 classic Natu-
ral Born Gambler, the 1918 two-reel derogato-
ry comedy Spying the Spy, and a 1914 silent ver-
sion of Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The obstacles they face are getting access
to the films, the escalating costs of purchasing
anything black, insurance rates beyond both rea-
son and pocketbook and, primarily, the prob-
lem of putting the items into a historical con-
text, a context that has been consistently and
intentionally distorted by the mores and the ra-
cism of the times.
A case in point is the complete collection
of films featuring Dorothy Dandridge, accumu-
lated by one of her biggest fans, RolandJeffer-
son, a Los Angeles psychiatrist. In the 1959
French feature Tamango, Dandridge stars with
white actor CunJurgens. There are two versions
of the film, a European version in which she
kisses Jurgens and an ~erican version in which
she does not. After extensive research,Jefferson
finally located a 35mm print with the famous
Fall 1986 17

Edzsonfilms featuring blacks date from the

1890s - which means there has been almost a full
century of African-American involvement in the
motion picture. What happened to those films?
W here are they today?

kiss that, he says, would be rated PG today.

Similarly, Jefferson has located a lobby one-
sheet on the British-made Malaga, a cops-and-
robbers flick with an interracial love affair. But
in the film posters, Dandridge's role is represent-
ed by a white actress.
"Somewhere," Jefferson says, "I'm sure
there is a European one-sheet with Dorothy in
the picture. I haven't given up on finding it."
The curiosity of the collector often leads
him into other disciplines. Twelve years ago,
Stuart Hudgins, a graphic artist, saw his first vin-
tage music short,]ammin' the Blues, with Lester
Young and Illinois Jacquet. It was nominated
for an Academy Award in 1944.
"That was the first time I realized there
were films like this; films that featured my
heroes," Hudgins says.
Now, as an archivist for Atlanta Universi-
ty's Clark College, he pursues the films, but he
also investigates the copyright laws and censor-
ship codes that affected the films. ~e has ac- (Photo: Saundra Sharp)
quired more than 30 hours of old music prints preferring to be identified as a researcher. But
that include the three-minute soundies shown through his work he has acquired and is care-
in pen,ny arcades and musical shorts done in the fully preserving many items. He has no idea how
1930s and 1940s. And he has interviewed many many pieces he holds, but among the more than
of the musicians who were involved and found a thousand film-related items is a photograph
that "many don't remember making the films. of Ruby Dee in one of her first all-black cast
It was just another record date, and somebody films in 1947, and a first edition of Micheaux'
had a camera there." book The Homesteader, which later became his
Another element that both confuses and first film. The book's value is immeasurable be-
challenges the collector is the inventiveness of cause no prints of the film are known to have
filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux, who often survived.
made more than one version of the same film. Sampson's research has led him to this con-
According to Sampson, "There are at least four clusion: "No other group of people on the face
versions of Micheaux' Body and Soul, and it's of this earth have had such a tremendous im-
hard sometimes to know which one you're pact on show business as black people. And con-
watching." versely, no group of people on the face of the
Sampson, whose avocation is film and the- earth have benefited less than black people.
ater history, studied more than 15,000 issues of And that's a tragedy."
black weekly newspapers spanning 40 years to As a child in rural Arkansas, Mayme Clay-
document the triumphs and tribulations of the ton's parents made sure she got to the city to
black entertainment world in his book, Blacks see blacks performers like Marion Anderson. Her BLACK FtLM
in Black and White: A Source Book on Black curiosity perked, she saved playbills, photo-
Ftlms. He hedges at being called a collector, HISTORY
graphs, and books about entertainers, along
18
Mayme Clayton, executive
director ofthe Western States
Black Research Center, hold-
ing a Cinecam Model B. The
16mm camera was produced
between 1925 and 1931.
(Photo: Saundra Sharp)
BLACK FILM
HISTORY
with other subjects. In 1972, Clayton opened
the Western States Black Research Center in Los
A.ngeles and felt a need to include films in the
collection. Her first two purchases were of films
from the 1940s-Dirty Gertie from Harlem,
USA, directed by Spencer Williams, and Para-
di.se in Harlem, with Mamie Smith and Luckie
Millender's orchestra. Today, the collection con-
tains some 75 films, including all the Micheaux
prints known to be available, and more than 500
movie paper items dating back to 1903.
Ed Vaughn, owner of a Detroit bookstore
and executive assistant to the mayor of that city,
owns a collection of 50 films, including a 16nlm
technicolor film of Ntozake Shange's play For
Colored Girts Who Have Considered Sui-
cide. . . . The film was made in California in the
1970s, before the play gained fame on
Broadway. ) Restoration and preservation have always
In Northern California, Salah Webb, a me-
dia specialist with Skyline College, and Thur-
man White, an attorney, met while students at
the Stanford University film program. They
joined forces, and in 1981 entered negotiations
to acquire the Kit Parker Collection of black
films. They had been renting the films for sev-
en years, and that track record helped them in
bargaining. ' enhanced, then re-recorded. Most films are
What they got was 150 films in 16mm of
some 100 titles produced between 1914 and
1954. The collection includes Clarence Muse's
Broken Strings (1940); Spirit of Youth (1938)
with Joe Louis; a Minnie the Moocher cartoon
featuring Cab Calloway; and Ain't Misbehavin',
Black Fzlm Review
a short with Fats Waller that might be consid-
ered a precursor of today's music videos.
Webb identifies his favorite as Eleven
P.M., a 1925 film directed by Richard Maurice,
who operated one of the black independent film
companies of the 1920s. Prints of this dramatic
feature about a street violinist's revenge for his
wife's capture are rare, and researchers have
found little information about the production.
And then there are gems like The Negro Stew-
ard, one of a series of instructional films made
by the U.S. government in World War II.
For Pearl Bowser, associate director of Third
World Newsreel, the two films she favors are
ones she helped restore: Scar ofShame, a 1927
independent feature, and the more modern
Ganja and Hess, directed by and starring Bill
Gunn. As a film archivist and exhibitor based
in New York, Bowser has acquired about 50
16mm titles and "close to a thousand pieces of
paper-stills, clippings, posters- because the
nature of the collection is to document the his-
tory of black independent film."
For committed individuals like Bowser and
Clayton, collecting cannot be separated from
restoration and preservation. Bowser spent
$10,000 to restore Ganja and Hess. "It had been
shot on Super 16 and blown up to 35 mm, so
it was grainy. The important thing in going back
from 35 to 16 was to preserve the color in the
film, but I didn't have a negative for the lab
to work from. The cost factor becomes very tick-
lish. It's easy to just get a cheap copy, but in
order to get something as close to the original
as possible, you have to invest some money."
Working with the American Film Insti-
tute's collection, which is housed in the Library
of Congress, Bowser located a hand-tinted
16mm print of Scar ofShame, and by transfer-
ring it to 35mm color stock preserved the origi-
nal tinted scenes. The process cost about $400
per print, plus the costs of the negatives. When
Clayton found a print of Micheaux' The Notori-
ous Elinor Lee, the picture was fine but the
sound was not. She restored the entire sound-
track.
been a quarrelsome issue for film historians and
archivists. According to Jan-Christopher Horak,
associate curator and film archivist at the Ge-
orge Eastman House in Rochester, N. Y., the
difference is that: "Preservation is taking a ni-
trate film and transferring it to acetate or safety
film stock. We usually make a negative, then
another print. The optical sound is electronically
shorter than their original release because they
get chopped up by distributors, or to insert com-
mercials for television, or they get damaged.
These need to be restored. Restoration is trying
to find an original script, taking a number of
different prints, and trying to put together the
Fall 1986 19

most complete version of the film."

Pearl Bowser's position is that, "If you take
a piece of art work out of a museum and you
don't like the way the artist painted the sky so
you repaint it another color, you are manipulat-
ing someone else's art work, and I don't believe
you have a license to do that. The soundtrack
that was added to The Gambler has nothing to
The loudest and most consis-
tent cry is for a national black
do with the film. It is racist in context and
manipulates what you see. So I turn off the
soundtrack when I show it. There's no justifica- repository for black films.
tion for tampering with someone else's work."
Webb and White are experimenting with
adding original music to some of the silent clas-
sics, in an effort to expose the films to a larger
audience through the home video market. Part
of their justification is artistic. Thurman White
says, Eleven P.M. is 70 minutes long. You need
music to support it."
Neither collecting nor restoration is getting
easier because of the "what the market will bear"
approach of dealers. "It was easier in the begin-
ning," Bowser says. "But as more visibility has
come to black films·, money for acquiring
materials has become increasingly more difficult
to obtain. The prices are just too high." Samp-
son has tried to acquire a print of Micheaux'
Body and Soul, distributed through New York
City's Museum of Modern Art. "Now they are
selling them for $1,200 each. That's an exam-
pIe of how hard it is to break into the circle."
Stuart Hudgins adds, "I see it as our history in
their hands."
The loudest and most consistent cry is for
a national black repository -for black films.
Sampson says, "There is no one place you can
go. A lot of information on black Americans
goes to Australia, to South Africa." Wheeler
adds, "We don't have anything consistent here
in Detroit. The safety of my collectiol1 is really Film Collectors Thurman
bothering me." And Hudgins says, "There are White (r) and Salah Webb.
