"Black Radical Theory and Practice: Gender, Race, Class

http://www.sdonline.org/33/rose_m_brewer.htm

Link to the Moynihan Report ("The Negro Family--The Case for National Action")

http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm

Village Voice article on Ousmane Sembene by J. Hoberman

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0748,hoberman,78462,20.html

Some information on REVOLUTION '67 and the film series

DISPARTIES AND MISCONCEPTIONS
A Film Series sponsored by America's Black Holocaust Museum, UWM'sCommunity Media Project, and UWM's Cultures and Communities

The Community Media Project (CMP) is an arts outreach program that wascreated by film faculty in collaboration with The Inner City ArtsCouncil and Great Lakes Film and Video (now defunct) in 1985. Directedby Portia Cobb, this program is an affiliate program of the UWM filmdepartment and the Peck School of the Arts. The mission of the CMP isto provide artistic programming and outreach for under-servedaudiences--at UWM and in Milwaukee's central city. We do this byoffering free film screenings and film and video workshops. Forliterally two decades, the CMP has provided programming that isdiverse and inclusive in its scope. Much of what we have accomplishedhas been facilitated through partnerships with community-basedagencies.

The "Disparities and Misconceptions" film series at America's BlackHolocaust Museum will highlight films that magnify struggles thatAfrican-Americans face in attempts to overcome disparities in accessto resources, often met with forceful resistance. Topics that thesefilms will explore include removal from one's land, urban revolt inresponse to racial injustice, and petitioning the government to retainone's resources.All screenings will take place at 7:00pm at America's Black HolocaustMuseum (2233 N. 4th St.--off 4th and North). Admission is free, but adonation to the museum of $5 for adults and $3 for students issuggested. Specifics of events are subject to change.

"Revolution '67" - Film and Discussion Thursday November 29, 2007 @7pm (co-sponsored by docUWM)
The American struggle with race, inequality, idealism, and power in the1960s is explored through the untold story of the riots that erupted inNewark, New Jersey, in 1967. What really happened is told through archivalfootage and from the mouths of the people who lived it. The filmmakersinterview the Activists (Tom Hayden, Amiri Baraka, Sharpe James) and thePower Structure (Brendan Byrne and representatives from the Police and theNational Guard). While points of view differ and the media may have fannedthe flames, it's true that 26 people died and many other cities soonexperienced similar disturbances. "Accurately and effectively captures themood, the pain, the loss, the ambiguity, the fear and the continuing impactof the violent unrest of the summer of 1967. This film helps us to remembera time that still inspires and haunts America." - Historian Lonnie G. Bunch,Founding Director, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of AfricanAmerican History and Culturehttp://www.bongiornoproductions.com

A discussion will follow with the filmmakers, MarylouTibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno, and James Criss of theMilwaukee County Sheriff's Department

There is no charge for viewing the film, but the museum suggestsdonations of $5 for adults and $3 for students. Running time for thefilm is 90 minutes.For more information, please call 264-2500

FINAL PAPER (due 12/10--paragraph with argument and outline due 12/3)

Film 301Cobb/McFadden
11/26

Final Paper
Monday, December 10th (paper due)

In a couple of weeks, your final paper assignments will be due.Your assignment is to write a paper (6-8 pages) that offers ananalysis about two films, at least one that we have seen in class. The purpose of this assignment is to examine either a theme or a use of a convention (i.e. narrative/cinematography/editing/soundtrack) that persist through both films. You are to discuss how they are used either similarly, differently, or both. You can also discuss these themes in regards to historical significance of the films either in the period they were released or in the broader lineage of Black independent cinema.

For your papers, you must follow these guidelines:-12 point font size (font either Times New Roman or Arial)-double-spaced-MLA citation format (Guide to MLA style available in library)-At least three scholarly sources must be used, with at least one source from the course reader (Wikipedia may NOT be used as a source. Internet sources mustbe cleared with either instructor).-Film titles must be either italicized or underlined.

