1
00:00:14,889 --> 00:00:16,891
["City, Country, City" by War plays]

2
00:00:21,229 --> 00:00:23,648
[Elvis Mitchell] <i>For me,
the most exciting period</i>

3
00:00:23,732 --> 00:00:25,066
<i>in the history of film</i>

4
00:00:25,150 --> 00:00:28,737
<i>is when movies with the word "black"
in the title went from this...</i>

5
00:00:30,905 --> 00:00:31,740
<i>to this.</i>

6
00:00:31,823 --> 00:00:33,950
[song becomes funky]

7
00:00:43,460 --> 00:00:47,714
<i>My excitement was not just because
there was finally truth in advertising</i>

8
00:00:48,214 --> 00:00:51,051
<i>but because I got to see
a first in the movies,</i>

9
00:00:51,134 --> 00:00:54,054
<i>a procession of assured Black talent.</i>

10
00:00:55,055 --> 00:00:57,557
<i>Pam Grier aglow in </i>Friday Foster,

11
00:00:57,640 --> 00:00:59,768
<i>an early comics adaptation.</i>

12
00:01:00,268 --> 00:01:04,314
<i>Max Julien's contemporary take
on film noir in </i>The Mack.

13
00:01:04,397 --> 00:01:08,485
<i>Charlie Russell's 1969 play</i>
Five on the Black Hand Side

14
00:01:08,568 --> 00:01:10,945
<i>would hit the big screen four years later.</i>

15
00:01:11,780 --> 00:01:16,618
I ain't givin' up nothin'
but bubble gum and hard times!

16
00:01:16,701 --> 00:01:18,703
And I'm fresh outta bubble gum.

17
00:01:18,787 --> 00:01:20,580
- [all laughing]
- Oh!

18
00:01:21,623 --> 00:01:24,292
[Mitchell] <i>And I wasn't alone
in responding this way.</i>

19
00:01:26,377 --> 00:01:29,756
- [announcer] Hell Up in Harlem.
<i>- </i>[announcer 2] The Black Godfather.

20
00:01:30,840 --> 00:01:35,637
[Mitchell] <i>So, if this burst of freedom
and fulfillment was so well-received</i>

21
00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,014
<i>and the thirst never really went away,</i>

22
00:01:38,098 --> 00:01:41,267
<i>why </i>did<i> these Black films
stop getting made?</i>

23
00:01:52,445 --> 00:01:53,571
[song fades]

24
00:01:53,655 --> 00:01:55,782
[indistinct conversations]

25
00:01:55,865 --> 00:01:59,786
[Mitchell] <i>My grandmother told me
that movies changed the way she dreamed.</i>

26
00:02:00,453 --> 00:02:02,372
<i>She hailed from Mississippi.</i>

27
00:02:02,455 --> 00:02:06,793
<i>She said that movies turned her dreams
into something resembling stories...</i>

28
00:02:06,876 --> 00:02:07,752
[bats screeching]

29
00:02:07,836 --> 00:02:11,714
<i>...and that first film she saw
that embedded in her subconscious</i>

30
00:02:11,798 --> 00:02:12,798
<i>was </i>Dracula<i>.</i>

31
00:02:13,299 --> 00:02:16,511
<i>And its gothic chills
and mezzo-operatic tone</i>

32
00:02:16,594 --> 00:02:19,264
<i>made her afraid to sleep for a week.</i>

33
00:02:19,347 --> 00:02:22,016
I am Dracula.

34
00:02:22,100 --> 00:02:25,895
Evil spirits?! Good gracious me!
Well, there is evil spirits around here?

35
00:02:25,979 --> 00:02:29,399
Why sure, the place is crawling with 'em.
And that ain't all.

36
00:02:29,482 --> 00:02:30,567
What? There's more?

37
00:02:30,650 --> 00:02:33,778
[Mitchell] <i>But movies that showed
African Americans facing fear</i>

38
00:02:33,862 --> 00:02:38,324
<i>brought that to the screen in a way
that was dehumanizing and surreal.</i>

39
00:02:38,408 --> 00:02:39,784
Who is they?! Who is they?!

