Black History Month: African American Auteurs in Cinema (Part 2)
by t.sterling
Denzel Washington and Spike Lee
To conclude Black History Month, please enjoy t.sterling’s homage to Black filmmakers.
You may read Part One by clicking here.
Spike Lee
Breaking down many barriers and largely affecting Hollywood and beyond, my favorite Spike Lee movie is Do The Right Thing. It’s not an easy watch if you don’t like tension. That’s why I like it, because I could feel it. And it felt real.
A button pusher, Spike has a unique way of tapping into the sorts of things people of all races might feel or think but never want to say. Do The Right Thing was a sign of the times that racism wasn’t as extinguished as we’d like to have believed.
Similar, but in a college setting, School Daze sparked many discussions.
The movie that seriously caught my attention was Malcolm X. Influencing cinema as a whole, this movies is awesome.
Having directed 47 film and TV episodes, producing 41, and acting and writing for 14, Spike Lee deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award. While we wait for Hollywood to catch up with him, let’s give Spike Lee the award for being a superb and hyper conscious African American Auteur in Cinema.
Malcolm D. Lee
More recently on scene is Spike Lee’s cousin, film director Malcolm D. Lee.
Directing a small handful of films, Malcolm is not quite an auteur yet.
Malcolm’s Undercover Brother is one of my favorite films and it is for this movie that I include Malcolm in my list of auteurs. A lot of people I’ve talked to haven’t heard of this movie or don’t think too highly of it, but I think it is simply hilarious.
In its own comical way, Undercover Brother pays homage to blaxploitation films and early Black cinema. The main character is a throwback to a combination of those early leading man characters of the 70s blaxploitation films, men with afros, wearing bellbottoms, platform shoes and all that jazz.
Malcolm D. Lee’s next film Roll Bounce has a great story and music that take us back to the 70s as well.
Winning auteur points, Malcolm scores with his 2008 comedy starring Martin Lawrence, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. As writer, director and producer, Malcolm D. Lee has auteurism in the blood like his cousin Spike.
Keeping an eye on the development of Malcolm D. Lee, I’m excited to watch his next film Soul Men featuring the late greats Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes, along with Samuel L. Jackson and Mike Epps.
Side note: Sadly, Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes coincidentally both deceased in August 2008 one day apart. Bernie passed in Chicago from complications of pneumonia. Isaac died in Memphis, Tennessee from a stroke. Isaac won an Academy award for the theme song of Shaft in 1971.
Tyler Perry
Mr. Tyler Perry is on a mission to take over the world of entertainment.
Starting his career as a homeless gospel playwright, Perry now appears on millions of TV screens and movie theaters across the planet and hasn’t stopped working since his recent debut in 2002. I’ve read that he plans on having his own channel someday, and at the rate he’s going, I believe this may happen soon.
The secret to Perry’s success is no secret: hard work! My number one top idol, Perry’s talent and work ethic astound me. From writing, directing, producing and many times starring in just about all his productions, you wonder how he manages to sleep. What I admire is that he plays by his own rules and does things his way. These days, it seems like Hollywood is knocking on his door trying to get into his world instead of him trying to get into theirs.
If you are still having trouble figuring out who Tyler Perry is, perhaps you’ll remember him as his alter ego and one of America’s favorite gun-toting, wise-cracking big mamas—Madea. In the movies, Madea is first seen in Diary of a Mad Black Woman which was based on the play of the same name. Madea is the character people came to see at both his plays and his movies.
As much as Perry likes to throw the weight of Madeo around, he always makes sure to weigh in on the drama.
Unlike other filmmakers, Perry does not use mass amounts of gang violence, sex, drugs, and adult language to attract and African American people, but rather love, family, and the power of prayer.
~ ~ ~
As a student of film and writing in the School of Observation, I learn a lot from these writer/directors. A huge fan of diversity, I also feel it is important to know where you come from before you know where you’re going. By researching and learning from the greats before me, I hope that I can one day follow in their footsteps and work with them. Maybe 30 or 40 years from now, some young writer/director will be writing about the likes of Kevin Smith, Spike Lee, Judd Apatow, Tyler Perry, and t. sterling watson. I was told to dream big. Can I have my own channel too?
t.sterling
Best Date Movie for Valentine’s Day: He’s Just NOT That Into You
by Jaden
If you are like me and love being on awkward dates or just happen to find yourself on them a little too frequently, He’s Just Not That Into You is the perfect movie for you!
It’s the kind of movie that no matter what stage of your relationship you are with the person sitting next to you, either the first date or seventeen-hundredth date, there will be some element of this movie that will make you squirm, which is all right by me; I like to be challenged by a movie. I want to walk out of a movie theatre feeling differently than when I walked in — He’s Just Not That Into You accomplishes that.