(Photo: Saundra Sharp)
no major black repositories that we feel com-
fortable with. A lot of archives have pieces, but with the Harlem Cultural Council, for the first
nobody knows what's there. Ninety percent of black film festival in 1971. That led to numer-
them don't have an emergency plan. We have ous touring exhibitions, and in 1984, at the re-
to feel that the work will not only be safely quest of the Whitney Museum, she prepared a
preserved, but that it will be shown." festival and exhibit to commemorate Oscar
Bowser agrees. "It's not important just to Micheaux' 100th birthday.
have something in a collection," she said. "A "What I try to do," Bowser explains, "is to
collection has to have a life to it, and the life incorporate some of the old with something of
comes from the audience." the new, to demonstrate for an audience the
Bowser and other collectors back their be- continuity of black filmmaking."
lief with action. Webb and White took 25 vin- This same approach is used in Los Angeles,
tage films to the Racine Noir (Black Roots) Fes- where for the last 10 years, Clayton and the
tival in Paris last year, as well as to the Eighth Black American Cinema Society have produced
Festival de Cinema des Minorities in Douarne- Black Talkies On Parade. The week-long screen-
ny, France. "The same people came back night ing of rarely-seen black films includes a daily
after night," White says, "and the questions morning show for schoolchildren, and some
they asked about our film history were so 5,000 youngsters take advantage of free tickets
detailed that they sent us back to our source each year. BLACK FILM
books." In Detroit, James Wheeler hopes to soon
On the East Coast, Bowser was responsible,
HISTORY
open Concepts East II, which will feature black
20
films on video. The program will draw on his
collection of 300 cinema classics from 1916 to
the 1950s, projected on an 8-foot by 10-foot
screen. "A lot of us are not only illiterate in the
sense of not reading, but we're also visually il-
literate, because we can't distinguish what we
see in terms of understanding it. By showing
these films, I hope to stimulate dialogue,"
Wheeler said.
Videotape may be easier to store and han-
dle than celluloid, but there is some concern
that it is placing the vintage 16mm print in
jeopardy. Several collectors report that houses
that used to provide 16mm films have now
turned exclusively to video, and Vaughn was
ambivalent about finding a VHS copy of
Gil Noble Forms Like It Is Archive
By Saundra Sharp
ne great thing about living in New York
O or New Jersey is the ritual rejuvenation
one can get from watching Like It Is, the
longest-running black news series. Origi-
nally hosted by actor Robert Hooks and jour-
nalist Gil Noble, the program has aired weekly
for 19 years on the local ABC television station.
For the past 11 years, Noble has served as its pro-
ducer and host.
There is one small problem: If you live out-
side of the New York-New Jersey area, you'd
have to fly to the Big Apple every weekend to
see the show. Despite its popularity, W ABC-
TV has resisted pressure from the larger Afro-
American community to air the show national-
ly or in syndication.
Noble recently announced the formation
of the National Black Archives of Film and
Broadcasting Inc., which will be known more
informally as the Like It Is Collection." The col-
lection will make available to blacks an incredi-
ble 500-plus hours of programming by blacks,
with blacks, and about blacks.
"In my long career doing documentaries,
everybody that I had to go to to get footage
about our people was not a member of our
race," Noble said. "I don't object to whites hav-
ing material about us. But I feel that if you want
to learn about France, then it's right that you
go to a Frenchman. If you want to learn about
Africans, you should go to somebody of Afri-
can descent. And that equation does not exist
here in this country, with very few exceptions.
BLACK FILM So I decided that an archives was overdue. Some
HISTORY repository, so that if you want to see visual ma-
terial about black people, you have to come to
Black FIlm Review
Sanders 0/ the River, starring Paul Robeson, in
a K-Mart bin.
Sometimes, paper items cost more than the
films, and in some cases are more valuable.
When a scrapbook that had been kept by Lena
Horne's secretary was found in vacant house by
new tenants, Mayme Clayton didn't hesitate to
purchase it. Pearl Bowser managed to meet
Shinzi Howard, an actress who had starred in
several Oscar Micheaux films and had been his
personal secretary for several years. Howard was
so excited at Bowser's work that she gave her her
personal scrapbook. The stills and handbills it
contains provided documentation on the theat-
ers where black films were shown, sometimes
with Hollywood features and Topsy movies. •
black people to get it."
The collection boasts classic documentaries
on such diverse personalities as Muhammad Ali,
H. Rap Brown, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Billy
Eckstine. Almost every African head of state was "-
a guest at least once. There are four and a half
hours of footage on Malcolm X, two and a half
on Paul Robeson, an interview with Grenada's
Maurice Bishop just months before his assassi-
nation, and the only videotaped dialogue with
Adam Clayton Powell Jr., in which he talked
candidly about his personal life after he was re-
moved from the U.S. House of Representatives.
Four of the documentaries were kinescoped
and have been available on 16mm film for some
time: Tallest Tree in the Forest, on Paul Robe-
son; £1 HaJi Malik £1 Shabazz, on Malcolm X;
Martin Luther King Jr., and Amazing Grace,
and the Powell documentary.
Noble says the educational market is his
"immediate concern. "
"If black and white kids can get some posi-
tive information about black people included
in their educational development by means of
the television set in the classroom, it will be
helpful to both races. It will help to eliminate
and dissolve some of the whites' concepts of su-
periority, and it will be difficult to tell a black
kid that "You're nobody!' once they've seen the
likes of the heroes and sheroes that we've
documented. "
Negotiations to acquire the Like It Is foot-
age took nearly two years, with the most favora-
ble factors being the station's willingess to
cooperate and ABC's need for more space. Ma-
jor funding from the Ford Foundation will be-
gin the project, and Noble envisions a perma-
nent building in Harlem to house the archives,
and an on-going program with black colleges. •
Fall 1986
Early Black-Independent Filmmakers
By Mark A. Reid
This is the first in a series ofarticles on the first
wave of black independent film production
from 1912 to 1931, sketching the historical
backgroundofAfro-Amencan ownedfilm com-
panies. Implicit in the discussion is an analysis
of two basic film practices - black commercial
cinema and black independent cinema. Author
Mark A. Reid states: "] define black filmmak-
ing as a creative practice performed by black
people who control most of the means of
production, and make theirfilms for andabout
the black community. "
ometime between 1910 and 1912, Bill
Ouli]ones) Foster became the first Afro-
American to establish a film production
company when he founded the Foster
Photoplay Company in Chicago. Some sources
cite 1910 as the founding date, but the earliest
known Foster film was not released until 1912.
In his Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in Amen'-
can Ftlm, 1900-1942, historian Thomas Cripps
describes Foster as "a clever hustler from Chica-
go, .. a press agent for the [Bert] Williams and
[George] Walker revues and [Bob] Cole and
[Billy] Johnson's [comedy-musical] A T,np to
Coontown [1898], a sportswriter for the [Chica-
go] Defender, an occasional actor under the
name of ]uli Jones, and finally a purveyor of
sheet music and Haitian coffee."
It is important to note that Foster was the
press agent for A Tnp to Coontown, because,
as Loften Mitchell puts it in Black Drama: The
Story ofthe Amen'can Negro in the Theatre, it
was u a musical with a plot - one that completely
broke with the minstrel tradition and told a story
through music, song, and dance." Thus by the
time he founded his company, Foster had had
long access to the innovative styles of the black
comedians and musicians who worked in the
theater. And it was the black theater that in-
fluenced his development of the black-oriented
comedy film.
Foster's first productions were the comedy
shorts The Ratlroad Porter (1912) and The Fall
Guy (1913). The former premiered at Chicago's
Grand Theatre in July 1913 and had its New
York premiere that September. The New York
Age, a black weekly, described Foster's two films
as "comedy films representing Negro life with-
out putting the race in a ridiculous light."
Nonetheless, contemporary film historian
Daniel]. Leab, in From Sambo to Superspade:
The Black Expen'ence in Motion Pictures, calls
21
The.Ratlroad Porter "a comedy that does not
seem to have been very different in style and
content from the films depicting blacks that
were turned out by the industry." Cripps calls
the film "an imitation of Keystone comic
chases .... "
But both historians seem to have ignored
an important narrative element which the Key-
stone Kops, Chaplin, and other contemporaries
of Foster also ignored. White films of the peri-
od show black characters serving whites, but Fos-
ter showed that blacks could be porters for
whites, as well as waiters in respectable cafes in
middle-class Afro-American communities.
The Age of Sept. 25, 1913 states that the
film: .
"Dealt with a young wife who, thinking her
husband had gone out on 'his run,' invited a
fashionably dre'ssed chap, who was a waiter at
one of the colored cafes on State Street, to dine,
However, the husband did not go out, and,
upon returning home, found wifey sitting at the
table serving the waiter all the delicacies of the
season. Mr. Husband proceeds to get his revolv-
er, which he used carelessly, running the un-
welcome visitor to his home. Then the waiter
gets his revolver and returns the compli-
B y the time he
founded his company,
ment. , .. "no one is hurt, , , . and all ends hap- Foster had had long
pily."
From this synopsis, one gathers the follow- access to the innova-
ing: there is a married woman who can afford tive styles of the black
to invite another person to eat with her; she
desires his company; the man is employed, and comedians and musi-
not unemployed; there exist black cafes on State cians who worked in
Street in Chicago in 1912; neither the husband
nor the waiter harm each other. the theater. And it
True, The RatlroadPorter has a comic chase was the black theater
scene, but Foster's use of the comic-chase is far
different from, to give one example, the stereo- that influenced his de-
typical chase of the petty, black thief of the velopment of the
Rastus series, two of which were titled, How
black-oriented comedy
Rastus Got His Turkey, and Rastus in Zululand
At the same time, it must be admitted that film.
Foster borrowed certain elements from the
prevailing comedy genres. But he also borrowed
from the staged comedy-musical, developing
the black, urban-comedy film genre, and break-
ing with the "coon" tradition established by Edi-
son and the Rastus series. In so doing, Foster
altered the stereotypes by borrowing native
Afro-American elements from the black stage
musical, and using the stage musical to struc-
ture his roadshow-like film programs.
In 1914, the Foster Photoplay Company BLACK FILM
toured the South with the aforementioned HISTORY
comedy shorts; a detective film, The Butler
22
(1913); and a melodrama, The Grafter and the
Maid (1913). Lottie Grady, formerly of Chica-
go's Pekin Theatre's stock company was the com-
pany's leading star and also sang while the
projectionist changed the reels.
Between 1910 and 1915, black-controlled
film production was limited to Foster's compa-
ny. Nonetheless, using performers like Grady
andJerry Mills from black theatrical stock com-
Lncoln producedfilms supporting
the concept ofAmerican zndividualism.
panies, Foster seems to have introduced values
from outside the dominant culture into the film
transaction. While these sub-cultural values did
not fundamentally change the American come-
dy genre, Foster's films did provide a black au-
dience black images with different contours.
