Black Lenses, Black Voices

Black Lenses, Black Voices

Author: Mark A. Reid

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2005-03-25

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 074256861X

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Black Lenses, Black Voices is a provocative look at films directed and written_and sometimes produced_by African Americans, as well as black-oriented films whose directors or screenwriters are not black. Mark Reid shows how certain films dramatize the contemporary African American community as a politically and economically diverse group, vastly different from film representations of the 1960s. Taking us through the development of African American independent filmmaking before and after World War II, he then illustrates the unique nature of African American family, action, horror, female-centered, and independent films, such as Eve's Bayou, Jungle Fever, Shaft, Souls of Sin, Bones, Waiting to Exhale, Monster's Ball, Sankofa, and many more.


Spirituality as Ideology in Black Women's Film and Literature

Spirituality as Ideology in Black Women's Film and Literature

Author: Judylyn S. Ryan

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780813923703

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Given the ways in which spirituality functions in the work of such Black women writers and filmmakers as Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange, Maya Angelou, Julie Dash, and Euzhan Palcy, Judylyn Ryan proposes in this challenging new study that what these women embrace in their narrative construction and characterization is the role and responsibility of the priestess, bearing and distributing life-force to sustain the community of people who read and view their work. Central to these women's vision of transformation is what Ryan calls a paradigm of growth and an ethos of interconnectedness, which provide interpretive models for examining and teaching a broad range of artistic, cultural, and social texts. The focus on theology provides a new way of viewing the connections among New World African diaspora religious traditions, challenging the widespread and reductive assumption that Afro-Christianity shares no philosophical commonalities with Santeria, Candomble ...


Reel Black Talk

Reel Black Talk

Author: Linda Allen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1997-09-23

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0313033595

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As evidenced in interviews included in this volume, many African American filmmakers consider themselves artists first, their ethnicity being only part of what influences their work. This is the first book by an African American on contemporary African American filmmakers. Here directors and producers speak for themselves, posing challenges to current thinking in the field. Special emphasis is given to the filmmakers' productions and their experiences. Essays on historic figures reveal the rich history of the African American contribution to cinema. From Oscar Micheaux and Spencer Williams to Neema Barnett and the team of George Jackson and Doug McHenry, this revealing reference work will enlighten scholars, students, and film buffs. As early as 1899, African Americans were involved in the filmmaking industry. Oscar Micheaux took directing, writing, and producing to a higher level with the release of his first film in 1918; by 1948 he had made more than forty films. Currently, by international world cinema standards, the African American tradition rivals cinema from anywhere in the world, but these filmmakers face a quandary: whether to make films through the Hollywood system or follow an independent vision. This book presents a cross-section of filmmakers from each camp and also focuses on those who work in both arenas.


Feminist Film Studies

Feminist Film Studies

Author: Karen Hollinger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-08-21

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1136509194

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Feminist Film Studies is a readable, yet comprehensive textbook for introductory classes in feminist film theory and criticism. Karen Hollinger provides an accessible overview of women’s representation and involvement in film, complemented by analyses of key texts that illustrate major topics in the field. Key areas include: a brief history of the development of feminist film theory the theorization of the male gaze and the female spectator women in genre films and literary adaptations the female biopic feminism and avant-garde and documentary film women as auteurs lesbian representation women in Third Cinema. Each chapter includes a "Films in Focus" section, which analyzes key texts related to the chapter’s major topic, including examples from classical Hollywood, world cinema, and the contemporary period. This book provides students in both film and gender/women’s studies with a clear introduction to the field of feminist film theory and criticism.


Oscar Micheaux and His Circle

Oscar Micheaux and His Circle

Author: Charles Musser

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2016-03-28

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0253021553

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Oscar Micheaux—the most prolific African American filmmaker to date and a filmmaking giant of the silent period—has finally found his rightful place in film history. Both artist and showman, Micheaux stirred controversy in his time as he confronted issues such as lynching, miscegenation, peonage and white supremacy, passing, and corruption among black clergymen. In this important collection, prominent scholars examine Micheaux's surviving silent films, his fellow producers of race films who alternately challenged or emulated his methods, and the cultural activities that surrounded and sustained these achievements. The relationship between black film and both the stage (particularly the Lafayette Players) and the black press, issues of underdevelopment, and a genealogy of Micheaux scholarship, as well as extensive and more accurate filmographies, give a richly textured portrait of this era. The essays will fascinate the general public as well as scholars in the fields of film studies, cultural studies, and African American history. This thoroughly readable collection is a superb reference work lavishly illustrated with rare photographs.


