The excellant Adepero Oduye plays Alike. The Iron Lady herself gave her a shout out at the Golden Globes!
On the eve of the Oscar nomination announcements I thought I'd re-post my Film Comment review for this beautifully made film. It's still playing around town so be sure to go out and see it!
“It’s exactly like Star Wars…The story is too fantastic and wonderful to cram into 2 hours.” If we get a good first weekend…there is a prequel and a sequel and they’re better than this movie by a long shot…I took the soft center."
Well, it is what it is! I find this clip of George Lucas discussing RED TAILS on the Daily Show both illuminating and amusing!
Illuminating because he addresses some of my very mixed feelings about the movie. My father, Lee (Buddy) Archer, was a Tuskegee Airman and he and his good friend Dr. Roscoe Brown ("The Gruesome Twosome"), consulted on the film and appeared in the accompanying documentary, Double Victory. Dad passed away in January 2010 and did not get to see any of the completed film.
I attended a preview screening a couple of months ago and the premiere last week. The film, much improved from the first time I saw it, should be supported. As a daughter, at first I found Red Tails disappointing, having had the good fortune to hear first-hand stories from the Airmen all of my life (I'll never forget the image of the small sea of red jackets at my mother's funeral in 1996). As a filmmaker tho', I'm intrigued by the way Red Tails is being hyped, the vague authorship of the movie and how it fits into Black cinema, historically. The amusing part is that I thought that Lucas called the film the 1st black-cast film (!) but, in fact, he claims "It's one the first all-black action pictures ever made."(see below)
Also funny--or at least a little hyperbolic--is his fear that the film, if it fails, will endanger if not destroy the opportunities for black filmmakers from this weekend on--prompting from Greg Tate and others the moniker “George Lucas, Black Filmmaker”! But I think Lucas is actually referring to the dangers of big —or should I say GI-normous budget films with predominantly black cast with a black director at the helm. This confused authorship between Lucas and the film’s director, Anthony Hemingway, is intriguing and in the clip Lucas self-effacingly disparages the film (the "soft" center) but inadvertently or unconsciously depending on how you feel about Lucas’ motives, displaces director Hemingway who he does not otherwise refer to in the interview.
The soapy and boyish "soft center" he describes is a truncated and specifically located episode, with hugely compressed characters. The focus then is mainly on dogfights and air(and digital) technology with an almost complete lack of context for the characters--particularly the absense of black women or almost any women--who are not even referenced (no gals back home? No sisters, no Mamas?), nor of African Americans at home following the airmen's adventures.
Well, I guess all of this was relegated to the prequels and sequels that hopefully will be produced (and maybe with my help!)but now hang in the balance of the OPENING WEEKEND BOX OFFICE!!
Anyway, all of this reminds me that all-black/colored movies directed by blacks and whites have existed since the movies began. There’s more than one per decade (I'll make a list later)! For example, preserved in part by our own Women’s Film Preservation Fund, A Fool and His Money (1912) is thought to be the first American film featuring an all African-American cast. And it was made by a LADY!—Alice Guy Blaché who owned Solax Studios, in Fort Lee, New Jersey and produced and directed dozens of films in the silent era.
The first all black action picture? What about The Norman Studios The Flying Ace set in WW1 and made in 1926! This film featured air battles, special effects (the camera turns completely upside down), comedy, action, daring aerial rescues AND romance!!
Here is a great clip from this rarely screened jewel!
Whether they run for two hours or for "6 SMASHING Reels!" black-cast films with their delights, issues, failings and travails are uniquely American and for me, essential in our understanding of the history of cinema.
SO,go see Red Tails this weekend!! You'll have fun!
More about the film a little later but if you are planning to see RED TAILS (2012) d. Anthony Hemingway, consider supporting it this opening weekend. The film cannot begin to represent the incredible history and amazing stories of the Airmen (which I have had the fortune to hear all of my life) but IT IS exciting, action-packed, appropriate for young people and well-acted with an attractive cast! It's clearly a labor of love and deserves an (enthusiastic and critical) audience.
Red Tails Trailer
Above: "Ina The Macon Belle" restored P-51 by Kermit Weeks and Dad and the original, early 1940s
You know how I feel about Col. Jimmy Stewart...AND how I feel about Squirrels! so I love this pict that came via Tom Blunt.
Here's an earlier post about Col. Jimmy...
And here's a pict of Lt. Col Dad:
Miss you today especially!
A fantastic program of restored films @ The Film Society of Lincoln Center:
See you there!
I'll be a speaker on this panel! Details below...
For generations experimental filmmakers have been developing new cinematic techniques that have redefined cinema. This panel of filmmakers, curators and educators looks at how the experiments and ground-breaking new filmmaking by the avant garde have influenced and been adopted by mainstream cinema. Panelists include Sara Driver, whose film You Are Not I was preserved by NYWIFT's Women Film Preservation Fund and is showing at the NYFF later in the evening.
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Event: Thursday Oct. 6, 2011 For generations experimental filmmakers have been developing new cinematic techniques that have redefined cinema. This panel of filmmakers, curators and educators looks at how the experiments and ground-breaking new filmmaking by the avant garde have influenced and been adopted by mainstream cinema. Panelists include Sara Driver, whose film You Are Not I was preserved by NYWIFT's Women Film Preservation Fund and is showing at the NYFF later in the evening.
Film-Makers' Cooperative, the world's oldest and largest archive of independent media. Serra’s new film Bitch-Beauty will premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 3rd, 2011 at the “Views of the Avant-Garde” screening series. Her film, Chop Off, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Museum of Modern Art’s Documentary Fortnight Series in 2009. In Fall 2010 Serra curated Counter Culture, Counter Cinema: An Avant Garde Film Festival, at the Pacific Design Center with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2007 - 2008, Serra was the curator of a six-part experimental film series titled “Cinema of the Unusual” at P.S.1. Serra also curated and traveled with the show “New York Experimental” in Warsaw and Paznan, Poland. Serra's chapter on the work of Carolee Schneemann, titled “Eye/Body: The Cinematic Paintings of Carolee Schneemann,” was published in Anthology of Experimental Filmmakers by Duke University Press.
NYWIFT programs, screenings and events are supported, in part, by grants from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council
New York State Council of the Arts
Last updated: Sep. 30, 2011
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