40
00:02:39,868 --> 00:02:41,161
[dramatic music playing]

41
00:02:41,244 --> 00:02:42,787
- Zombies.
- [exclaims in fear]

42
00:02:44,539 --> 00:02:48,710
[Mitchell] <i>This also demonstrates that,
way more often than should happen,</i>

43
00:02:48,793 --> 00:02:52,964
<i>films regarded as classics
had a way of letting Black people down.</i>

44
00:02:53,047 --> 00:02:53,965
<i>At some point,</i>

45
00:02:54,048 --> 00:02:56,968
<i>you're likely to be assaulted
by a cringe-worthy moment</i>

46
00:02:57,051 --> 00:03:00,388
<i>in something from the canon
by one of the masters.</i>

47
00:03:00,471 --> 00:03:04,058
<i>Tossed-off stereotypes
from the Master of Suspense,</i>

48
00:03:04,142 --> 00:03:06,603
<i>and one of film's
most highly regarded dramatists,</i>

49
00:03:06,686 --> 00:03:09,606
<i>and the premier actor-director of musicals</i>

50
00:03:09,689 --> 00:03:11,399
<i>continue to leave a mark.</i>

51
00:03:11,482 --> 00:03:12,482
[mellow jazz playing]

52
00:03:12,525 --> 00:03:16,738
<i>Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier,
giants in theater and the movies,</i>

53
00:03:16,821 --> 00:03:20,200
<i>slathered on blackface
and benign superiority</i>

54
00:03:20,283 --> 00:03:22,160
<i>to take on Othello.</i>

55
00:03:22,660 --> 00:03:25,747
A closet lock and key
of villainous secrets.

56
00:03:25,830 --> 00:03:26,830
[music ends]

57
00:03:27,248 --> 00:03:30,877
[Mitchell] <i>I have never been able to see
Mickey Mouse in those gloves</i>

58
00:03:30,960 --> 00:03:35,048
<i>or Bugs Bunny, for that matter,
and not think of minstrel shows.</i>

59
00:03:35,131 --> 00:03:38,468
<i>What else were we to assume?
They were dressing for the Harvard Club?</i>

60
00:03:38,551 --> 00:03:42,388
- Did you ever see an elephant fly?
- [chuckles] Well, I seen a horsefly.

61
00:03:42,472 --> 00:03:44,474
[exclaims] <i>I seen a dragonfly.</i>

62
00:03:45,016 --> 00:03:47,185
<i>- I seen a housefly.</i>
- [audience laughs]

63
00:03:48,019 --> 00:03:49,163
[crow] <i>See, I seen all that...</i>

64
00:03:49,187 --> 00:03:51,356
[Mitchell] <i>These were probably
some of the scenes</i>

65
00:03:51,439 --> 00:03:54,234
<i>that made their way
into my grandmother's subconscious,</i>

66
00:03:54,317 --> 00:03:57,654
<i>fragments that she had to fight
from overtaking her image of herself,</i>

67
00:03:57,737 --> 00:04:01,366
<i>along with the way she was treated
as a young woman of color in Mississippi.</i>

68
00:04:01,449 --> 00:04:05,536
<i>Her awareness of images was such that,
when we visited her in Hattiesburg,</i>

69
00:04:05,620 --> 00:04:08,498
<i>she wouldn't let us watch reruns
of </i>The Andy Griffith Show.

70
00:04:09,165 --> 00:04:10,166
<i>She would say,</i>

71
00:04:10,250 --> 00:04:12,794
<i>"There's no Black people
in that Southern town."</i>

72
00:04:12,877 --> 00:04:14,921
<i>"What do </i>you<i> think happened to them?"</i>

73
00:04:15,004 --> 00:04:19,008
<i>All this can sure make it hard
for </i>me<i> to love the movies.</i>

74
00:04:19,592 --> 00:04:25,306
<i>For me, it's been a lifetime of watching,
and thinking, and writing about movies.</i>

75
00:04:25,390 --> 00:04:26,724
<i>I keep coming back,</i>

76
00:04:26,808 --> 00:04:30,353
<i>despite the waves of disregard
they keep hitting me with.</i>

77
00:04:30,853 --> 00:04:33,731
<i>The diminution can feel like a mountain.</i>

78
00:04:34,691 --> 00:04:38,361
<i>Maybe the simplest way
to explain representation is this.</i>

79
00:04:38,444 --> 00:04:39,988
<i>If you were a white actor,</i>

80
00:04:40,071 --> 00:04:43,032
<i>formal wear implied
preparing for a night on the town</i>