The Lincoln Motion Picture Company,
founded in 1915 by a group of black Los An-
gelenos, was the second black film company es-
tablished in the United States. Noble Johnson·,
a bit player at Universal Studios, was the presi-
dent, director scenarist, and leading actor. Clar-
ence Brooks doubled as the second leading ac-
tor and company secretary. Other founding
members included: Dr. James T. Smith,
treasurer-manager, and Dudley A. Brooks, the
company's assistant secretary. Later, after the
first Lincoln film was made, George PerryJohn-
son, Noble's brother, joined the company. Har-
ry Gant, a Universal Studios cameraman, was
the only white affiliated with the company.
According to Leab, both Foster and Lin-
coln's founders believed that "blacks should
make movies with black performers for black au-
diences .... , that there was a market waiting for
such films and that the black entrepeneur would
profit financially."
Lincoln produced fums supponing the con-
cept of American individualism. The company's
films contained serious narratives with plots con-
structed around a rural black hero's realization
of some admirable ambition. Though few in
number-three shorts and two feature-length
films - Lincoln motion pictures were family-
oriented pictures. Unfortunately, only frag-
ments of the Lincoln films remain, therefore one
must rely on contemporary accounts from black
newspapers, as well as the work of historians like
Cripps, Leab, and Donald Bogle to assess them.
The company's first two-reeler was The
Realization ofa Negro's Ambition (1916). It is
the story ofJames Burton, a graduate of Tuske-
gee, who leaves his father's farm and his girl-
BLACK FILM friend to seek his fortune out West in the
HISTORY California oilfields. Denied a job because he is
black, Burton surmounts this obstacle by sav-
Black Ftlm Review
ing the life of a wealthy white oilman's daugh-
ter. After he has achieved sufficient skills, he
discovers oil and becomes independently
wealthy. He then returns home to marry the girl
he had left behind.
This shon, but revealing, synopsis describes
many elements of the. black rural family film.
The Realization ofa Negro's Ambition begins
with a black rural family, proceeds with the
separation of the hero from the family, and ends
with the return" of the hero. Moreover, the nar-
rative was not primarily generated to entertain,
as were the two-reeler comedies of the Foster
Photoplay Company.
According to the California Eagle of Oct.
14, 1916, Lincoln's second film, The Trooper
ofCompany K,' "told the simple story of a good-
for-nothing fellow who joins the army and finds
himself all man with a big heart and good
enough for the little girl who is home waiting
for him."
The Eagle also recognized the film's reflec-
tion of historical events in its portrayal of the
black 10th Cavalry's participation in the battle
at Carrizal, Mexico, in June of that year, not-
ingthat the film "will rank as an exceptional
picture if only for its historical value, com-
memorating as it does the battle at Carrizal,
where our boys made such a good fight against
overwhelming odds, sacrificing their blood and
life for their country."
Trooper was Lincoln's second black rural fa-
mily -film. The narrative developed the rural
black hero who rose to meet a challenge, suc-
ceeded, and-then returned home to marry a pa-
tiently waiting woman. In addition, the hero in
Trooper was a redeemed black hero. In this way,
the Lincoln Motion Picture Company attempt-
ed to establish an alternative to the shiftless
stereotype of the "coon," as well as to the
"Tom," a black who when faced with racism,
resigned himself to an inferior place..
The Lincoln hero was middle class and a
believer in the work ethic. The films starred No-
ble Johnson who was, as Leab poif!ts out, "one
of the most active and highly paid black movie
actors." Johnson had an athletic build and was
light-skinned, two important elements; one
connotes strength, the other was a convention
of black theater, and thus common practice in
all-black cast productions.
At this point in Afro-American film his-
tory, the hero of the black family genre can be
described as light-skinned, rural, and athletic,
and espousing the values of hard work and self
pride. When Oscar Micheaux, the best-known
and most prolific of the early black independent
filmmakers, began producing his films, he con-
tinued the use of the light-skinned hero but
placed him in an urban environment, perhaps
reflecting the-great migration of rural blacks to
the urban North. •
Fall 1986 23

She's Gotta Have It:

Whatever Nola TJlants, Nola Gets

By Paula Matabane
he case of Nola Darling will probably

T never be entirely resolved for those who

vicariously lived the on-screen story of the
woman who had to have it. But in Nola,
filmmaker Spike Lee creates a tantalizing new
image of black women with character dimen-
sions outside Hollywood prescriptions. Nola is
independent, politically aware, sensuous, self-
confident, self-centered, and unburdened by
middle-class sexual puritanism. She is what
Celie of The Color Purple needed to be - in con-
trol of her own life and her own body. She is
what Clair Huxtable of The Cosby Show might
be., ~ere she not featured on family-oriented tel-
eViSion.
Nola pursues her social and sexual gratifi-
cation on her own terms and her own turf. She
turns the tables on male dominance by estab-
lishing a love rectangle with three befuddled
males who never seem to grasp why they can't
dominate her. As the woman on top, Nola is
a woman's heroine who provides delight and hu-
mor through the dynamics of her sexual matri-
archy. But is Nola the product of female (or
feminist) ,evolution? Or is she merely the cel-
'hiloid figment of male fantasy and fear who
flouts 'her polyandrous lifestyJe because she's got
what men like and have to have'?"
Nola seems to represent elements of both.
Her pursuit of sexual gratification, largely as a
physical act unto itself, is suggestive of male
thinking. Her understandably abbreviated at-
tempt to remain monogamous with one of her
loves, Jamie, is the staging of a female impera-
tive. But it is difficult to predict whether Nola
could ever achieve spiritual and sexual unity
with just one male since her choices in the film
are so limited and unsatisfactory.
Is her behavior a function of a new defini-
tion of womanhood, or simply a realistic rejec-
tion of being controlled by someone inferior?
It takes three mediocre males to create one
whole, but not necessarily wholesome, male per-
sonality for Nola. While the film centers on No-
la's polyandry-is she whore, seductress, or nor-
mal? - I seriously question her decision to
24
Nola's acceptance of sexual
abuse seems anomalous and
detracts from what we might
have expected or hoped she
would do next as the new
female in control. Oddly
enough, the abuse scene leads
to her "feminization. "
consort with men she deems inadequate. Sim-
ply put, why cast your pearls before swine, es-
pecially if the issue of control is so paramount?
Of course, women (and men) regularly
make such choices, so the issue is not the charac-
ter's realism. Rather, it is the implications of No-
la's behavior, within the stated framework of a
woman controlling her own body.
Throughout most of the film, Nola appears
to be in control of her body and sex life, not-
withstanding the above concern. But when, af-
ter having so carefully crafted a sexual queen-
dom, she succumbs to abusive sexual treatment
fromJamie in the name of sexual urge and need,
Nola's acceptance of this abuse seems anoma-
Black Fzlm Review
lous and detracts from what we (and was it only
women?) might have expected or hoped she
would do next as the new female in control.
Oddly enough, the abuse scene leads to the
"feminization" of Nola. She dismantles her sex-
ual menagerie and offers to reorder her sex life
to the specifications of her abuser! While the
taming of the shrew is short-lived, our would-
be feminist heroine is effectively subverted and
the audience left stranded trying to understand
her.
The abuse scene almost undoes the entire
film. Jamie shows Nola that she has tampered
with a volatile subject in assuming sexual dom-
inance over males for, through rape and bru-
tality, the male can always be the victor. Wom-
en don't ordinarily have such options. Moreover,
Nola seems so overcome with sexual desire that
she does not even attempt to stop Jamie from
hurting her.
At the film's end, Nola again talks about
control, but without referring to or giving evi-
dence of growth from the experience withJamie.
Her forgiving his behavior suggests that she, the
victim, blamed herself for his outburst. Indeed,
the scene is staged as if Nola had it coming. In-
asmuch as women do internalize the rules of
male domination, Nola is behaving "normally"
in overlooking the fact that her boyfriend raped
her. Her behavior is realistic and reflective of
the male-dominated society in which we live.
As the film progresses, it is evident that Nola
is less concerned with finding a definition of her-
self as a woman than with asserting her right
to sexual gratification as she pleases. The latter
is a legitimate pursuit, but its separation from
the former reduces the impact of the character.
This comes out most clearly in Nola's rela-
tions with other women. She fails to hear the
entirety of what the female psychologist says
about sexuality, its vital link to the spiritual, and
Fall 1986
hears only that her polyandry is normal. She
probes her lesbian friend about homosexual
love, but not the friend's self-perception as a
woman. It is interesting that Nola's father tes-
tifies about her but her mother, most probably
her.f~male role model, is absent. In spite of her
poltt1cal awareness concer~ing racism, implicit
1n the images she chooses for the collage on her
wall, Nola seems oblivious to the social and
historical contexts from which her complex be-
havior as a woman has evolved.
While Nola Darling may not be the multi-
dimensional, independently defined woman
some of us may have hoped for, she is nonethe-
less an extremely interesting character who has
initiated the liberation of the black female
screen image with respect to sexual expression.
Spike Lee effectively took on this most delicate
task ~f attempting to construct a socially ap-
propr1ate, yet realistic and satisfying, sexual
identity for black women.
The prescribed sexual puritanism and
female-only monogamy laid the burden of rape
on black women and denied them sexual self-
expression. Nola has offered an alternative role
model, but left open serious questions about
how women might actually pursue multiple
relationships and still be in control of their bod-
ies and sexuality.
Still, Nola Darling articulates, albeit im-
perfectly, important questions about male-
female relationships for a black community that
has been slow to address issues of male domi-
nance and sexual equality. Many women are
amused by' the exposure Lee has given to the
very behav10r they eschew verbally but practice
qU1etly. Where the real-life struggle for black
female identity will go is a still unfolding dra-
ma, but at least the screen image of black wom-
en should not remain the same after Nola Dar-
ling. •
25
Old Techniques, New Ground
By Carroll Parrott Blue
aving autonomy in a film's vision seems
H
to be the traditional quest for indepen-
dents such as Jim Jarmusch, Joel and
Ethan Coen and John Sayles. So· far,
their formula of making uniquely personal films
~free of editorial interference and then distribut-
in.g th~se films within customized-for-profit dis-
tr1but1on patterns seems to have worked to their
advantage. All of them are continuing to make
films. They and others like them have been so
successful that their operational mode is begin-
ning to include women filmmakers and film- COUChing basic so-
makers of color. cial questions in the
_ Given the financial and popular demand form of very entertain-
as a backdrop for the success of this cadre of in-
dependent filmmakers, there are now two new ing comedy, each
films on the summer circuit that 'bear serious at- filmmaker consistently
tention by all filmmakers seeking to break away
from the commercial mode. The first film is draws each character in
called Men . .. by a German woman filmmak- rhe films in a non-
er, Doris Dorrie. The second film is called She's
Gotta Have It by black American filmmaker exploitive manner.