Black Women Film and Video Artists

Black Women Film and Video Artists

Author: Jacqueline Bobo

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1135225427

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Black women film and video makers have been producing shorts, documentaries and films since the early part of this century. Unfortunately, not only has their work been overlooked by distributors, but critical reviews have been few and far between. Conceived to redress that omission, Black Women Film and Video Artists is the first comprehensive history and analysis of this genre. Gathered here are noted scholars and critics, as well as the film/video makers themselves who offer insight into the work of underexplored artists. The discussions range from pioneering to contemporary film makers and include artists such as Madeline Anderson, Monica Freeman, Jacqueline Shearer, Kathleen Collins, Julie Dash, Camille Billops, Zeinabu irene Davis, and Michelle Parkerson, among others. Contributors include: Jacqueline Bobo, Carmen Coustaut, Gloria J. Gibson, C.A. Griffith, Monique Guillory, Carol Munday Lawrence, O. Funmilayo Makarah, Ntongela Maselila, Jacqueline Shearer, P. Jane Splawn.


Rewriting Indie Cinema

Rewriting Indie Cinema

Author: J. J. Murphy

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 0231549598

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Most films rely on a script developed in pre-production. Yet beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the recent mumblecore movement, key independent filmmakers have broken with the traditional screenplay. Instead, they have turned to new approaches to scripting that allow for more complex characterization and shift the emphasis from the page to performance. In Rewriting Indie Cinema, J. J. Murphy explores these alternative forms of scripting and how they have shaped American film from the 1950s to the present. He traces a strain of indie cinema that used improvisation and psychodrama, a therapeutic form of improvised acting based on a performer’s own life experiences. Murphy begins in the 1950s and 1960s with John Cassavetes, Shirley Clarke, Barbara Loden, Andy Warhol, Norman Mailer, William Greaves, and other independent directors who sought to create a new type of narrative cinema. In the twenty-first century, filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, the Safdie brothers, Joe Swanberg, and Sean Baker developed similar strategies, sometimes benefitting from the freedom of digital technology. In reading key films and analyzing their techniques, Rewriting Indie Cinema demonstrates how divergence from the script has blurred the divide between fiction and nonfiction. Showing the ways in which filmmakers have striven to capture the subtleties of everyday behavior, Murphy provides a new history of American indie filmmaking and how it challenges Hollywood industrial practices.


The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature

The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature

Author: William L. Andrews

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2001-02-15

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 0198031750

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A breathtaking achievement, this Concise Companion is a suitable crown to the astonishing production in African American literature and criticism that has swept over American literary studies in the last two decades. It offers an enormous range of writers-from Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass, from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison, and from Toni Morrison to August Wilson. It contains entries on major works (including synopses of novels), such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It also incorporates information on literary characters such as Bigger Thomas, Coffin Ed Johnson, Kunta Kinte, Sula Peace, as well as on character types such as Aunt Jemima, Brer Rabbit, John Henry, Stackolee, and the trickster. Icons of black culture are addressed, including vivid details about the lives of Muhammad Ali, John Coltrane, Marcus Garvey, Jackie Robinson, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. Here, too, are general articles on poetry, fiction, and drama; on autobiography, slave narratives, Sunday School literature, and oratory; as well as on a wide spectrum of related topics. Compact yet thorough, this handy volume gathers works from a vast array of sources--from the black periodical press to women's clubs--making it one of the most substantial guides available on the growing, exciting world of African American literature.


Fields Watered with Blood

Fields Watered with Blood

Author: Margaret Walker

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0820338869

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Representing an international gathering of scholars, Fields Watered with Blood constitutes the first critical assessment of the full scope of Margaret Walker’s literary career. As they discuss Walker’s work, including the landmark poetry collection For My People and the novel Jubilee, the contributors reveal the complex interplay of concerns and themes in Walker’s writing: folklore and prophecy, place and space, history and politics, gender and race. In addition, the contributors remark on how Walker’s emphases on spirituality and on dignity in her daily life make themselves felt in her writings and show how Walker’s accomplishments as a scholar, teacher, activist, mother, and family elder influenced what and how she wrote. A brief biography, an interview with literary critic Claudia Tate, a chronology of major events in Walker’s life, and a selected bibliography round out this collection, which will do much to further our understanding of the writer whom poet Nikki Giovanni once called “the most famous person nobody knows.”