It’s not just important to support Black Lives, but you also need to engage in and promote Black Art. Here are some books I absolutely love that are written by Black authors. I hope you find something here to pick up and read. These are not just books by Black writers but also some of the best books period I’ve ever read.
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Network (1976)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Network is a masterpiece. This is true both in the sheer craft of Paddy Chayefsky’s dialogue and structure, but especially for how the themes are blended so perfectly in the narrative. One of my biggest complaints about the film has nothing to do with what we see on screen but with the audience’s popular interpretation. Most people know Network for the famous “I’m Mad As Hell” speech, which leads me to the belief they shut the film off right as the second act starts. The statement has to be viewed in the context of the entire movie and how the words of Howard Beale are used and twisted by institutions in power.
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The Hospital (1971)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Arthur Hiller
The Hospital exists as a prelude to the masterpiece that was to come from Chayefsky’s pen. There are seeds of ideas here that are profoundly challenging. The film bores an ice core of the effect of modernism on American society circa the 1960s, never giving an excuse to wrong takes but laying out the psyche of a white privileged class that doesn’t know how to function in a new world. We also see a society that refuses to adapt and change to the demands of marginalized classes and does nothing to try and symphonize the cacophony of voices. The establishment would rather throw their hands up and complain then reconfigure the structural rot that runs through everything.
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The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Arthur Hiller
You didn’t see a lot of films in the wake of World War II that called military action into question. You would see a slew of anti-war films twenty-odd years out from Vietnam. But on the twentieth anniversary of D-Day, it was a pretty bold move to put out a movie about the lead up to that event, which questioned the leadership of the U.S. military and spoke to how soldiers’ bodies are so often used as props for state-sanctioned propaganda. This material had to be couched inside a romantic comedy-drama, and the subversiveness is hidden deeper in the narrative after we’ve been given a seemingly light set-up.
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Venom Volume 3: Absolute Carnage (2020)
Reprints Venom #16-20
Written by Donny Cates
Art by Juan Gedon, Jesus Arburtov, Iban Coello, Rain Beredo, and Ze Carlos
You’re saying, “Didn’t you review Absolute Carnage last month?” Yes. That was the core mini-series of the event while these are the issues of Venom that tie-in that storyline. Comics are hard to understand sometimes. That said, these issues focus Dylan Brock, Eddie’s son. While Eddie is out fighting Carnage’s hordes of symbiotes, Dylan is staying with Normie Osborn, former host to a piece of Carnage thanks to his grandpa, the Green Goblin. The two kids are being watched over by The Maker, aka Reed Richards. I’d like to talk about that character for a bit.
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Marty (1955)
Written by Paddy Chayefsky
Directed by Delbert Mann
Paddy Chayefsky was born Sidney Chayefsky in the Bronx to Russian-Jewish immigrants. While serving in World War II, he got the nickname “Paddy,” which stuck with him for the rest of his life. During this time, he was wounded by a land mine in Germany, which led to permanent scarring and his shyness around women, an element that would inspire the character of Marty. He’s always been a gifted child in matters of language arts and began writing plays as an adult. After being sent to recover in a London hospital, he penned a musical, No T.O. For Love, which toured around Army camps eventually opening in London.
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Black Lives Matter. If you find an issue with that statement, then your presence on my website is unneeded. The comment section of this post will not be allowed to house any sentiments contrary to this. There is no free speech in my little corner of the internet when it comes to white supremacy and fascist ideals. The history of abusing, mocking, torturing, and killing black people in my home country of the United States is too long and still happening. Cinema was used as a weapon against black lives during the early silent years and into the talkies. However, films have been made that lift up black people and show them as human beings. Here are some of those movies.
Continue reading “Black Lives Matter: A Selection of Films”
Cop Land (1997)
Written & Directed by James Mangold
This weekend, as the country fell into turmoil via a much-needed insurrection, director James Mangold shared behind the scenes information on the making of his second feature film Cop Land. You can read that thread here, but the gist of it is that the Weinstein Brothers and Miramax were nervous about making a movie that had cops as the villains and highlighted the insular, corrupted nature of their organization. The script came from Mangold’s own childhood, growing up in Washingtonville, New York. The particular development Mangold lived in was the home to cops who found loopholes that would let them live outside of New York City. Because they were separated from the communities they patrolled, the police came to think of those residents as “other”, always sizing them up and assuming they were enemies.
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Robocop (1987, directed by Paul Verhoeven)
As a kid, I thought movies like Robocop and Total Recall were cool for the special effects. As an adult, I’ve learned how subversive the pictures were on so many levels. There’s the over plot about OCP and its take over of the Detroit PD turning them into a private army. But there are some more nuanced points being presented in the film. Robocop represents the changes in industrialization. Once you have humans doing jobs like building cars in factories. Now robots do them more efficiently and at a faster pace. Robocop’s existence is a threat to the human police. However, he is also prophetic in his representation of the police’s militarization, and his counterpart ED-209 shows how this goes even more extreme. The world of Verhoeven’s future Detroit is chock full of commercials that represent different ideas that were present in 1980s America. There’s an advertisement for Nukem, a family board game where everyone engages in playing a nuclear war scenario and has a blast. The energy of these spots is so manic that it reflects the anxiety that comes with mass consumerism and a society moving inhumanely fast.
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