Spike Lee.
Both films offer the best of independent
and commercial film styles by using Hollywood
film genres as well as the innovative story lines
traditional for independents. The films take the
best of the independents - their films lack the
slick, homogenized, predictable world view of
commercial films. They have a bite with tex-
tured edges that could help to lead audiences
into self-reflection. Simultaneously, both films
remold old Hollywood genres in fresh ways.
~oth evoke the sophisticated, mildly provoca-
t1ve screwball comedies of the 1930's-40's and
the rough and tumble aspects of the male bud-
dy films of the 1950's-60's.
Men. . . is reminiscent of Walter Matthau
and Jack Lemmon; Robert Redford and Paul
Newman. She's Gotta Have It recalls the "in-
dependent woman" films of Katherine Hep-
burn, Rosalind Russell and Bette Davis. The
dance sequence on Nola's birthday has the fla-
vor of the 1930's MGM musicals. The free-
flowing action of Woody Allen's contemporary
New York City relationships are present in both
films. Both films contain enough past filmic
conventions to reassure and comfort audiences
as they watch a fresher, less-than-traditional style
unfold within each film's story.
The filmmakers look at their sexual
opposites-a black male examines a black wom-
an's unconventional sexuality; a German wom-
26
Summit meeting: Nola's
three tIl-fated lovers argue
on Thanksgiving Day.
(Photo: Island Pictures)
Lee has provided a
positive image of sexu-
ality for all women,
regardless of race or
color.
an looks at male bonding as it develops two
men's view of success in the worlds of work and
women. Couching these basic social questions
in the form of very entertaining comedy, each
filmmaker consistently draws each character in
the films in a non-exploitive manner. This satis-
fying m~xture of opposites perhaps helps to ac-
count for the enthusiastic crowds lining up to
see these films.
Nola Darling is not a one-man woman. She
needs three lovers Gamie Overstreet, Greer
Childs and Mars Blackmon) to keep her grati-
fied. By having them all, she lives her sexual
life like a man instead of accepting the tradi-
tional woman's role of demanding a long-term
commitment of marriage and family from one
man. While interacting with the three men in
her life, Nola also confronts lesbianism, rape,
Liberating Black Female Stereotypes
By Darcy DeMarco
young black woman who enjoys sex with
A a number of men must be either a prosti-
tute or a nymphomaniac, a "freak" who
needs immediate professional psycholog-
ical help. Right? Wrong, says Spike Lee in his
new film, She's Gotta Have It, a short, snappy
work that points out the contrasts and contradic-
tions in typical Hollywood treatment of male-
female relationships.
Shot in 11 days in black and white in
Brooklyn, She's Gotta Have It breaks new
ground for black women by liberating their sex-
uality from traditional"Hollywood constraints.
Nola Darling (Tracy CamilaJohns) is a young,
attractive graphic artist who enjoys dating and
making love with several men. Each man, for
his own reasons, wants her all to himself. The
men's reactions to her refusal to choose one of
them, and her response to their reactions hu-
Black Ftlm Review
psychotherapy, and her need to define her role
as a friend with other women. As the film grap-
ples with modern day love in the relationships
of young, hip, black urbanites, She's Gotta
Have It deals mainly with the conflict of Nola's
lifestyle over the more traditional social role as
she carves out her concept of independence.
In Men . .. , Julius Armbrust is a success-
ful, conventional German advertising executive
who discovers on his 12th anniversary that his
wife (Paula Armbrust) is having a torrid affair
with an unemployed, graphic artist (Stefan
Lachner). Incognito, Julius moves in with his
wife's· lover in order to see firsthand what the
lover has that his wife feels he lacks. A rocky,
odd-couple relationship between the two men
turns into a friendship bonded by each man's
bewilderment at defining success and power
with work and women. Julius, however, is not
deterred by his developing camaraderie with
Stefan. His goal is to defend his lair, win back
his mate. In the end he transforms Stefan into
a mirror image of his old self and uses his re-
vived playfulness to recapture his wayward wife.
Or so it seems for awhile ...
The zany spoofing, the making light of
both sexes with a "we're-all-in-this-together"
manner in each film humanizes the characters
enough for us to see ourselves in their confu-
sion. The comedy softens our own daily anxie-
ties with our evolving sexual manners, anxieties
that result as we attempt to change our limited
social roles in our society. The film's dilemmas
are good natured enough to take the edge off
morously reveal various male hyprocrisies - the
same hypocrisies perpetuated in many films-
concerning women and sex. By liberating Nola
from these hypocrisies, Lee has provided a posi-
tive image of sexuality for all women, regard-
less of race or color.
Even in the post-feminist era, the film sex-
uality of women, and particularly black wom-
en, remains capitve to the all-powerful male.
Black women, when they appear in film, are
relegated to the roles of prostitute, over-sexed
women of easy virtue, or nonsexual matriarchs.
All of these roles portray black women as one-
dimensional, subordinating their personalities
to relationships with pimps, boyfriends or oth-
er male figures. The sexual self of black women
remains within these constraints; their bodies are
either commodities to be sold or bartered in ex-
change for money and material goods or vessels
Fall 1986
our fear of the unknown and the uncontrolla-
ble . Yet neither film delves deeply into the
shadow side of our lives.
Which brings us to the aspects of our dark
side, or the "what if... ?" both Lee and Dorrie
deftly side step. What if... Nola Darling were
killed by Jamie, her rapist, in a fit of anger?
What if Nola would have felt diminished
enough by the rape to cower and marry Jamie?
Or even turn to life as a lesbian? What if...
Julius Armbrust had beaten Paula after finding
out about her affair? Or if Paula would have
never revealed her affair, using it as a source of
secret power overJulius in their continuing mar-
riage? Or, what ifJulius, Stefan and Paula had
ended up in a successful menage-a-trois relation-
ship? How does society handle these controver-
sial, sometimes self-sustaining relationships,
that fly in the face of its set norms? Neither She's
Gotta Have It nor Men. . . looks at the radical
solutions that life sometimes offers up to un-
wieldy problems. Is it that general audiences are
not ready for the dark comedy and ambiguity
that My Beauttful Laundrette and Mona Lisa in-
corporate into their vision? Or is it that films
that reach general audiences don't handle reso-
lutions that fracture our agreed upon sense of
values and norms?
It is almost impossible to be depressed dur-
ing an outbreak of belly-deep laughter. Spike
Lee and Doris Dorrie were wise to choose come-
dy as a vehicle for their films' stories. The satire
gently forces discovery. Comedy so lightly ex-
amining blots out th.e sense of hopelessness that
expressly created to give men pleasure and/or bear
their children. They exercise little or no control
over their own sexual response and enjoyment.
Like Simone in Mona Lisa their entire sexual be-
ing is shaped by the man or men in their lives,
who regard their wishes and desires as incidental
to theirs. If women enjoy sex, it must be because
they are getting paid for it, or because they are
"freaks." As Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee) says in
She's Gotta Have It, "All men want freaks; we
just don't want them for a wife."
If black female sexuality is captive to the
dominating male, white female sexuality is cap-
tive to the threat of male rejection and violence.
While black female characters are permitted a
small measure of sexual initiative through the role
of prostitute - it is accepted, and even expected,
that a hooker be black-white women are permit-
ted none, and are violently punished when they
exercise it. White women remain within the con-
straints of a monogamous, male-dominant rela-
tionship. Most film roles continue to portray the
white woman as wife or lover, emotionally de-
pendent on a man, or as desperately unhappy
because such a relationship eludes her. Yet within
the monogamous, "ideal" relationship, her sex-
uality is often repressed or warped.
27
julius in the gonlla mask,
with his wzje Paula, and
her lover Stefan, in the
film Men by Dons Dorn·e.
(Photo: New Yorker Films)
arises in our struggle to mold contemporary rela-
tionships' into something comfortable for our-
selves and our partners. We leave the films feel-
ing good, but my sense is that we still do not
have a firm hold on all of the elements or on
our options toward a more satisfying resolution.
Perhaps the real contribution of the suc-
cessful crossover independent films like She's
Gotta Have It and Men. . . can be to help to
familiarize audiences with other ways of seeing
film. And as these audiences begin to crave the
special quality that independents bring to film
in more popular ventures such as She's Gotta
Have It and Men . .. , stronger films that take
the audience even deeper into the human ex-
perience, such as a Mona Lisa and My Beauttful
Laundrette can begin to find a stronger niche
with larger film audiences. Let us continue now
that the start is so strong and so promising. •
InJust Between Friends, a modern, subur-
ban homemaker (Mary Tyler Moore) learns af-
ter her husband's death that he had been hav-
ing an affair with her friend (Christine Lahti).
Lahti's character, a single career woman, is
shown to be unfulfilled because she wants a hus-
band and a child, and her career, which is point-
edly blamed for breaking up a previous mar-
riage, will not permit them. By the end of the
film, Moore has realized that it was her uptight, F:male sexual free-
near-frigid behavior that caused her husband to dom in the films of
seek solace elsewhere, and she has managed to
relax enough to accept Lahti's bearing his child. the past decade often
The story ends with a happy "family" scene as results in violence for
the women, now reconciled, tearfully view a vid-
eo of the late husband, humbly grateful to the both black and white
man who has done so much for them. women.