81
00:04:43,116 --> 00:04:45,743
<i>and all the pleasures life had to offer.</i>

82
00:04:46,703 --> 00:04:49,872
<i>If you were a Black actor, a black bow tie
wasn't putting on the ritz.</i>

83
00:04:49,956 --> 00:04:53,626
<i>It meant you were going to work.
It was your uniform.</i>

84
00:04:53,710 --> 00:04:57,505
<i>Now, I like a well-assembled ensemble
as much as the next person,</i>

85
00:04:57,588 --> 00:04:58,756
<i>probably more so,</i>

86
00:04:58,840 --> 00:05:01,384
<i>but I've never really been
a fan of tuxedos.</i>

87
00:05:02,051 --> 00:05:03,678
<i>Maybe that's why.</i>

88
00:05:06,180 --> 00:05:09,434
<i>♪ Ol' man river ♪</i>

89
00:05:09,517 --> 00:05:12,478
<i>♪ That ol' man river ♪</i>

90
00:05:12,562 --> 00:05:15,189
<i>♪ He must know somethin' ♪</i>

91
00:05:15,273 --> 00:05:19,027
<i>♪ But don't say nothin'... ♪</i>

92
00:05:19,110 --> 00:05:22,488
[Mitchell] <i>Rather than seek out
and develop new roles for Black actors,</i>

93
00:05:22,572 --> 00:05:25,450
<i>the tired tropes of </i>Show Boat
<i>functioned as a way</i>

94
00:05:25,533 --> 00:05:28,453
<i>to showcase Black talent
through recycling.</i>

95
00:05:28,536 --> 00:05:31,914
<i>The on-screen crushing
of Black hope was institutional,</i>

96
00:05:31,998 --> 00:05:34,876
<i>from saying there were
barely any roles for Black men</i>

97
00:05:34,959 --> 00:05:36,919
<i>to an unreal standard of beauty</i>

98
00:05:37,003 --> 00:05:40,340
<i>that guaranteed decades of self-hatred
for Black women.</i>

99
00:05:40,423 --> 00:05:41,716
Here she comes.

100
00:05:42,633 --> 00:05:43,885
This is the part I really like.

101
00:05:43,968 --> 00:05:45,768
This is when
she does that shit with her hair.

102
00:05:45,845 --> 00:05:48,348
[Mitchell] <i>This role
wasn't written for a Black actor</i>

103
00:05:48,431 --> 00:05:50,433
<i>but oddly made an inadvertent comment</i>

104
00:05:50,516 --> 00:05:52,560
<i>about the most desirable kind of hair...</i>

105
00:05:52,643 --> 00:05:53,978
[all cheering]

106
00:05:54,062 --> 00:05:57,565
<i>...a lesson Black women
are still dealing with.</i>

107
00:05:59,692 --> 00:06:02,904
[Martin Luther King Jr] Well,
in my, uh, days in Atlanta as a child,

108
00:06:02,987 --> 00:06:06,032
there was a pretty strict system
of segregation.

109
00:06:06,115 --> 00:06:08,826
I could not attend any of the theaters.

110
00:06:08,910 --> 00:06:13,164
Only, uh... There were
one or two Negro theaters.

111
00:06:13,247 --> 00:06:14,624
Uh, they were very small,

112
00:06:14,707 --> 00:06:18,252
but, uh, they did not get
the main pictures.

113
00:06:18,336 --> 00:06:22,465
If they got them, they were
two years later, three years late.

114
00:06:22,548 --> 00:06:28,346
So that, uh, by and large, there was
a very strict system of segregation.

115
00:06:31,057 --> 00:06:33,684
My Saturdays was basically spent
in the movies.

116
00:06:33,768 --> 00:06:37,105
- [pleasant music playing]
- We would watch serialized Westerns,

117
00:06:37,188 --> 00:06:41,484
like, you know,
Lash LaRue, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers,

118
00:06:41,567 --> 00:06:45,154
stuff like that, or <i>Buck Rogers,</i>
you know, some outer space stuff.

119
00:06:45,238 --> 00:06:48,157
[Suzanne De Passe] I was very interested
in Westerns.

120
00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:51,327
For some reason, I loved Westerns.

121
00:06:51,411 --> 00:06:54,539
Gene Autry and Johnny Mack Brown
and Roy Rogers...