As you post your responses on the blog for next week, also post a paragraph (6-8 sentences) that contains the central argument in your paper and the topics you want to explore within that paper. If you need for me to read what you're going to submit before you post it, please feel free to send it to me.

It is important that you have a central argument/thesis for your paper, rather than have 6-8 pages full of random trivial information that offers little insight into the topic. Use this final paper to expand on a theme you either heard or discussed in class or read in a blog posting or in the assigned readings. Provide insight into how your topic can give us a new perspective about the film that we have not considered. And please avoid making arguments that you cannot support with documented evidence.

Please contact Professor Cobb or myself with any questions you have. Thanks.

Week #10--Examining and Rewriting History

Both Illusions and Daughters of the Dust demonstrate that Julie Dash is privileging a presence of Black women onscreen in a historical context that has never been granted. In her writings and interviews that she has given, Dash does not hesitate to acknowledge that much of her content is speculative fiction. She understands that Mignon’s limitations as a studio executive loom much larger than her film presents, but the point of her film is to realize a Black woman within the position and to consider, from the perspective of a Black woman, how she would handle herself in such an environment. I would argue that Dash’s references to Hollywood stock conventions during that period, particularly the aggressively romantic male lead and the White female characters who exist to “beautify” the office, further complicate Mignon’s motives, as well as the presence of Black female subjectivity within this context. As with Daughters of the Dust, Dash’s poetic license is supplemented by her extensive research of the region, its history, and the culture it produced through readings, archival searches, and familial accounts. Dash’s greater purpose extends beyond what she sought to do in Illusions, which is to provide a multiple subjectivity of Black women. She presents them in a variety that ranges amongst ages and cultural perspectives. For Dash and her characters, particularly Yellow Mary, Nana and Eula, knowledge of one’s ancestral history provides a basis of empowering self-identity, and it enables them to confront the pain that they have faced in their lives.

As with Dash, Cheryl Dunye presents herself in The Watermelon Woman as a filmmaker in search of validating her own identity as a Black lesbian. Dunye fictionalizes her journey within a documentary format that combines formal research and interviews with moments of her life that eventually find their way into the project. While some arguments may arise about whether Dunye’s use of documentary conventions undermines the sincerity of her project, the point is not so much about fooling the spectator as it is using strategies with which the spectator is familiar to magnify the absence of Black lesbians in film, whether it is in a fictional or non-fictional context. Her exploration of her fictionalized subject, Fae Richards, looking beyond her designated name, “The Watermelon Woman,” opens up not only a history of the Black lesbian community in Philadelphia, but also responses to interracial romance within the lesbian community. Given that the love interest in the film, Guinevere Turner, co-wrote and appeared in Go Fish, a groundbreaking lesbian-themed film in the early ‘90s, it also references how Black lesbians can find agency in other cinematic representations of lesbian romance. Yet Dunye also raises anxieties as to what role her fictionalized self plays within this dynamic. As Thelma Willis Foote explains, “Cheryl does begin to suspect that Diana desires her because she, Cheryl, is black. If that were so, dating Diana exposes Cheryl to the peril of being the fetishized black object of white racist desire, regardless of Cheryl’s own self-assertive and affirmative identification with racial intentions haunt their relationship” (7). It is important to think about this dilemma Cheryl faces as her own degree of “Blackness” is questioned for pursuing such a relationship.

As you think about The Watermelon Woman in relation to films that we’ve either already seen or will see, think about how Dunye, by making a mockumentary about the marginalization of its subject, privileges other marginalized issues and subjects. As Foote puts it, “Here, the documentary impulse, the desire to recover and to tell the stories of marginalized people, especially those who share her gender and racial identity, motivates Cheryl’s pursuit of a career in documentary filmmaking. In this way, Dunye’s film introduces its thematic concern with identity politics” (2). In respect to this, think about how she subverts the presentation of stereotypes through filmmaking to ultimately offer it as a tool for self-empowerment.