The sexuality - indeed, the en tire
character-of both women is shown throughout
~ as completely dependent upon him, but in
different ways: Lahti's sexuality is tied to her
need to have love and a child, while Moore's is
an expression of her need to control everything
in her life. Both needed the late husband, who
gave meaning to Lahti's life before his death by
providing her with a child, and showed his wife
continued on p. 34
28
Robert Hooks: The Actor as Independent Producer
By Phyllis Klotlllan
S
tage, film, and television actor
Roben Hooks was a founder of both
the Negro Ensemble Company and-
the D.C. Black Repertory Com-
pany in Washington. Hooks now lives in
Los Angeles, where he seeks to expand his
horizons by becoming an independent pro-
ducer / packager of television and film
propenies. He is producing a special for the
Public Broadcasting System that will pres-
ent a retrospective of the plays performed
by the NEC over the past 20 years.
While developing properties to sell to
studios and television, Hooks has also made
frequent guest appearances on such televi-
sion shows as 227 and Murder, She Wrote.
In this interview with Phyllis R. Klotman,
director of the Black Film Center Archive
at Indiana University, Hooks talks of his ex-
periences as an actor and producer. The in-
terview was conducted in March 1985 after
Hooks received an Oscar Micheaux Award
at the Black Filmmaker Hall of Fame
ceremonies in Oakland, Calif.
BFR: Take us back to 1963 when you first
became interested in becoming a producer.
HOOKS: We were having backers' audi-
tions trying to raise the money to produce
these plays but to no avail. At the time I
was acting in a play called Dutchman by
LeRoi Jones, which was a big hit, and I
remember I was asked to speak to a group
of teenagers in the Chelsea area of New
York City. They asked so many questions
I invited them to my house to discuss act-
ing and perform skits.
These meetings grew to include
teenagers from Harlem, Jamaica, Bedford-
Stuyvesant, and ot~r parts of the city. I
ended up having to knock out a wall of my
rented railway flat and build a stage to ac-
commodate 60 kids. Eventually, I "bor-
rowed" the Cherry Lane Theatre, where we
were doing Dutchman, to use as a show-
case for the kids. They performed improvi-
sations, poetry, and a play.
The play was Happy Ending. We in-
vited their parents and the community. We
didn't invite any press so I didn't realize that
some critics were in attendance. Jerry
Talmer of the New York Post wrote a
favorable article on the play and the per-
formances. So, I thought, if it gets that kind
In
•••••••••••••••••••
Robert Hooks
of review from this production I could prob-
ably get professional actors to do the play.
After a hard struggle,' I got a series of plays
produced with a $35,000 investment.
The plays were an instant success. We
had a great cast including Douglas Turner
Ward, Esther Rolle, Gloria Foster, and my-
self. Well, those were the four of us in
Happy Ending and then in the big play,
Day ofAbsence, we let the best of the kids
do the smaller roles. We called our com-
pany the Group Theatre Workshop.
BFR: Is this the beginning of the Negro En-
semble Company?
HOOKS: I'm getting to that. The plays
were a smash hit. We ran two years and
could have run longer.
We were approached by the Ford
Foundation, which said we would like to
help get your enterprise off the ground. So
Douglas, Gerald Crone, our general man-
ager, and I, gathered in a restaurant and
wrote out a proposal on a tablecloth. After
the submission of a polished version of the
tablecloth we were rewarded with a three-
year grant for $1.5 million and that's how
the Negro Ensemble Company began with
Douglas Turner Ward as the artistic direc-
tor, myself as executive director and Jerry
Crone as the administrative director.
We have won every award possible, in-
Black Fzlm Review
cluding the Pulitzer Prize. We were nomi-
nated two times before that, but we final-
ly won in 1982. We are the most productive
black theater company in the world today,
and it's all because of the need for us to do
our own thing. -
BFR: You went from there to Washington,
D.C. Was it to do the same kind of thing?
HOOKS: Yes, it was. I saw that the Negro
Ensemble Company was successful on all
the levels we had planned and then on
some more levels. I realized that it brought
white people and black people closer to-
gether in the cultural sense because when
we started doing plays steeped in black cul-
ture, the white audiences began sharing our
culture with us. They began appreciating
our brilliant writers and directors.
Actually our first play was one written
by a white writer, which didn't sit too well
with a lot of people, but we knew what we
were doing. We were trying to say to the
world that this was a theater company that
is really going to be about a universal kind
of approach and feeling. What's happen-
ing politically in South Africa concerns us
as well as what's happening in Birmingham.
So we did a play on apartheid written by
Peter Weiss-before [Athol] Fugard ap-
peared on the scene. The play was called
The Song ofthe Lusitanian Bogey, and we
have since produced several hundred' plays.
We saw our audience go from 80 percent
black-20 percent white to 50-50. It was
wonderful.
I moved to Washington in 1970 and
built the D.C. Black Repenory Company,
which was modeled after the Negro Ensem-
ble Company. But unfortunately,
Washington is not New York. Washington
was very unreceptive in the sense of sup-
port from those in positions to help. They
were our only hope because, at that time,
large numbers of the city's people were poor
and unemployed.
Washington is a very middle-class and
upper middle-class bourgeois town. Being
my hometown, one of the reasons I left and
one of the reasons I went back was because
I thought I could do something about that.
BFR: I want to hear about the move to
California because that takes us into film.
HOOKS: Oh yes. My first film was Sweet
Fall 1986
Love, Bitter on the East Coast, one of the
first interracial movies with Dick Gregory,
Diane Varsey, and Don Murray. Then I did
a play in New York called Where's Dad-
dy?, a William Inge play, and I think Otto
Preminger came backstage and said he
wanted to talk with me about this movie.
I thought, "Why not?" Otto Preminger,
one of the last of the Hollywood hot shots.
Anyway, he offered me the movie Hurry
Sundown and I did that. Then I got
NYPD, the 'television series about the New
York Police Department. Soon my interests
began focusing on producing for film and
television.
I really had had it with theater as a
producer. It's just futile, you know. You
do greatowork artistically, but you can't sur-
vive and people work for nothing. You can't
pay what you should be paying them. It's
just so difficult.
T'he next natural step for me was to
move into the mainstream, producing for
film and television. Not as an independent
producer who solely produces "black
movies" that can only be shown in certain
specialized markets. No, I want to produce
quality material that appeals to all au-
diences.
To be successful, you have to know the
demographics and you have to understand
marketing . You have to understand distri-
bution, especially. I've been working and
learning over the last seven years and I know
that in order to be an effective, successful
producer, you have to pay your dues before
you jump out and produce a little old m'ov-
ie just because somebody gives you the
money to do it.
So, I've been working on the building
of Robert Hooks Productions, which is a
new production entity. Under the banner
of Robert Hooks Productions there are sev-
en flags and each of those flags is a sepa-
rate film or television production. Present-
ly I'nl juggling seven projects. They're all
looking very, very good. I won't go into the
specifics, but four of them are feature films.
Three of the films are being consid-
JUMP CUT
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ered by Columbia Pictures. The other mov-
ie is based on the book The Ants of God
and our treatment is being looked at by
Clint Eastwood. There is also a situation
comedy project being considered by Embassy
Television. It's called All in Good Time.
BFR: Have you done the pilot?
HOOKS: No, we haven't presented it to the
networks yet. We're still in the develop-
ment stages of that. Then there's a Movie
of the Week that I'm working on, the
Robert Goodman Story. You know, Robert
Goodman is the pilot who was shot down
over Syria.
BFR: Is Jesse Jackson going to play himself?
,HOOKS: Well, it's a thought. Either he'll
play himself or I'll play him. We are in the
process of putting a second draft treatment
on that. So, I have three television projects
as well as the four films. I'm also trying to
work on a co-ventureship with the Negro
Ensemble Company and a major studio or
a major network. The purpose of this work-
ing partnership is to create some projects
for film and television, get them produced,
with the Negro Ensemble Company par-
ticipating in the profits as well as in the
creative end of it, to help them survive.
It will utilize the company's writers,
directors and actors. \Y/ e hope that some as-
sociate producers would be able to work on
this co-venture. That would move some of
these talented people into the mainstream
of the movie and the television industry.
Otherwise, there are a lot of talented peo-
ple out there that will never get an oppor-
tunity to work professionally in this in-
dustry.
It's a shame that the industry is so
monopolized. It will take a few indepen-
dent producers to have a couple of hit mo-
vies and a couple of television things to
build that good strong leverage for them-
selves, thus making it possible for others to
come in the door. But the industry is not
going to reform on its own. The industry
is happy with ex~luding 'blacks and other
29
minorities. It's a terrible thing to say, but
it's true. There just is no real compassion.
It's all about making money. You under-
stand it because we live in a capitalistic so-
ciety. You understand the need to be com-
mercially successful, but whatever
happened to humanity? When do you
reach out and help other people?
BFR: I talked with Martin Ritt, director of
Sounder, a few weeks ago and he told me
how difficult it was to get the movie dis-
tributed even in the 1970s. NormanJewi-
son apparently had problems with A Sol-
diers's Story.
HOOKS: Sure, NormanJewison had a very
difficult time getting A Soldier's Story
picked up by Warner Brothers. A couple
of studios turned him down. The only rea-
son Columbia said "yes" was because he
made it a pan of the deal he already had
with them. Some studios and producers just
don't know what they have when they have
it. The fact is that A Soldier's Story has
made somewhere in the neighborhood of
$30 million so far, and it only' cost about
$6.5 million, so they're in the black. Any
movie that goes in the black you can then
parlay on for your bext project.
BFR: Is there anything else important hap-
pening out here that you can point to?
HOOKS: Well, let me just reiterate that
what I'm seeing and what other black in-
dependent producers are seeing is the be-
ginning of a turnaround for blacks in film
and television, specifically with the success
of The Cosby Show on television and A
Soldier's Story at the box office. The suc-
cess of these two will allow black producers
to begin to be considered seriously. I want
Paramount and Universal and Warner
Brothers and all the other studios to accept
me as a serious filmmaker and not as a film-
maker who just wants to do the "jive"
things. I want to make movies that make
money by satisfying crossover audiences. I
know how to do that by making quality
movies that have substance. •
30
By KarenJaehne
ona Lisa is as unlikely as films
M come - a screwball comedy in
film noir with the nair given an
extra twist by the presence of the
glamorous Cathy Tyson as Simone, an al-
luring prostitute. A recently released con-
vict, George, played by Bob Hoskins as a
cross between a bulldog and a fireplug, be-
comes her chauffeur and Simone effects his
outer and inner transformation, first teach-
ing him how to dress, then how to be a
"knight errant."