122
00:06:54,622 --> 00:06:56,666
[chuckling]...and all these cowboy shows.

123
00:06:57,750 --> 00:07:02,380
So I'd go to the Los Angeles Theatre.
It was this big palace like the old days,

124
00:07:02,463 --> 00:07:04,507
and it was still kept in great shape.

125
00:07:04,590 --> 00:07:07,301
And so I'd just kick back,
sometimes be the only one there,

126
00:07:07,385 --> 00:07:09,637
and I had this big old theater
all to myself.

127
00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:12,849
All that stuff by John Ford,
Monument Valley, all that kind of stuff.

128
00:07:12,932 --> 00:07:15,476
I think those things
sort of... sort of grew on me.

129
00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:18,146
I'd seen really good... good stories.

130
00:07:18,229 --> 00:07:22,817
I am going to the movies with my father,

131
00:07:22,900 --> 00:07:26,696
and he is taking me to see
the movies that <i>he</i> likes.

132
00:07:26,779 --> 00:07:31,284
Movies that have people like
John Wayne in them and Steve McQueen.

133
00:07:33,035 --> 00:07:35,037
I remember <i>Band of Angels...</i>

134
00:07:35,121 --> 00:07:38,624
[laughs]...you know, 'cause I remember
when Sidney Poitier slapped her.

135
00:07:38,708 --> 00:07:40,626
[dramatic music rises, stops]

136
00:07:40,710 --> 00:07:44,255
The film cut out, and you came back.
She was standing there holding her face.

137
00:07:44,338 --> 00:07:47,383
We were like, "What just happened?"
My mom said, "He slapped her."

138
00:07:47,467 --> 00:07:48,551
"What?! For real?"

139
00:07:48,634 --> 00:07:49,552
[mutters]

140
00:07:49,635 --> 00:07:51,554
"They can't show that,
but he slapped her."

141
00:07:52,054 --> 00:07:55,933
If you're a movie lover, you go
to the movies you're interested in seeing.

142
00:07:56,017 --> 00:08:00,104
And it's not until after you get into
the middle of the movie do you realize,

143
00:08:00,188 --> 00:08:03,357
"Oh, there's no Black people
in this movie." [laughs]

144
00:08:03,441 --> 00:08:06,235
You're just munching the popcorn,
and it's like,

145
00:08:06,319 --> 00:08:10,448
"Did you... Have... Is it me, or is there
<i>no</i> Black people in this movie?"

146
00:08:10,531 --> 00:08:12,950
"There's no Black people in the movie."
"Oh, okay."

147
00:08:13,534 --> 00:08:15,495
[Mitchell] We wanna see ourselves...

148
00:08:16,454 --> 00:08:18,539
...some kinda way, you know.

149
00:08:18,623 --> 00:08:22,710
Uh, yeah, 'cause, like I said,
when... when I was a "kid" kid,

150
00:08:22,793 --> 00:08:25,171
the Black people in the movies...
We had Stepin Fetchit...

151
00:08:25,254 --> 00:08:26,547
What are you looking for?

152
00:08:26,631 --> 00:08:27,631
[mutters]

153
00:08:28,799 --> 00:08:30,760
Where'd you learn to be a barber?

154
00:08:30,843 --> 00:08:32,011
[Jackson]...Willie Best,

155
00:08:33,095 --> 00:08:36,307
Alfalfa, Buckwheat, Stymie...

156
00:08:39,185 --> 00:08:40,895
but I still wanted to be them!

157
00:08:41,395 --> 00:08:42,688
Hiya, Buckwheat.

158
00:08:42,772 --> 00:08:45,334
[Jackson] I didn't know any Black kid
that played with white kids,

159
00:08:45,358 --> 00:08:46,859
let alone hung out with 'em,

160
00:08:46,943 --> 00:08:49,362
you know, and, you know,
went to their houses,

161
00:08:49,445 --> 00:08:51,656
or they came to their houses
and did stuff, so...

162
00:08:51,739 --> 00:08:53,491
<i>Our Gang </i>was like... totally like,

163
00:08:53,574 --> 00:08:56,077
"Wow! Where the...
Where the hell do <i>they</i> live?"

164
00:08:56,869 --> 00:08:58,538
I mean, I grew up in segregation,

165
00:08:58,621 --> 00:09:04,544
so from the time I could talk,
walk, see, make sense of things,

166
00:09:04,627 --> 00:09:05,795
the world was separate.

