Black to the Future

by Jason McGensy

We’ve spent the last several weeks dissecting the history of American Negro Cinema, history distant and recent and everywhere in between. As the final post of this year’s Black History Mumf, though, I want to instead look toward the future. The last several years of Black History Mumfs have shown the rich back catalog for us by us, but do we have anything to look forward to? Is the future bright or bleak? Sure, Spike and his cousin Malcolm will keep cranking out work, and Kasi Lemmons and Tim Story will remain busy, Steve McQueen might win an Oscar on Sunday, and there’s that one guy, Tyler something or other. But are there talented up and comers?
Take heart, black-film enthusiast, here’s a run-down of a few debuts from black writer-directors in the last 5 years that should give us hope that there will be ample content for many a Black History Mumf to come.

Medicine For Melancholy (Barry Jenkins, 2009)
Barry Jenkin’s shabby-chic romantic-dramedy plays like a lo-fi black version of the already lo-fi Richard Linklater “Before….” films. Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins walk and talk all around San Francisco, ruminating on life, love, race, music, gentrification. It’s the politics that make the movie work, not because I think either character has all the answers, but because it’s willing to ask the questions. So few romances deal with any politics (be they gender, racial, or governmental) in any way despite these things being readily present in our lives that the absence of this aspect makes so many movies seem hollow. The cinematography makes San Francisco seem so beautiful you know it’s not a Hollywood movie, because no one from L.A. loves San Francisco that much.

 

Night Catches Us (Tanya Hamilton, 2010)
Set in 1976 Philly, in the waning days of the Black Panther era, it’s a “You can’t go home again ” story, with Anthony Mackie as the ex-Panther coming back, after years away, for his father’s funeral, Kerry Washington (rocking a natural!) as a widow who’s husband was killed by the 5-0 when Mackie snitched on him, and other ex-Panthers who think he owes them for what he did. Mackie navigates the dangerous terrain cautiously, caught between the police who suspect him because he’s black and the folks in the neighborhood who suspect him because he talked. It’s  a great depiction of how movements wane and die in the absence of unified leadership, when self-interest begins to overtake the common good.
Like Barry Jenkins, the city is as much a character here as any of the people. And since it’s a Philadelphia movie,  naturally the score is by The Roots. Their music builds the mood and is somehow simultaneously old-school and contemporary.

 

I Will Follow (Ava DuVernay, 2011)
Salli Richardson-Whitfield plays Maye, a woman coping with the death of the aunt she’d been living with and the process of moving on with her life. A quiet, but quite powerful portrait of a life in transition. When friction is suddenly introduced on the road you’ve been coasting down and you realize you’ve got to do something now to keep going. Of course, the thing about coasting sometimes is that you aren’t paying attention and maybe this change of dynamic will force you to take stock of where you’ve ended up by happenstance and perhaps plot a new course. A movie that’s 80 minutes of packing up and reminiscing, it’s obviously not so much interested in telling a “story” per se,  but conveying a mood, a feeling, and it does that expertly.

DuVernay released her second feature, Middle of Nowhere in 2012 . I haven’t caught up with it yet, but I look forward to it (get it on Netflix, Ava!). It did earn her a Best Director award at Sundance, so I’m assuming it’s another step in the right direction.

 

Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013)
Borrowing from my Best of 2013 post (in which Fruitvale Station ranked as my 2nd favorite movie of the year that was):

This powerful drama about the last day in the life of Oscar Grant before he was tragically killed by BART police is elevated by an extraordinary central performance. Michael B. Jordan breathes life into Oscar Grant creating a vibrant human being and allows us to see what was lost on that train platform that night. His Oscar is at a life crossroads and we see him wrestling with trying to grow as a man and elevate his situation in life while at the same time never turning him into a hero or a saint. This is not hagiography. Octavia Spencer is very good playing Oscar’s mother. She is by turns caring, concerned, and ultimately, in a heartbreaking scene at the hospital, shattered. The movie ends with archival footage of Oscar’s actual family and loved ones, including his own daughter, at a memorial service. It is one of the most touching moments I’ve ever seen on screen. It doesn’t feel manipulative or cheap or overly sentimental. It is earned by the movie that precedes it.

There are several other recent directorial debuts, like Dee Rees’ Pariah (2011), Andrew Dosunmu’s Restless City (2011), and Neil Drumming’s Big Words (2013), and probably many others I don’t even know, that inspire optimism.
Fear not, friend; the future is bright…and black.

Note: All of the movies mentioned above are available on Netflix Instant, except Pariah and Fruitvale Station, which are available on iTunes and Amazon Instant for rent/purchase.

And with that, as Black History Mumf 2014 draws to a close now, I ask you to please rise and join Diva Aretha Franklin in the singing of the “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing“, the Negro National Anthem.

Thank you.

And now in the immortal words of Porky Pig (you know us black folk and our pig):