Race in the film is a counterweight to
the other salient difference between
them - Simone's icy sophistication contrast-
ed with George's boorish loyalty- but it is
her role as a black prostitute that gives Ge-
orge the illusion of moral superiority. Let
us avoid falling into the same trap.
The double-edged sword of a black
prostitute used by writer David Leland and
director/ co-author Neil Jordan makes rnany
women uncomfortable despite the assured
sexuality and exhilarating humor of Mona
Lisa. As the song has it: "Mona Lisa, Mona
Lisa, men have blamed you ... " But is that
the problem of men, or is it Mona Lisa's?
Who, if anyone, is to blame for the
palpably illicit "turn-on" this film undenia-
bly offers? Time out for indulging in some
pat theory of movie going: Films allow us
to peek at socialty 'unaccepuble desires and
the celluloid characters lift our suppressed
actions into the realm of possibility. In
Mona Lisa, interracial sex is delivered-
inexpicably - as if it were the London
Times. It is posited as normal not excep-
tional; nonetheless, it occurs on the fringes
and between gangsters and prostitutes, thus
nay-saying the normality.
The mood of Mona Lisa, alternating
between the world of pimps and tough
hookers and the slippery, subtle world of
pleasures taken behind the closed doors of
London's West End hotels, never lets us for-
get we have crossed a border of the imagi-
nation into a realm where we are precari-
ously gullible. We believe frog-prince
George could obtain the elusive Simone.
We accept that Simone's regular visits to
Kings Cross to watch young prostitutes ply
their dangerous trade stem from her fear
she may return and pity for the girls still
trapped there.
R ~
•••••••••••••••
Black and White Together
Cathy Tyson and Bob Hoskins, stars of Mona Lisa.
Simone's success has led her to more
lucrative assignments that she handles with
impenetrable cool. Yet, however impervi-
ous and mysteriously imperial Simone's
character may be, it must also inspire loath-
ing in moviegoers tired of seeing black
women as prostitutes and victims.
DirectorJordan compensated for that
image by placing Simone in the psycholog-
ical role as master / mistress in the classic so-
cial"'relationships between blacks and
whites; George is first her servant and, af-
ter he falls in love with her, her slave. The
impossibility of such a love story, particu-
larly in light of Simone's pragmatic exasper-
ation with George's expressions of protec-
tive jealousy, has some of the goofiness of
a screwball comedy where lovers jockey for
positions and power. Here, where the lovers
are a classy black hooker and a besotted
white ex-con, we can't help but want poor,
vulnerable, klutzy George to succeed in
bringing Simone (a dusky version of a
Hitchcock heroine) out of the underworld
and into the reality of sex-conquering love.
This may be the first time miscegenation
has been the solution and not the problem
in the movies, for the taboo of mixed rela-
tionships is rarely breached in the cinema
except tragically.
Simone's sheer erotic attraction recom-
Black Fzlm Review
(Photo: Island Pictures)
mends itself in an ironic and self-
contradictory fashion. Her prostitution of
herself is not desperate; it is as businesslike
and as professional as any Wall Street deal-
ing. She does not need George - except as
part of her business of being an object of
eroticism. But while he, however, is not
satisfied being a bodyguard without access
to her body, for Simone to embrace George
would be like the Mona Lisa breaking into
a grin. What the movie proposes is that sex
is power. Simone has a right and capacity
to wield that power so as to deny the phal-
locratic associations of the sceptre.
Mona Lisa explores the heights and
depths of love for sale, from the hypocrisy
in Michael Caine as the slimy boss, point-
edly named Mortwell, to the breathtaking
honesty of Simone's own unrequited love
for another young prostitute who had
dropped out of sight. In this world, as creat-
ed by Irishman NeilJordan (who was it that
said the Irish are allergic to fact but not to
truth?), George is left to wallow in his emo-
tions, while Simone slips salmon-like up-
stream to perpetuate a myth.
The myth and happy ending have giv-
en many a critic pause. "Life at its cruelest,"
wrote Joel Siegel of the Washington, D.C.,
City Paper, in a rare defense of the sublime,
"would not be so heartless as to deny
Fall 1986
George's humility and inarticulate decen-
cy some compensation for the love he so
selflessly strives for but never quite attains."
Life might. Art, the voice of our dreams,
wouldn't. •
Chitlins and Tapioca
By Dar~y DeMarco
t has been described as racist, hilarious,
I bland and aware. Blacks have com-
plained that it trivializes affumative ac-
tion by making it seem that black stu-
dents have an easier time in graduate
school. One audience found it offensive;
another enjo ed it. And the critics have ei-
ther destroyed it, praised it, or complained
that it did not go far enough. But wherev-
er in Boston it has played, it has provoked
discussion and anger. The film is Soul Man,
a New World Pictures release.
The story focuses on Mark (C. Thomas
Howell), a spoiled UCLA student whose
goal is to graduate from Harvard Law School
and then rake in the riches that he assumes
will naturally follow. However, Mark'sfa-
ther has a surprise for him: as part of his
maturing experience, Mark has to raise the
$50,000 tuition himself. Determined to go
to Harvard Mark decides to pretend to be
black (though aided by some experimen-
tal tanning pills, he does not look even re-
motel black once the transformation oc-
curs) and wins a scholarship reserved for
black students.
It is here that the movie and the con-
trovery begin.
How would a filmmaker go about
making a mass-market movie about racial
issues that whites would go see and blacks
would not find offensive? This is the ques-
tion in my mind after seeing Soul Man.
And at this writing, my thoughts about the
film keep coming back to this central issue.
"Racism isn't funny," one black Harvard
Law student told the Boston Globe. He's
right, but how many whites-and the tar-
get audience for Hollywood films is
white - would even consider seeing a seri-
ous movie with a racial theme?
If the object of the film is to encourage
greater sensitivity and awareness on the pan
of whites (and clumsy though the attempt
may have been, Soul Man appears to have
had this aim), what other possible way is
there but through humor? When one con-
siders the current light-minded mood of the
movie-going public, it becomes clear there
is no other way, particularly if one wants
to reach and maintain a broad audience.
As a white woman, I found Soul Man
a complex film that could not be dismissed
as an offensive series of racial jokes. N ei-
ther could it be praised as a satirical, origi-
nal comedy. The film takes strong jabs at
Southern Californians, therapists, wealthy
WASPs, and money-hungry, air-headed
college students. It also forces the white
members of the audience to confront their
own buried prejudices and stereotypes.
My companion, who is also white, said
afterwards he was extremely uncomfonable
with the bald qepiction of whites making
racially based assumptions about Mark. The
sight of supposedly liberal whites in one of
the more progressive environments in the
country fighting for the right to get Mark
on their basketball team, and of a female
law student telling him after a sexual ses-
sion that "all the rumors are true," should -
make most white people squirm.
And the fact that Mark isn't really
black-and the audience knows it-makes
the experience even more discomfiting, be-
.
cause the scenes point out exactly how ir-
rational and deep-seated such prejudices
and stereotypes are. It's one thing to see rac-
ist behavior in a less-educated, poorer per-
son of a different social group. You can al-
ways rationalize it away, saying, "They don't
know any better." It's something else en-
tirely to see it in characters you identify
with, and happening right in your own
backyard. If the less educated and the poor
simply don't know better, then what's the
excuse for those of us who do?
One positive aspect of the film is the
development of Mark as a more conscious
person. When the film begins, he is a typi-
cal wealthy UCLA student, interested only
in parties and blondes. Brought up in af-
fluence, he knows nothing of sacrifice and
hard work. Yet the experience of being per-
ceived as black gradually matures him.
When he first arrives in Cambridge,
he is immediately attracted to a vapid
blonde student. His first response to a black
woman student, played by Rae Dawn
Chong, is to her looks. But as the film
progresses and he suffers daily indignities
from fellow students, the landlord, the po-
lice, and others, his attitudes change. He
turns away from his blonde playmate and
comes to appreciate and respect Chong,
whose character is a woman of some sub-
stance. The Beach Boys, whose music he
had loved, now strike him as vacuous. And
racial jokes he earlier would not have heard
increasingly anger him.
Mark's relationship with Chong's
character is intriguing and a small step for-
ward for mass-market" films. At first at-
tracted to her beauty, Mark finds himself
falling in love with her strength, determi-
nation, and intelligence - qualities he had
never looked for in a woman. Her good
opinion becomes important to him, and
continues important once he reveals him-
self as white, indicating a profound change
of consciousness on his part.
I give the film credit in this area, for
it is the first instance in my recollection of
a contemporary, mass-audience film that
31
portrays a young, intelligent black woman
as wonhy of, and receiving, the respect and
love of a white male, with no hint of sexu-
al stereotyping. While it is true that when
Mark kisses her he is still "black," the au-
dience knows he is white and accepts the
kiss and their subsequent pairing off at the
end of the film.
The film's major problem is that the
producers couldn't decide who their target
audience was. The first half hour is a typi-
cal juvenile comedy-gimmicks, party
jokes, and high school-level dialogue and
acting. Once Mark reaches Cambridge, the
issues gradually ~ecome.more important,
and while the tone fails to rise above a cer-
tain pedestrian level, a lot of good points
do get made.
Unfortunately, the ending descends
into pure garbage as Mark, suffering guilt
pangs over taking the scholarship from a
truly needy student (Chong) is found out
and brought before the student judiciary.
Perhaps out of guilt for having made a few
strong points earlier, the producers now
hurtle the story into Let's Make a Deal in-
anity, effectively signaling the audience that
the racial issues raised earlier shouldn't be
taken too seriously.