167
00:09:05,878 --> 00:09:07,129
[gentle music playing]

168
00:09:07,213 --> 00:09:10,424
But when I went to the movies...
The movies is the stuff of fantasies.

169
00:09:10,508 --> 00:09:11,342
You know?

170
00:09:11,425 --> 00:09:16,222
When I went to the movies, I came home,
and I wanted to be that pirate that I saw.

171
00:09:17,098 --> 00:09:18,098
But...

172
00:09:19,308 --> 00:09:20,810
I needed a Black cowboy.

173
00:09:23,437 --> 00:09:25,356
[Zendaya] We have so many stories to tell.

174
00:09:25,439 --> 00:09:29,777
We just wanna see more of us existing
in all different forms,

175
00:09:29,860 --> 00:09:33,239
and I think that is a common frustration,
I think, amongst my peers.

176
00:09:33,823 --> 00:09:38,119
We just wanna see us just being kids
or, like, in sci-fi, whatever.

177
00:09:38,202 --> 00:09:39,745
[Fishburne] I think, like most people,

178
00:09:39,829 --> 00:09:42,873
I engage with the movies in the way
that you engage with your dreams.

179
00:09:42,957 --> 00:09:45,876
While enjoying those pictures
that I was seeing,

180
00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:47,420
I was also projecting

181
00:09:48,254 --> 00:09:51,299
and trying to visualize myself
on the screen, maybe.

182
00:09:53,551 --> 00:09:55,261
[Margaret Avery] As a little girl,

183
00:09:55,344 --> 00:09:59,140
all I saw in the movies
were people that didn't look like me.

184
00:09:59,724 --> 00:10:03,561
So I didn't really believe
that I could ever become an actress.

185
00:10:03,644 --> 00:10:09,859
Until I saw Harry Belafonte
and Dorothy Dandridge in <i>Carmen Jones.</i>

186
00:10:09,942 --> 00:10:14,113
And when I saw them, I said, "Oh wow!"

187
00:10:14,196 --> 00:10:17,074
"Maybe I <i>could</i> become an actress."

188
00:10:18,367 --> 00:10:20,661
[Mitchell] <i>Dorothy Dandridge
was paired three times</i>

189
00:10:20,745 --> 00:10:23,414
<i>with a figure
who became a star in every arena</i>

190
00:10:23,497 --> 00:10:25,958
<i>except for the one
that he was most qualified,</i>

191
00:10:26,042 --> 00:10:26,876
<i>movies.</i>

192
00:10:26,959 --> 00:10:29,086
That <i>was Harry Belafonte.</i>

193
00:10:29,587 --> 00:10:32,798
<i>Dandridge matched Belafonte
in talent and temperament.</i>

194
00:10:32,882 --> 00:10:36,093
<i>Only the towering presence of racism
could blind anyone</i>

195
00:10:36,177 --> 00:10:38,220
<i>to their adaptable charisma.</i>

196
00:10:38,304 --> 00:10:41,641
That<i> kept them
from more on-screen pairings.</i>

197
00:10:43,225 --> 00:10:47,355
<i>♪ My Lord, what a morning ♪</i>

198
00:10:47,438 --> 00:10:52,360
[Mitchell] <i>Belafonte's success as a singer
sprang from his training as an actor.</i>

199
00:10:52,443 --> 00:10:55,780
<i>He brought the deportment
of a storyteller to music.</i>

200
00:10:55,863 --> 00:10:59,867
<i>His extraordinary presence, he had
the physical arrogance of an athlete,</i>

201
00:10:59,950 --> 00:11:02,536
<i>and an emotional immersion in character,</i>

202
00:11:02,620 --> 00:11:05,414
<i>signaled his on-screen gifts immediately.</i>

203
00:11:05,498 --> 00:11:09,919
<i>But he bristled against a system
that not only had no idea how to use him</i>

204
00:11:10,002 --> 00:11:11,545
<i>but was so afraid of him</i>

205
00:11:11,629 --> 00:11:15,383
<i>that his singing voice wasn't used
in </i>Carmen Jones.