Link to Charles Burnett Profile

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/burnett.html

Week #6--Films from the African Diaspora

Week #6—Films Throughout the African Diaspora
As the organization of the screening schedule suggests, Killer of Sheep is very much a response to the so-called blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Burnett’s film is more focused on defying the conventions of films that were circulated heavily through the mid-‘70s than what is identified as the template for this genre, Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Moving outside of a conventional narrative structure, Killer of Sheep presents an episodic tale of its protagonist, who is becoming increasingly apathetic due to fatigue from the long hours he works at a demanding job that pays a substandard wage. The structure of the film also offers a portrait of a community suffering from moral decline by way of deteriorating resources, children who don’t obey their inattentive parents but mimic their behavior, and women whose gratifications are continuously denied, whether it be intimacy or validity of one’s opinion. These details are what make Burnett’s film more than just a mere response, but as an example of how cinema can honestly convey conditions that threaten the human condition.

In his essay, as well as his interview with bell hooks, Burnett communicates his urgency to express his concerns amidst an increasing landscape of Black images onscreen that deny reality and entice a vicarious engagement that can be potentially dangerous. He writes,

The commercial film is largely responsible for affecting how one views the world. It reduced the world to one dimension, reducing taboos to superstition, concentrated on the ugly, creating a passion for violence and reflecting racial stereotypes, instilling self-hate, creating confusion, rather than offering clarity; to sum up, it was demoralizing…In essence, this cinema is anti-life; it constantly focuses on the worst of human behavior to provide suspense and drama, to entertain” (224).

Burnett offers this observation amidst a situation where a middle-class presence and effective Black leadership has disappeared from these communities. He and his colleagues, the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers, wanted to establish a cinema that documented these realities in a fictional setting. What was at stake for Burnett and this collective was control over resources, images, and the presentation of reality that emphasized the vitality of history and memory. The characters in Killer of Sheep, including Stan, are primarily migrants from the South. While many narratives about migration reflect on what people gain when they relocate, Burnett is more concerned with what is lost in regards to culture and values, as well as why they are afraid to confront their immediate past.

History and memory are as important in Euzhan Palcy’s Sugar Cane Alley. To escape the plight of the cane fields, José learns to converge his ability to learn within a formal setting with the ancestral knowledge he gains from an elder in Black Shack Alley, Medouze. The tension between these two settings is articulated in a different context in Stuart Hall’s essay, “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation. “ When watching this film, think of how Hall’s discussion of presence Africain, presence European, and presence Americain is identified within the narrative. Also, given these concepts, focus on the stark contrast between Fort-de-France and Black Shack Alley, as well as how Ma Tine and José adjust as they transfer between these different environments. In the scenes where José is at school, think of the constant conflict between cultural memory, as represented by José’s knowledge from Medouze’s stories, and official history, which is offered by these formal institutions. Finally, Keith Warner’s essay about the adaptation of Sugar Cane Alley from novel to film references how audiences from Martinique and throughout the Caribbean celebrated the film after it had become popular amongst international audiences. What are moments in the film in which Black people in Martinique, particularly in Fort-de-France, reflect this mentality?

Film Influences of the Los Angeles School

In Ntongela Masilela's piece on the L.A. School of Black Filmmakers, he mentioned some of the influences that persisted through the films of the L.A. School. Below are examples of films from their respective movements:

Soviet Montage:
The Battleship Potemkin (dir. Sergei Eisenstein)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8YQL2IYPzM

More on Soviet Montage: http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/filmnotes/eisenstein.html

Italian Neorealism:
The Bicycle Thief (dir. Vittorio di Sica)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE3QEc03Wbo

More on Italian Neorealism: http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/neorealism1.jsp

French New Wave:
Breathless (dir. Jean-Luc Godard)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt_3NHCwyds