The film does not go far enough. Hav-
ing gotten the audience to accept what
sometimes amounted to pretty strong criti-
cism of white attitudes, the producers chick-
ened out at the end and lost the opportu-
nity to drive their point home. 'Had they
decided to target it to a smaller, more
specific audience, they could have risked
alienating some people by not having Mark
get away with his deception,' which he ul-
timately does. •
Pretty Bright Moon,
Pretty Dumb Plot
By Arthur J. Johnson
ust because "Under the Cherry Moon"
J marks Prince's directorial debut and
only his second appearance in front
. of the camera, don't expect amateur
night at the movies.
Instead, sit back and enjoy a true feast
for the eyes, a film buffs dream-Michael
Ballhaus' sumptuous black and white
cinematography, reminiscent of Warner
Brothers' best 1940's melodramas; high
fashion; faces worthy of Gloria Swanson's
in Sunset Boulevard lament "We had faces
then!"; and music used sparingly and ef-
fectively to advance the story.
In short, Cherry Moon is a 180~degree
turn away from Prince's antics in Purple
Rain and that's sure to disappoint those ex-
pecting to see "Purple Rain II." One real
complaint to register about Cherry Moon
32
is its wafer-thin plot. But Prince is to be
commended for doing something com-
pletely different as a follow-up to his ex-
tremely successful filrn debut. He has made
a film that is sure to alienate his young fans,
who will scoff at the use of black and white
and the absence of scenes with Prince per-
forming.
In this romantic comedy, Prince plays
Christopher Tracy, a part-time piano play-
er and full-time gigolo on the loose in the
south of France where he and his best bud-
dy and confidante, Tricky Gerome
Benton-Morris Day's sidekick in Purple
Rain), seek rich women. When Christopher
sets his sights upon a young heiress (Kristin
Scott Thomas), he doesn't foresee that he
will fall in love and, for the first time, put
romance before finance. It's the classic and
time-worn story of gigolo meets girl, girl
hates gigolo, gigolo woos girl, girl falls in
love with gigolo.
What Prince manages to bring to the
dusty old plot is the keen eye of a seasoned
filmmaker. Each shot is a carefully planned
study in light and dark, texture, and per-
spective, making Cherry Moon a splendid
work. Prince also has avoided making the
much dreaded "music video" movie and es-
chews MTV musical montages to take up
screen time or to tell the story, slight though
it is.
The fact that Prince's music is down-
played is further evidence that this film is
not an excuse to sell an LP. It is instead a
movie that, with the addition of a few sub-
titles, could probably pass for a modern si-
lent film. Prince already uses his enormous
eyes and mouth provocatively and wears
enough makeup, mascara and eye-liner to
rival that worn by silent film star Rudolph
Valentino.
As an actor, Prince is quite natural in
the part although the role is not exactly a
demanding one. While Benton and Tho-
mas are adequate, the real standout is Fran-
cesca Annis, who is wonderfully wicked as
the stunning society matron who pays for
Christopher's services. Movie buffs will
remember her exceptional performance as
Lady Macbeth in Roman Polanski's film of
Macbeth. Her dialogue-less opening scene,
in which she and Christopher flirt with one
another, is a screen gem.
But there is a down side to the film
aside from the tired plot. A dark-skinned
black woman with widely spaced teeth is
shown in a brief scene as a menace to
Christopher as she ~ags for his services.
Many members of the predominantly black
audience, with which I viewed the film
laughed when the woman was shown. Was
this intentional on director Prince's part?
Since this woman was the only black wom-
an in the film with a speaking part, it is
indeed curious that she is used as an object
of ridicule.
This brings us to another issue: in both
Purple Rain and Cherry Moon Prince's lead-
ing ladies have been white. Such casting
shows how much American society has
changed since Sidney Poitier could only
peck Katherine Hepburn's cheek in a rear
view mirror shot in 1967's Guess Who's
Coming to Dinner? and only hold poor
blind Elizabeth Hartman's hand in A Patch
ofBlue, even though the novel on which
the film was based made them lovers. And
remember when network programmers
were upset when Harry Belafonte held Pet-
ula Clark's hand while singing together on
a TV special in the late 1960s?
What message does Prince send his
young black fans with this casting? Perhaps
Prince's light complexion makes the sight
of a black man with a white woman mak-
ing love less provocative. Perhaps Howard
Rollins, Glynn Turman, or Danny Glover
would provide more of a visual shock to
white audiences if they romanced Kathleen
Turner, Sally Field, or Jane Fonda on cel-
luloid. So far, Hollywood has not offered
such opportunities.
Or perhaps Prince is, not so subtly,
telling his young. black and - dark-
skinned-female fans that they are welcome
to fatten his wallet but should never hope
to be wined and dined by His Royal Bad-
ness. •
Makin' Whoopi
By David Nicholson
hOOPi Goldberg's new movie,
W Jumpin' Jack Flash, is the first
film we have had in many years
that stars a black woman. We
have to go back to Sounder, which starred
Cicely Tyson, or certain films of the blax-
ploitation era to find another American
movie in which a black woman plays a lead-
ing role.
Given that, it would be nice to give
Jumpin 'Jack Flash even qualified approval.
The best that can be said about it is that
it is for diehard Whoopi Goldberg fans.
Others will find it a typical Hollywood film
that demeans blacks and then adds insult
to injury with a pointless plot, silly slapstick
comedy, and limp acting.
In the opening scenes of the film the
camera pans the walls of an apartment,
showing several movie posters, all of them
featuring white heroines. It then shows a
painting that contains a shadowy black face,
with two white eyes peering out. That jux-
taposition occurs later in the film and is a
central part of the sub-text.
Goldberg plays Terry, a computer
operator at a bank who spends her days
listening to her friends talk about what they
did the night before and her nights watch-
ing white ~ouples embrace in romantic
Black Fzlm Review
movies on television.
The plot of the film has to do with a
mysterious message Terry gets on her com-
puter from a British spy trapped in an East-
ern European country. He's trying to find
someone to go to help him get home.
The title of the film comes from the
song by the Rolling Stones of the same
name, a song Terry uses to figure out the
password so she and the British spy can
communicate via computer. It's a typical
piece of Hollywood calculatedness: casting
Whoopi to appeal to blacks, using the Roll-
ing Stones to apppeal to whites.
In a larger sense, the use of that Roll-
ing Stones song is a clue to one of the main
things that's wrong with the movie. All of
the cultural references in the film are white.
When they aren't, the references are from
that gray, watered-down area where black
culture intersects with white culture to cre-
ate something neither black nor white and
lacking any pungency at all.
Whoopi Goldberg made a career out
of that kind of cultural mixing. Take her
last name, and the fact that she wears
dreadlocks. When she was photographed
for the cover of Rolling Stone, she wore blue
contact lenses. In the Broadway show that
first brought her to national prominence,
she did routines that ignored the bound-
aries of race, imitating blacks, whites, Jews,
men, and women.
Still, her persona was appealing
enough to land her the lead role in The Col-
or Purple. InJumpin'Jack Flash, you want
to ask yourself just what the fuss was all
about. Whoopi plays Terry as a foul-
mouthed child, a female Eddie Murphy,
and there's nothing appealing about listen-
ing to her curse her way from one side of
the screen to another.
Black characters in American movies
are usually powerless. They're mammies,
coons, and Uncle Toms-objects of deri-
sion. Here, Whoopi reinvents the Sambo
stereotype. She's Moms Mabley, without
Moms' good humor and folk wisdom, in the
guise of a liberated black woman of the 80s.
What gives the lie to the pretense of
liberation is the nature of her character.
When Whoopi isn't playing Terry as a foul-
mouthed child (most of the time), she's
supposed to be playing Terry as lonely, but
strong and independent woman. But even
if she wanted to get involved, she couldn't
because there are no black men in the film.
Except a security guard at the bank who
spends his time watching white women put-
ting on their panty hose on his closed cir-
cuit television, and the great Roscoe Lee
Browne, whose deep voice and impressive
abilities are wasted in his small part as a CIA
official.
Because there are so few black men in
the film, it's up to the white man to save
Terry when she really gets in trouble. At
the end of the film, the spy comes on-screen
for the first time. Whoopi and her English-
Fall 1986
man go off hand in hand - and the scene
subverts whatever attempts the- movie has
made to convince us she's black. It's as if
every black woman's dream is to be rescued
by a white man, while her co-workers stand
up and cheer in a reprise of the last scene
of An Officer and a Gentleman. •
Non~Actors In Gripping
Limbo
By Pat Aufderheide
itting in Limbo is the kind of film
S soundtrack echoes the pop culture at-
. that rescues the reputation of cine-
ma verite. Produced through the
National Film Board of Canada's
Alternative Drama Program, and starring
non-actors, it captures the tensions and con-
flicts of black teenagers who are sitting in
limbo in Montreal.
Pat (Pat Dillon) lives in a cramped
apartment with her girlfriends, both single
mothers. They share the exasperations and
ordinary joys of a life that revolves around
their mothers, children, and the church. Pat
falls in love with high school dropout Fa-
bian (Fabian Gibbs), who prides himself on
his cool macho moves and who draws his
strength from the music of the black sub-
culture.
When Pat gets pregnant, Fabian sud-
denly tries to go straight, finding - against
all odds-an apartment and a job. But the
pressures of poverty - there's a hilarious
scene where Pat and Fabian borrow a
friend's car and drive out to the landlord's
to demand heat for their apartment-
challenge the young relationship. And Fa-
bian's boredom at a dead-end job, com-
bined with his inability to match his con-
sumer desires with his actual income, soon
end his working career.
These are good kids, but everything is
against them. And when Pat miscarries, all
the film's conflicts are centered on her hos-
pital bed. There, she mourns her baby,
while Fabian attempts to get up the cour-
age to visit her. Was her mother right to
say she could not have a child' without the
protection of a family? Were her friends
right to say she should have stuck with the
girls? Does she have a future? Does Fabian?
Sitting in Limbo is a film that doesn't
flinch at reality, but even though reality for
these kids is grim, the film isn't depress-
ing. Carrying the film beyond an exercise
in social work is the fact that it's about
struggle, not about victims. The situation
ought to reduce the characters to victims,
but they have enormous strengths. Pat, Fa-
bian, their friends, and family, insist on
their right to a future, and that insistence
creates anger and insight, not a third-party,
comfortable kind of sorrow.