206
00:11:16,342 --> 00:11:21,347
<i>♪ I saw it fade and lose its bloom ♪</i>

207
00:11:21,430 --> 00:11:22,973
[Mitchell] <i>So in 1959,</i>

208
00:11:23,057 --> 00:11:27,645
<i>he responded by producing a project
that brought in director Robert Wise,</i>

209
00:11:27,728 --> 00:11:31,107
<i>actor Ed Begley,
who both won Oscars a few years later,</i>

210
00:11:31,190 --> 00:11:33,567
<i>blacklisted screenwriter Abe Polonsky,</i>

211
00:11:33,651 --> 00:11:35,653
<i>and the Modern Jazz Quartet.</i>

212
00:11:35,736 --> 00:11:37,738
[dramatic jazz music playing]

213
00:11:38,948 --> 00:11:43,452
<i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i>
was just a remarkable thing for its day,

214
00:11:44,203 --> 00:11:47,540
and, uh, the fact that
I was given the opportunity

215
00:11:47,623 --> 00:11:49,291
to make that kind of film

216
00:11:50,501 --> 00:11:51,752
really meant a lot to me.

217
00:11:51,836 --> 00:11:54,046
<i>♪ What's the matter, pretty baby? ♪</i>

218
00:11:55,798 --> 00:11:59,427
<i>♪ Tell me, what's your daddy done? ♪</i>

219
00:11:59,510 --> 00:12:01,512
["My Baby's Not Around" continues]

220
00:12:12,189 --> 00:12:13,649
Hi, baby. What's shaking?

221
00:12:15,651 --> 00:12:17,695
Bacco wants to buy you a drink.

222
00:12:18,612 --> 00:12:20,614
And I wanna buy you a shiny new car.

223
00:12:20,698 --> 00:12:23,743
[Mitchell] Odds Against Tomorrow
<i>was an unforgettable film.</i>

224
00:12:23,826 --> 00:12:25,494
<i>The last film noir of its era</i>

225
00:12:25,578 --> 00:12:28,998
<i>that was also ahead of its time
with an honest look at race,</i>

226
00:12:29,081 --> 00:12:31,375
<i>which means, of course, it was ignored.</i>

227
00:12:31,459 --> 00:12:34,086
<i>Opportunities came Belafonte's way,</i>

228
00:12:34,170 --> 00:12:37,715
<i>but the projects he was offered
didn't remotely interest him.</i>

229
00:12:37,798 --> 00:12:40,176
[Belafonte] Sidney Poitier, up until then,

230
00:12:40,259 --> 00:12:43,471
had been the most popular Black figure
in the universe,

231
00:12:44,138 --> 00:12:46,849
but he was Sidney Poitier.

232
00:12:47,558 --> 00:12:50,686
He was not Sidney Poitier
in a Black environment,

233
00:12:50,770 --> 00:12:52,438
in a Black circumstance.

234
00:12:52,521 --> 00:12:58,068
He was Sidney Poitier playing
a Black <i>person</i> in an all-white movie.

235
00:12:58,152 --> 00:13:01,489
First thing I ask myself is,
"What is a Black man,

236
00:13:02,239 --> 00:13:04,867
came from nothing, going nowhere,

237
00:13:04,950 --> 00:13:09,663
all of a sudden in the middle
of seven Nazi nuns?"

238
00:13:09,747 --> 00:13:11,123
I... I turned it down.

239
00:13:12,541 --> 00:13:15,586
And they offered it to Sidney,
and Sidney took it.

240
00:13:16,170 --> 00:13:18,130
- The winner is Sidney Poitier...
- [applause]

241
00:13:18,214 --> 00:13:19,507
[gentle music playing]

242
00:13:23,344 --> 00:13:25,304
[Mitchell] <i>Rather than submit himself
to material</i>

243
00:13:25,387 --> 00:13:28,390
<i>that didn't depict the Black community
in a meaningful way,</i>

244
00:13:28,474 --> 00:13:29,934
<i>or at all, for that matter,</i>

245
00:13:30,017 --> 00:13:35,356
<i>Harry Belafonte chose not to appear
in movies from 1959 until 1970.</i>

246
00:13:35,439 --> 00:13:39,568
<i>To my mind, that made him
the Muhammad Ali of the film world,</i>

247
00:13:39,652 --> 00:13:43,322
<i>forced in his prime
away from the arena in which he belonged.</i>

248
00:13:43,405 --> 00:13:46,534
[Belafonte] Not one picture I turned down
did I regret not doing.