More on French New Wave: http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/fnwave1.jsp

Cuban Cinema:
Memories of Underdevelopment (dir. Tomas Gutierrez Alea)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac3LGgpo3h4

More on Cuban Cinema: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Cuba

Cinema Novo (from Brazil):
Black God, White Devil (dir. Glauber Rocha)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWGu1bLwXL4

More on Cinema Novo: http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Academy-Awards-Crime-Films/Brazil-CINEMA-NOVO.html

Argentine Cinema:
The Hour of the Furnaces (dirs. Fernando Solanas and Octavio Gettino)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM7vgNq5MuU

More on Argentine Cinema: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Argentina

Week #5--Challenging Revamped Stereotypes of Blacks in Hollywood

As gathered from last week’s screenings of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and the documentary Baadasssss Cinema, films marketed towards a predominantly Black audience in the ‘70s marked an abrupt shift from previous presentations of Black people onscreen. As America’s social fabric was changing due to the magnification of economic and social disparities along the lines of race and class, Hollywood unintelligently presented itself as a refuge for escapism, distributing long-dated genre films such as musicals, westerns and romantic comedies. The film industry’s inability to transform its practices also illustrated how inadequate it was to present images of Black people that were a departure from the prevalent stereotypes displayed throughout American cinema. While Sidney Poitier was, and still stands as, a trailblazer in becoming a dominant leading man of African descent, people responded to his presence as sterile and accommodating, even if as Mr. Tibbs he slapped a plantation owner in In the Heat of the Night. Black audiences were most critical about how Poitier’s characters were presented as asexual, something that was completely disrupted by Melvin Van Peebles’ portrayal as Sweetback. The character’s transformation from a complicit sex laborer to someone actively escaping his situation can be read as a transitional point in how the Black male lead is portrayed in American cinema.
But while Black men were depicted onscreen as physically and sexually aggressive, unflinching in the presence of authority, and able to survive to the end of the movie, these portrayals would themselves present new stereotypes. In spite of making his film as explicitly political as it was violent and sexual, he still faced criticism, particularly from Haile Gerima. Gerima took Van Peebles to task for creating a character that prompts vicarious thrills rather than political consciousness, as well as presenting physical recklessness as legitimate political resistance. Black male leads in blaxploitation films would be read as the contemporary version of the Black buck, whose virility is as carnally desired by women as it is threatening to men, justifying why he must be controlled or terminated. By emulating their male counterparts, Black female leads would reduce active resistance to patriarchy to nothing more than a brutal revenge fantasy.
A collective of aspiring Black filmmakers who attended UCLA, the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers, had access to both education, resources, and correspondence with filmmakers and theorists throughout the African and Latino/a diaspora that was rarely available to the previous generation of Black independent filmmakers. They saw their counterparts, the Black filmmakers and actors in mainstream films, as confined by structures in both storytelling and industry practices that offered illusory empowerment. As film scholar Ed Guerrero remarked in Baadasssss Cinema, the era of blaxploitation films stood as nothing more than a cultural moment. The filmmakers and actors did not benefit from bringing the film industry out of a long economic slump. Even the most famous performers of this era were not able to find consistent work until nearly two decades later.
The filmmakers from the L.A. School took heed of how they felt Hollywood saw Blacks in the film industry as expendable, and they wanted their films to demonstrate a commitment to their community through their narratives, their filmmaking process and how they circulated their films. Much like the filmmakers of FEPACI, they wanted control over their own ideas and resources, which could only be possible working outside of the system. Their work displays the consequences of using impulsive force to settle matters, the gender and generational conflicts that exists in the Black community, the deterioration of economic opportunity, and the confining presence of excessive monitoring by systematic structures that represent government bureaucracy and law enforcement. In terms of form, these filmmakers, like Oscar Micheaux, relied on non-linear narratives to privilege Black characters, yet, unlike their predecessor(s), their training in film school enabled them to master their craft in spite of using substandard film equipment.
As you think of Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep while preparing your blog entries, consider the similarities and differences with other films we’ve seen in class this semester, in terms of form and content. What is emphasized in Burnett’s film that differs from those other films, in both his filmmaking style and the characters in the film? What commentary does Killer of Sheep offer about the state of the Black community that goes further than what is offered in either Sweetback or Murder in Harlem, or any film outside of class you can think of? How does Burnett’s essay, as well as his interview with bell hooks, inform us about his approach?
If there is something to learn from the presence of the L.A. School of Black Filmmakers in American cinema, it is that it isn’t so much about increasing the number of Black people in the film industry as it is about more control over telling one’s stories and offering a more diverse portrayal of African American life, whether it be realistically or fictionally. While the output of African American films through Hollywood may somewhat reflect the racial demographics of the country, something that this observation overlooks is that in the interest of making a profit off of a particular demographic, industry executives can be audacious enough to assume authority that they know more about a population they have no engagement with than to whom they are trying to market their products. Such approaches in both film and music present a detrimental scenario in which those populations comfortably place authority in the hands of gatekeepers in the culture industry because of the power they possess (as evident in a film being screened in the Union Theatre in December, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes). Throughout the semester, it is important to understand how the film industry, or cultural production in general, becomes a battleground for not only how images are presented, but also cultural expression.