The filmmakers,]ohn N. Smith, Giles
Walker, and David Wilson, have long ex-
perience in documentary and docudrama.
They developed the film by long in.terviews
with black Montreal teenagers, and then
left the script open to improvisation on set.
"The dramatic element," said Smith, comes
from the fact that the scenes in the film are
made up from other people's experiences-
experiences tha~ are close to but different
from those of the actual people in the film. "
The filmmakers adopted a shooting ra-
tio typical of documentary- 20-to-l- to
leave time to assess assembled segments of
the film as they went along. The small
crew- never more than five - and the use
of cinema1!._~[ite techniques results in a grit-
ty, authentic look, and the reggae-rich
mosphere of the community they filmed.
The result is' a film that carries the
voice of its participants, and that transmits
a lived experience far beyond the borders
of Pat and Fabian's world. •
In Search of Freedom
By Theresa Ford
y the 17th century, there were large
B
numbers of African slaves in Brazil
working on the sugar cane planta-
tions. Many qut/ombo (or settle-
ments of runaway slaves) existed through-
'out the country, but the largest and most
famous was made up of blacks who escaped
from the Republic of Palmares.
These former slaves liberated them-
selves and traveled to neighboring towns
freeing their brethren, who then joined
their community. They were aided in their
efforts by the war that Portugal waged
against Spain, and the Dutch occupation
of Pernambuco.
Although founded by Blacks,
Palmares became a haven for Portuguese
Jews, Indians and poor whites as well. Land
was owned communally and each jurisdic-
tion was governed by an elected council of
elders. At its zenith, Palmares spanned ap-
proximately 240 miles and contained
20,000 people. Its inhabitants resisted
numerous attacks by the Dutch and the
Portuguese before finally being crushed.
Director Carlos Diegues fuses histori-
cal fact with folklore in Qut/ombo, a film
about Palmares that he calls "the first
democratic society we know of in the West-
ern hemisphere." The film stars Zeze Mot-
ta of Xica fame as Dandara, a female war-
rior, Antonio Pompeo as Zumbi, the last
leader of Palmares, and Toni Tornado as
Ganga Zumba, Zumbi's predecessor. It also
33
features Grande Otelo, considered by many
to be the dean of Brazilian actors.
The story opens -with a newly arrived
slave leading a spontaneous uprising and
taking his group to Palmares, bringing with
him the community's first white settlers.
Once there he is crowned "Ganga Zumba"
the new leader of the qui/ombo and under
his leadership Palmares prospers.
During an attack by whites, a young
boy is abducted and raised as the servant
of a white priest. Zumbi returns to Palmares
as an adult and becomes a fierce and cun-
ning warrior. Later Ganga Zumba makes a
pact with the Portuguese and unwittingly
leads a group of the people into capitivity.
He corrects his mistake by staging his own
death, which is blamed on the whites. The
people are thereby united and the splinter
group returns to the mountains.
With Dandara's help, Zumbi valiant-
ly protects his people until the Portuguese
government becoming increasingly threat-
ened, dispatches a special army equipped
with cannons that eventually destroy Pla-
mares and its residents. The lone survivor
is a young boy, who later becomes the new
leader of the resistance movement and con-
tinues the struggle.
The cinematography and the stirring
musical score in QUI/ambo heighten the
drama in the filn1. The music also serves to
remind us that despite the African origin
of the slaves, this is a uniquely Brazilian ex-
penence.
The visual effects are' stunning. The
sight of the warriors' bodies painted in
many colors or the entire village celebrat-
ing leaves a lasting impression. When Gan-
ga Zumba prepares Zumbi for battle, we
sense that something important is hap-
penIng.
In addition, there are other effective
uses of imagery in the movie. Palm leaves
wet with the morning dew are later splashed
with Zumbi's blood at the time of his
death. The mythical quality of the film is
illustrated by the comet that awake~s Zum-
bi and guides him back to his people. In
another scene, Zumbi's spear bursts- into
flame before he goes into battle.
QUI/ambo is more a story about a peo-
ple than any specific individuals, although
we do get glimpses of the leaders. Ganga
Zumba is portrayed as a proud and wise
man, save his one fatal error, with a pen-
chant for attractive women. As Dandara,
Zeze Motta is fire, strength, and dignity
personified. She invokes the image of
Queen Nzinga, an African woman who also
fought the Portuguese during roughly the
same time period in what is now Angola.
Zumbi exudes youthful energy and cour-
age . •
34
SAG,from P.4
minority characters.
During the prot~acted negotiations be-
tween the Screen Actors Guild and the tel-
evision industry thi;"summer, an attempt
was made to include some of those sugges-
tions as a part of all SAG contracts.
Proposals included making discriminatory
practices subject to arbitration, strengthen-
ing present SAG antidiscrimination poli-
cies, and removing the confidentiality of
production companies' minority hiring
statistics. Only the last was adopted, but
SAG Affirmative Action Officer Rodney
Mitchell hailed it as a "breakthrough" be-
cause the statistics, if made public, could
be used to encourage producers to improve
their hiring practices.
As a direct result of the March confer-
ence, Screen Actors Guild board member
Paul Winfield has been appointed as a liai-
son to the national AFL-CIO and its
Washington lobbyists to explore tax incen-
tives for producers who employ large num-
bers of minority performers. In his efforts
to win favor with this idea, Winfield has
already met with both the Congressional
Black Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus.
Two other approaches involve the use
of state film commissions to adopt and en-
sure fair employment policies, thus putting
the responsibility at the local level.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., lo-
cal union officials and the city government
have joined to create two innovative projects
to get the film and television industries to
improve minority hiring practices. Last year,
at the direction of Mayor Marion Barry,
David Simon, director of the city's Office
of Motion Picture and Television Develop-
ment, met with National Association of
Broadcast Employees and Technicians Lo-
cal 15 business agent Barrett Seeley, Arts
D.C. (a government-sponsored arts employ-
ment agency), and the local Depanment of
Employment Services, to design a career
training program.
The program was implemented with
a $32,000 grant from the city and in-kind
donations from five local film and televi-
sion production houses. It allowed five lo-
cal youths to receive five months each of on-
the-job training with the contributing
production companies~Panicipatingin the
program were Guggenheim Productions,
Washington Source for Lighting, Hen-
ninger Video, Organizing Media Project,
and the American Federation of State,
County, and Municipal Employees.
Three of the five youths are presently
working full- or pan-time in a craft, the
fourth has decided to go to college while
working pan-time for the C-Span Cable
Network, and the fifth will soon be placed
in a job. •
Howard, /romp. 5
some $15,000, Ford, who speaks French,
and two Howard students, Ellen Sumter
and Stephen Cobb, neither of whom spoke
the language, flew to Burkina Faso in early
December 1985."
I insisted that in spite of the language
barrier we could work together given the
opportunity. After 10 to 15 days, the stu-
dents were communicating without the
benefit of an interpreter. They managed to
actually pick it up that way, "Ford said, ad-
ding that the experience proved "we can
work across language barriers."
The African-American crew's "gruel-
ing" schedule called for coverage of almost
the entire country and living with the peo-
ple of each village for two days. The crew
Stereotypes, fromp. 27
the error of her ways after his death,
making her a more fit companion for
his best friend, who conveniently
moved in to take his place in his wife's
life. Neither of the women is ever sex-
ually free, or even thinks of being so.
Female sexual freedom in the
films of the past decade often results
in violence for both black and white
women, but much more so for white,
because it is the white woman who has
achieved more actual freedom in our
society, and who poses the greatest
threat to male dominance. The sexual
self of black women is often shaped by
violence, while for white women vio-
lence results from too-free exercise of
this self. In The Color Purple, Celie's
sexuality is dramatically affected by her
stepfather molesting her. Her total lack
of control over her body continues
throughout her marriage to Mister, and
when she is ultimately awakened by
Shug, it is unclear whether she is
responding as a human being to a
woman who has shown her the gentle-
ness men have denied her, or whether
she is responding as a lesbian. Sexual-
ly she remains a question mark; she
never initiates a relationship with a
man or a woman, and is acted upon,
rather than choosing to act. Perhaps
with good reason: since 1977 and Look-
ing for Mister Goodbar, which began
the spate of anti-woman films that
r~ached a .grisly nadir with Dressed to
Kzll, female sexual initiative has often
resulted in horror, torture, or death.
In contrast, She:r Gotta Have It is
Black Film Review
studied locations the first day and shot the
second.
The making of the film was a "train-
ing classroom," Ford said. "Some of the
(Mrican) students had been studying (film)
for three years and had never been out in
the field," he said.
Shooting was completed in mid-
January of this year, and the film itself was
processed at Howard during the summer.
A work print was then shipped to Burkina
Faso for assembly, ana later four African
crew members, one teacher and three stu-
dents, came to Howard to edit the film un-
der Ford's supervision. The still-untitled
film will officially premiere at FESPACO
87 in February, Ford said. •
a buoyantly pro-woman film that
celebrates black female sexuality. That
an attractive black woman is shown as
desirable to a number of black males
is itself important, marking a change
from the usual assumption that black
women are more sexually exciting and
more available to white men, and that
black men prefer white - preferably
blonde - women; but what is most .
unique about She's Gotta Have It is
that it is the woman who is in con-
trol.
Tracy Camila Johns, provocative
Nola, knowns exactly what she does-
and does not-want: She wants to
date, enjoy her freedom and remain
fre'e of emotional entanglements and
/ ties, at least for the present. That the
three men she is involved with have a
hard time digesting this is their prob-
lem, not hers. The idealisticJamie, the
egocentric Greer Childs (played to an-
noying perfection by john Canada Ter-
rell), and the adolescent Mars Black-
mon all want Nola for their own
purposes, to fulfill their needs without
considering hers. And they are willing
to stoop to almost any level- even
rape~to make her conform. That she
does not is a triumph of the soul and
self over the insecurities and fears that
all women must face in their relation-
ships with men. "I don't want to be-
long to someone else," says Nola. That
most women in film still do belong to
someone else is a sad commentary on
the film industry and the society it
serves to entertain. •
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