249
00:13:47,618 --> 00:13:50,371
Mm-mm. Wasn't in my... wasn't in my turf.

250
00:13:50,871 --> 00:13:52,289
I didn't resent any of them.

251
00:13:52,373 --> 00:13:57,127
I'm glad others got an opportunity
and went off and did it, but my initial...

252
00:13:57,711 --> 00:13:59,713
First and foremost, I'm an artist.

253
00:14:00,214 --> 00:14:01,382
I'm an actor.

254
00:14:01,465 --> 00:14:05,344
And I came out of a school
with Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau,

255
00:14:05,427 --> 00:14:07,930
Rod Steiger, Tony Curtis,

256
00:14:08,013 --> 00:14:11,767
with a director that gave us no quarter.

257
00:14:12,434 --> 00:14:16,438
I'm not gonna do anything other than
what I think is worthy of being done.

258
00:14:17,273 --> 00:14:21,151
And fortunately for me,
I was a runaway success

259
00:14:21,235 --> 00:14:22,611
in the world at large

260
00:14:22,695 --> 00:14:26,991
because I had a globe
so passionately approving

261
00:14:27,074 --> 00:14:29,827
of my presence in their midst

262
00:14:29,910 --> 00:14:31,704
that nobody could dismiss the fact

263
00:14:31,787 --> 00:14:34,915
that that thing on the horizon
called Belafonte

264
00:14:34,999 --> 00:14:37,042
could really not be fucked with.

265
00:14:37,126 --> 00:14:39,962
Because anytime anybody came up
and gave me an ultimatum,

266
00:14:40,045 --> 00:14:42,506
I said, "Fuck you. I'm going to Paris."

267
00:14:42,590 --> 00:14:46,760
"I'll probably live there if I like,
but I... I have a destination

268
00:14:46,844 --> 00:14:50,931
that answers your... your denial
of what I could be."

269
00:14:51,473 --> 00:14:52,473
Just me.

270
00:14:55,394 --> 00:14:56,478
I'm here.

271
00:14:56,562 --> 00:15:00,190
[Mitchell] <i>Belafonte's resolve
literally took him out of the picture.</i>

272
00:15:00,274 --> 00:15:01,775
<i>But as frustration mounted</i>

273
00:15:01,859 --> 00:15:05,070
<i>for people of color
demanding redress and civil rights,</i>

274
00:15:05,154 --> 00:15:07,239
<i>movies lagged behind.</i>

275
00:15:07,323 --> 00:15:11,076
<i>To use a Langston Hughes quote
that inspired a play </i>and<i> a movie,</i>

276
00:15:11,660 --> 00:15:13,704
<i>"What happens to a dream deferred?"</i>

277
00:15:13,787 --> 00:15:16,498
<i>"Does it dry up...</i>
[chuckles] <i>...like a raisin in the sun?"</i>

278
00:15:16,999 --> 00:15:19,335
<i>"Maybe it just sags like a heavy load."</i>

279
00:15:20,628 --> 00:15:22,588
<i>"Or does it explode?"</i>

280
00:15:22,671 --> 00:15:23,839
[explosion]

281
00:15:23,923 --> 00:15:26,842
- [guns firing]
- [exciting '60s rock music playing]

282
00:15:27,468 --> 00:15:29,929
[man] <i>We've been beaten
and getting beat and getting beat,</i>

283
00:15:30,012 --> 00:15:32,681
<i>and we've just decided
to do something about it now!</i>

284
00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:37,311
[Mitchell] <i>Decades of punishing
mistreatment of people of color</i>

285
00:15:37,394 --> 00:15:40,397
<i>made the 20th century an epoch of revolt.</i>

286
00:15:40,481 --> 00:15:46,153
<i>The 1960s body politic suffered through
civil eruptions almost every year.</i>

287
00:15:46,236 --> 00:15:50,115
<i>1965 saw one sweep through Los Angeles.</i>

288
00:15:50,199 --> 00:15:53,327
[Burnett] The thing about the Watts Riot
is that you could have anticipated it.

289
00:15:53,410 --> 00:15:56,538
It was clear that was gonna happen.
There was gonna be an explosion.

290
00:15:57,122 --> 00:15:58,374
Police were killing people.

291
00:15:58,457 --> 00:16:01,585
They've always been killing people,
been terrorizing the community.