Personally, I was excited to see this movie because a friend had given me the book several years ago and it was tremendously helpful with dating, albeit far too late! Wish I read it 10 years earlier. The book is sort of a guide to help you avoid the wrong guys (or girls, for that matter) and also to avoid acting like a total idiot, which even after wisely instructed on how to not be an idiot, sometimes, you just can’t help yourself.
The screenwriters Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn did a great job of taking a How To book and turning it into a fluid interconnected story loaded with humor. It’s the first time I have heard consistent loud laughter and interactive audience shouting in a movie theatre since Borat in 2006.
The book was written by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo who wrote episodes, An American Girl in Paris and The Post-it Always Sticks Twice for Sex and the City.
The movie is for men and women, so don’t shy away from it because of the title.
If you are a single guy, you should go to this movie and sit down near some single gal of your liking and strike up a conversation after the movie, because I have to tell you, there were LOTS of single girls at the movie all by their lonesome just looking for Mister Right. Use your heads boys! Go where the ladies go. Maybe you will get yourself a date for the next movie. You already have that in common — film enthusiasts.
The star-studded cast of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connelly, Bradley Cooper, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson, and Justin Long all perform believable, entertaining, endearing, and sometimes painful characters.
Directed by Ken Kwapis who has directed episodes of hilarious shows like The Office , The Larry Sanders Show, Malcolm in the Middle, and The Bernie Mac Show, I highly recommend you go see He’s Just Not That Into You.
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY
Back to the midnight chocolate truffle and brownie baking for me!
Black History Month: African American Auteurs in Cinema
by t.sterling
Mario & Melvin Van Peebles, 1995, photo property of Gramercy Pictures
African American filmmakers have come a long way from the humble beginnings back in the fast and funky days of the 70s. Being a fan of the old black and white classics, I can’t help but notice how most movies lack Black actors, and even more scarce — or rather, non-existent — are Black directors.
Happy when I did see African Americans in old films, my favorite is Dooley Wilson as “Sam” in the all time classic (and one of my personal favorites) Casablanca. I still have yet to put “As Time Goes By” on my iPod. As for the movie, believe the hype: it’s great.
Favorites aside, today, I’m here to talk about African American auteurs — something I aspire to be one day when I grow up. I would start the AAA club, but the AAA towing and insurance company have already pulled that card. Maybe I’ll throw in some adjectives like “Amazing”, or maybe even “in America.” Hence, it would be called the AAAAA club — spoken aloud as “the Quintuple A Club.” I’ll work on it and get back to you.
Technically, according to the dictionary somewhere under my bed, “auteur” is a fancy French term for “author.” They also have “croissant” which is a fancy way of saying deliciously flaky.
In addition to the French, I’ve also heard many American writer/directors being hailed as auteurs such as Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino.
As for my own definition, I’d say an auteur is a filmmaker who has near complete control over his or her project. Specifically wearing the writer/director hat and occasionally starring in his or her own movie.
For the month of February, to celebrate Black History month, I will be writing about Black auteurs in American Cinema. We’ll start this week with Melvin Van Peebles.
Melvin Van Peebles
Some may call him the Granddaddy of Blaxploitation films, which is the term used to classify movies made by Black people for Black people. Joining the words “black” and “exploitation,” the films exploit Black urban culture for profit, feeding into stereotypes about African Americans. Dramatic and action-packed, the films were usually low-budget and feature pimps, drug dealers, on-the-edge rogue cops, detectives, or just your average vengeful brotha or sista all against the Man. Think Shaft, Super Fly, Foxy Brown, and Black Caesar to name a few.
Before those legendary tales came Melvin’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. In my honest opinion, this movie was boring. The extra S’s didn’t do it for me. I suggest watching the film by Mario, Melvin Van Peebles’s son, The Story Behind Baadasssss!: The Birth of Black Cinema. This is a movie about the making of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Sometimes, the telling of the story being told is more interesting than the story itself. Follow me? Good.
The auteurism (apparently that isn’t a word, per the dictionary, but let’s roll with it) comes into play because both father Melvin and son Mario are writers, directors, and lead actors in their films.
Mario is actually in his father Melvin’s movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song acting in a very controversial scene. What am I saying? For it’s time, this movie was the epitome of controversial! It’s still controversial! The character of young Sweet Sweetback, Mario as a young boy, does some pretty shocking sexual things, as does the man Sweet Sweetback, played by Melvin. Well, it’s not as shocking anymore to see a Black man with a White woman or cops being shot… but like I said, at the time, this got people riled up and Mario was just a kid. The movie was originally rated X — that gives you an idea of who went to see it, or who was allowed to see it. This is why you should check out Mario’s documentary film to see how and why this movie is so important to Black cinema and how it affected Black people who went to see it.
Melvin Van Peebles started generation one of African American cinema and laid down the tracks of making movies by the people for the people. Solid. [Throws fist in the air.]
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