21st Century Black America Filmmakers
by Christopher B. Derrick
“21st Century Black America Filmmakers should embrace the
principles of Europe’s New Wave of the 60s & 70s to escape the
cinematic ghetto.” By Christopher B. Derrick
In the 1960s the young, hip filmmakers in Paris, Prague, London
and Berlin created groundbreaking films that made the world take
notice. Traditional cinema styles were eschewed for a more-free
flowing, energetic carefree approach created by such luminaries
as Truffaut, Forman, Richardson and Fassbinder. What marked their
early work, from a certain point of view, was their lack of a
large production budget. Without the money these filmmakers
expressed themselves in more poignant ways and means –
narratively and visually. Godard, for example, directed a string
of films that incontrovertibly changed the cinematic landscape,
and he did so by divesting himself from the traditional
storytelling that he lorded over as a critic at the seminal
Cahiers du Cinema.
You may wonder how this lends itself to a discussion about Black
filmmakers in America? Film is a universal language, a
storytelling medium that by its nature addresses a larger
audience. Black filmmakers in America feel that they have to tell
a “Black Experience” story, and there is absolutely nothing wrong
with that – in an ideal world. The commercial nature of film damn
near dictates that films have to have a broad as audience as
possible. Even films that are so-called “niche films” speak to a
wide audience, if you take the time to see them (case in point
the fascinating ’98 film “The Red Violin”), because even if the
film isn’t “marketed to you” it can still be most relevant and
enjoyable. If one looks at a film like “Jules et Jim,” one can’t
effectively argue against the universality of the story – a
tragically potent love triangle. A film such as this can be told
by a Black filmmaker, however the question to ask is, would the
filmmaker consciously not allow the hallmarks of Black cinema to
dominate the work.
Those hallmarks of Black cinema are mainly clichés that reduce
any sort of narrative originality. The problem of race
predominates far too much in Black cinema. And race will be, at
least in the foreseeable future, an unsolved equation in the
socio-political American landscape, but that doesn’t mean it has
to hold sway over the filmic stories that emerge from young Black
filmmakers. The great inter-racial love story, “Hiroshima, Mon
Amour,” doesn’t fester on the redundant (and at this point banal)
differences between a French woman and Japanese man, but more on the troubled nature of their pasts and how it affects their
current relationship.
One would be hard pressed to see that kind of potential culture
clash put on the backburner in modern Black cinema; it would no
doubt be the story. And the decision to take that narrative point
of view is what can, on the surface, reduce the open-mindedness
of the general film audience in the seeing the film (one even
wonders if a non-black/white inter-racial love story would emerge
from the Black filmmaking community). In Claire Denis’s recent
“Trouble Every Day,” an inter-racial couple (Black man/white
woman) are at the center of the story, yet nothing is made of
their racial identities because the trouble they face (the heart
of the story) far outweighs any and all politics. Don’t think it
is an accident that the film to bestow the first Best Actress in
a Leading Role Oscar to African-American wasn’t directed by an
African-American.
The techniques of the New Wave one could liken between the
difference of Classical chamber music to be-bop Jazz music. Both
musical styles require immense discipline and training, yet the
combustible highly stylized nature of jazz bestows upon the music
a formless, yet fundamental art form. One could say New Wave is
to Jazz as standard Hollywood approach is to Classical music. The
truculent camerawork of Godard, the intimate compositions of
Truffaut, the agitating story structures of Fassbinder all are,
if you can make the inference, reminiscent of Ornette Coleman,
Miles Davis and Theolonious Monk. There is a loose visual form
inherent in the New Wave regarding its approach to cinema that
Black filmmakers in America should imbue in their films.
Traditional camera work and editing (picture and sound) will not
get it done these days, if your goal is to continue to make films
with higher and higher budgets.
The New Wave filmmakers and their films have fallen out of favor
in recent years possibly because they advocate stories that have
something to say about the human condition in a way that the
adolescent fantasy films from Hollywood refuse to handle. Black
cinema doesn’t have to be about ghetto hoochies, drug dealers,
pimps and balers, nor should it be about idealized successful
Blacks in corporate America. In the early and mid 90s, crime
films and film noir were all the rage in the indie world, yet
very few if any made by Blacks had much success or a descent
distribution. Which is odd, because Hollywood is all about
demonizing Blacks as America’s criminal class. Nor should Black
cinema be predominantly relationship-based where those
relationships struggle with real-world problems; cinema begs to
show us events and moments that are life-like, yet larger than
life. Remember – the screen in 60ft across, a vista unmatched by
the naked eye. And if it isn’t what manner of films can we
expect? Today’s marketplace regulates more and more Black dramas
to Straight-To-Video or to BET, not bad venues in their own
right, but to truly foster growing talent in the Black filmmaker
community mastery of the craft is not enough.
In the world of ultra-cheap desktop editing systems and the
ubiquitousness of DV prosumer cameras, all filmmakers should
produce films that stretch the boundaries of narrative cinema.
Almost by default, if you’re working in DV, you are making a
movie that Hollywood doesn’t believe contains a successful
premise. So push the boundaries, the way Fassbinder did, demand
more from the audience the way Godard did and by all means
entertain like the best of them, the way Truffaut did.
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Christopher B. Derrick lives in Hollywood and writes and directs
movies and commercials. He is presently looking into the music
video field and is also currently putting the deal together on
his first feature film at a major Hollywood studio. Christopher
graduated from the University of Michigan, and studied film at
USC and UCLA.
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Copyright (c) 2002 Peter D. Marshall / All Rights Reserved
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