Wanted: A Certain Kind of Black Film

One of the readers of theblackactor.com left a comment... a comment that resonated with me... a comment that hit the nail on the head.

Orville commented on the Kasi Lemmons post.

He felt that Eve’s Bayou was a good pic. He added that he wants to see more of this kind of [good] work from black filmmakers.

And he said this:    

“I want to see movies with drama, with deep layers, good storytelling and complexity.”

This comment hit home with me because of all the things this blog represents to me and of all the things I may want or hope for, for Black Hollywood and for myself as a moviegoer (who is starving, starving, starving for good black film), it all comes down to that one sentence.

Like Orville, this is absolutely what I want. If I got this and some good performances thrown in, I’d be a happy little camper.

And it’s something I rarely see from black film.

Orville’s sentence was so very important to me, I wrote a short post about it.

So, I’ll ask you:

What do you want for Black Cinema or hope for from Black Hollywood?

 

Orville blogs over at AngryGayBlackCanadianMan

Comments

[johnny wishbone]

opportunity. let our stories be told equally, just as "white" hollywood is allowed to saturate the market with a thousand movies a year and find the few that will stick, we should be able to do the same thing. One man's art is anothers mans "huh?"

[Kimi]

ITA w/Johnny Wishbone. I'd like to see more diversity in films, meaning all our movies don't have to be ghetto/hood movies or the like.

I would definitely like to see more AA love stories & family movies.

[LaJane Galt]

I'm with Orville.

Can't we range from quirky to dark? Must there always be a ginormous spread of food and a Soul Train line? Can the soundtrack have something other than 3-6 Mafia or the rapper/actor/R&b singer? Shit, can the movie be more than an excuse to release a soundtrack?

Can the struggle be something other than the ghetto? Need their be a struggle?

No more "this is how a black person would ____".

Where is the "counterculture" element?

What I really liked about Eve's Bayou is that the actors were black...WITHOUT TRYING TO BE BLACK for the sake of white OR black audiences. Yes, we are black AND we have lives, feelings, experiences that don't involve skin color (or collards).

BA~ Have you seen Black Snake Moan? If so, you should blog on it.

[Angela]

I heartily agree with this. However, when a screenwriter attempts to do this, it always comes off as pretentious and overly self-conscious IMO. It's as though black filmmakers can't just let go and write stories about "people".

[Clayton Broomes Jr.]

What I hope for black Hollywood is a bigger audience for really multi-layered, well-crafted films by talented actors of color. This is all in an effort to show Hollywood that we do appreciate complex stories.

[theblackactor.com]

@ Clayton

I agree 6000%.