Ms. Grier over the years

As I watched Pam Grier in Bad Ass Cinema speaking about her roles in Blaxploitation films, and her later role as Jackie Brown, I remembered that recently (or in the past 3 years)she took on the role as sister to one the main characters in a HBO miniseries about lesbian life called the L-Word. The interesting connection is that that Grier (and mind you I haven't seen Foxy Brown or Jackie Brown outside of what we saw in class) was and still is taking roles that are somewhat independent of mainstream Hollywood ideals, or you might call them mildly edgy, but far from revolutionary. The L-word is as revolutionary to lesbians as Foxy Brown or Shaft seemed to have been for Van Peebles and others working for real change in cinema and representation. Blaxploitation films gave African American audiences the images that they deserved to see, and actors, the jobs that they deserved, but Hollywood with Blaxpoitation films like with HBO and queer life will eventually discard what they deem too edgy or thought provoking. I'm not sure if the show on HBO is still being produced, but there was a time in which queer people craved that imagery but sadly were disappointed with the product.

A Little Black Panther History

Baadasssss Cinema discussed the birth of Blaxploitation in the early 1970's, however the documentary assumes the viewer understands the context of the genre and even the people commenting. Without understanding the importance of the Black Panthers it could be hard to realize how much of an impact the genre had.

One of the first people we see in the film is Afeni Shakur. Most people quickly identify her with her son Tupac, but she should be known for her own actions. Afeni was recruited into the Black Panthers by Bobby Seale in the late 1960's and was quickly targeted by the U.S. government for her involvement. She was jailed on conspiracy to murder policemen in 1969 when she was pregnant with Tupac. She was released, but had to stand trial (she was later acquitted). During the trial Shakur appeared in Philadelphia where the Panthers called for a "Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention" where a new constitution would be written. At that time Bobby Seale was being tried for murder and Shakur urged, "When the fascist pigs get ready to murder Bobby, I want you in the streets." At the same event, another Panther addressed the problem of informants, infiltrators, and agent provocateurs saying, "if they want to kick off a war tonight, we're ready for them." (New York Times, June 20, 1970)

The Black Panthers weren't paranoid. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover engaged in every day criminal activity and actively attempted to destroy political movements in the United States as a part of COINTELPRO (look it up, you'll be enlightened on the true character of the U.S. government). A prime example of political repression and state sponsored murder in the United States can be found 90 miles South in Chicago, IL. December 4th, 1969, Fred Hampton was asleep with his pregnant wife. He had been drugged earlier that night to ensure he would be asleep. A Chicago police raid began with police opening fire into Hampton's apartment. When they found Hampton wounded in bed, they dragged him into the hallway and executed him by firing two rounds point blank into his head.



You can watch the 1971 documentary, The Murder of Fred Hampton to learn more about the man and the murder.

If you want to see Bobby Seale speak, watch for information on his tentative Spring visit at http://www.sdsmilwaukee.org/

Week #4--Challenging the Conventions of Hollywood Cinema

In Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl, as important as it is to identify the oppressive treatment Diouana received from the family she served in a domestic setting, it is also important to identify the relationships that this particular situation in the narrative has with both the colonial situation between Africa and Europe. Diouana’s suicide resulted from her disillusionment with Western perceptions of beauty and leisure, as well as how naïve and oblivious she was to how she was perceived by the family she worked for. This can be directly paralleled to the situation that Sembene and other filmmakers throughout Africa had faced. Last week’s class I had mentioned that Sembene was not able to screen this or any of his films in Senegal for many years, largely because European colonialism had a stranglehold on all resources regarding production (the making of the film), distribution (circulation of the film), and exhibition (screening of the film) that denied these filmmakers complete access. Government propaganda filmmaking was the only opportunity these filmmakers could be part of the industry, as their original projects would not be supported by organization responsible for enabling access to such resources. This rejection would inspire African filmmakers to unify and establish organizations (i.e. FEPACI) and film festivals (i.e. FESPACO) so that they would not only challenge these gatekeepers, but also establish film-related events that they could control.

Also mentioned last week were the different approaches to African filmmaking: semi-documentary (films that depict and denounce European colonialism); didactic-fictional (narratives that reflect African moral tales that focus on good and evil); and research (films that are more analytical about the subject matter). This is something to keep in mind as we transition from African films of the early ‘60s to African-American films of the early ‘70s. I’m sure that you observed that there was roughly a thirty-year difference between when Black Girl was released (1965) and when the previous film we saw, Murder in Harlem (1935), was initially screened. As you can recall from Classified X, Melvin Van Peebles mentioned that after the ‘40s, there went a good two decades where not a single film was released directed by an African-American. As more African-Americans took the reins behind the camera, it was during a moment in which there was correspondence amongst people throughout the African Diaspora. Many people of African descent throughout the world were challenging the governmental establishment and were using forceful action to fight against systems of privilege that unjustifiably subjugated these populations. One level of correspondence amongst people of African descent was through artistic expression, particularly through music, literature and film. It is important to consider throughout the semester how African-American filmmakers and others throughout the Diaspora approach their projects in a similar fashion as African filmmakers regarding the three approaches to filmmaking they utilized.

Reflecting on the activities of African filmmakers to control their own production, distribution and exhibition, it is important to consider how African-American filmmakers faced similar challenges and utilized similar strategies and objectives. This week, we will discuss how, at least regarding production, African-Americans used film as a tool to magnify their situations that had not been shown in commercial film. During the ‘60s, Hollywood had experienced a financial slump because studio executives failed repeatedly to effectively respond to challenges brought upon by television, which not only had shown classic films, but had also become a reliable source to learn what turmoil the country was facing at the time. Slowly realizing that churning out westerns, musicals, and other irrelevant genre films would not make Hollywood competitive, studios began to slowly respond to the counterculture, primarily by lifting what had once been stringent censorship regarding language and the depiction of violence and sexuality. Films that reflected the American counterculture of the late ‘60s (i.e. Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch) would become a reliable economic boost for the movie industry.

Another reliable source was what would become known as “Black Exploitation” (or blaxploitation) films. The formula for many of these films is often attributed to the film Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadasssss Song, Melvin Van Peebles’ project about a sex laborer who transforms from his passive state to becoming someone who becomes deeply concerned about his community and is not hesitant to fight on its behalf. Along with its depiction of sex and violence, Sweetback is also known for reflecting the social, cultural, and political sentiments of Black communities throughout the ‘60s through both its form (i.e. its visual display and approach to editing) and content (i.e. what certain characters represent). As we watch an excerpt from Sweetback, think of why Van Peebles’ approach to form and content would be considered as radical, and why others would consider it (particularly the content) to be exploitative. Think of how the film itself is a departure from a film like Murder in Harlem. As we transition to the documentary Baadassss Cinema, we learn more about the blaxploitation era, directly from the filmmakers and performers. Pay close attention to what marked the transition from a film like Sweetback to something like Shaft. Also, consider why Hollywood produced so many of these films (and why they would ultimately abandon them afterwards), and why they received so much criticism from Black social organizations. Also, why would it be considered a double-edged sword for Black actors to take upon these roles? As you read the offerings from Yearwood (from a conference panel amongst Black filmmakers and critics in 1980) and Massood, think of the issues Black filmmakers raise amongst themselves regarding how to effectively reach a Black audience, as well as what an urban landscape meant for offering a different portrayal of Blacks onscreen.

Week #3--Films from Continental Africa

Hi all,
I was supposed to have posted this immediately after class last week, so I apologize for the delay.

Also, I will be posting these writings on the blog from now on instead of distributing them in class. You will still receive the questions to consider while watching the film in class.

DONTE

Week #3—Films from Continental Africa

As we watched a couple of films last week from Oscar Micheaux, we saw an example of a Black filmmaker attempting to present Black people in a more dignified manner. His presentation of Black middle-class life, more so than anything as a model for other Black people to follow, was also designed to attack the caricatures that convinced dominant audiences that Black people were void of any humanity or responsibility. Moreover, it further justified people’s reasons for enabling a climate of racial terror. While Micheaux may present a diversity of Black people onscreen in terms of class stratification, it nevertheless is impacted by an internalization of White supremacy, as the lighter-skinned characters demand more identification and empathy throughout the film.
As important as the topics addressed by Locke, Green, and Bernstein are, something that is also important in relation to class is how filmmakers overall fit in class stratification. Green argues that Black filmmakers were denied access into mainstream bourgeois society because their films didn’t circulate as widely with those audiences as they did with Black audiences, magnifying the different class scale that exists within these disparate racial communities. What contributed to this limited circulation was the fact that Black filmmakers such as Micheaux had to take on so many responsibilities in order to get their films made, working outside the margins of the Hollywood system while it was in its infancy. In addition to writing, producing and directing, Micheaux also had to court studios and theatres in order to garner an audience for his films, even if it was just a predominately Black one. Until the boom of Blaxploitation films (which we will begin to discuss next week), Black filmmakers were limited to this path to gain an audience.
The readings that pertain to today’s film (by Pfaff, Diawara, and Vieyra) discuss issues concerning distribution, solidarity amongst filmmakers, and transferring ancient African traditions to cinema within a colonial context. Today’s film, Black Girl, directed by Ousmane Sembene, provides a commentary on colonialism and its legacy as it focuses on Diouana, a Senegalese woman deceptively hired to be a domestic as opposed to being a child care giver, her initial reason for taking the job. As the French family she works for position her in condescending situations, Diouana silently resists their demands in spite of how vulnerable it makes her. While it is important to think about the historical moment in which this film is set, especially given the fact that it was made during a time where African countries were gaining independence from European colonialism (note the reference to Patrice Lumumba, the president of Congo who was brutally murdered after being forcefully removed from office), it is also important to think of this film in the context of the other topics mentioned above. Once you have watched the film, think of how the oral tradition of storytelling is reconfigured through cinema, especially in particular to Sembene. What do his characters represent, and how does this narrative reflect what is common in African storytelling? Also, given the transitional period of African liberation, why was it considered important for African filmmakers throughout the continent to unify in terms of production, distribution, and exhibition? Plus, consider what barriers were placed to keep African filmmakers from showing films in their own country.