292
00:16:01,669 --> 00:16:03,087
[sirens wailing]

293
00:16:03,170 --> 00:16:04,505
If I went to a show at night,

294
00:16:04,588 --> 00:16:07,341
I knew I was gonna get stopped
at one point by the police.

295
00:16:08,842 --> 00:16:11,261
It's just a thing where our lives

296
00:16:12,513 --> 00:16:14,515
didn't matter, it seemed, you know.

297
00:16:15,849 --> 00:16:19,353
[Mitchell] <i>By 1968,
America was in free fall.</i>

298
00:16:19,853 --> 00:16:24,400
<i>There had been over 20 riots,
with over half happening in 1967,</i>

299
00:16:24,483 --> 00:16:26,276
<i>including my hometown.</i>

300
00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:30,489
<i>Law and order
have broken down in Detroit, Michigan.</i>

301
00:16:31,281 --> 00:16:33,075
[reporter] <i>This is a shot along Linwood.</i>

302
00:16:33,158 --> 00:16:35,244
<i>The flames and the feelings
were running hotter</i>

303
00:16:35,327 --> 00:16:37,788
<i>than either the mayor
or the governor anticipated.</i>

304
00:16:39,081 --> 00:16:41,208
[Mitchell] <i>Revolt broke out in movies too,</i>

305
00:16:41,709 --> 00:16:43,335
<i>in the independent film world.</i>

306
00:16:43,419 --> 00:16:45,379
<i>There, Black life didn't exist</i>

307
00:16:45,462 --> 00:16:48,549
<i>only in the periphery
of the white man's gaze,</i>

308
00:16:48,632 --> 00:16:52,136
<i>and there was often room
for more than one Black person on-screen.</i>

309
00:16:52,636 --> 00:16:54,555
<i>And two of those Black talents on-screen</i>

310
00:16:54,638 --> 00:16:57,975
<i>simultaneously gave
movie-star performances</i>

311
00:16:58,058 --> 00:17:00,561
<i>that did not lead to movie stardom.</i>

312
00:17:01,270 --> 00:17:04,148
Well, what you doin' with a cat like me
in a joint like this?

313
00:17:04,231 --> 00:17:05,941
[pleasant jazz music playing]

314
00:17:06,025 --> 00:17:07,818
You don't think much of yourself, do you?

315
00:17:08,527 --> 00:17:10,154
[Mitchell] <i>In a more just world,</i>

316
00:17:10,237 --> 00:17:13,741
<i>the heat and tension
sparked by Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln</i>

317
00:17:13,824 --> 00:17:15,242
<i>in </i>Nothing But a Man

318
00:17:15,325 --> 00:17:19,121
<i>would have been a catalyst
for larger careers and recognition.</i>

319
00:17:21,623 --> 00:17:23,917
<i>♪ So alone that I... ♪</i>

320
00:17:24,001 --> 00:17:26,170
[Mitchell] <i>Davis,
with his abundant talents</i>

321
00:17:26,253 --> 00:17:28,213
<i>as singer, actor, and showman,</i>

322
00:17:28,297 --> 00:17:30,132
<i>was certainly capable of it.</i>

323
00:17:30,215 --> 00:17:34,386
<i>He showed a velvet control
as a mercurial, pleasure-seeking ego trip</i>

324
00:17:34,470 --> 00:17:37,556
<i>in 1966's</i> A Man Called Adam.

325
00:17:37,639 --> 00:17:40,893
<i>He acted along with
Cicely Tyson, Ja'Net DuBois,</i>

326
00:17:40,976 --> 00:17:43,812
<i>and in a silent tiny role, Morgan Freeman,</i>

327
00:17:44,396 --> 00:17:48,025
<i>who'd have to wait nearly 20 years
to get a role to show power</i>

328
00:17:48,108 --> 00:17:49,902
<i>and the ability to speak.</i>

329
00:17:49,985 --> 00:17:53,906
<i>Davis holds the movie
in his clenched fist until the last act</i>

330
00:17:53,989 --> 00:17:58,452
<i>in which he basically apologizes
for all the damage his character wreaked.</i>

331
00:17:59,078 --> 00:18:01,080
All right, I was wrong, okay?

332
00:18:01,997 --> 00:18:04,958
I shoulda waited
to find out what it was all about,

333
00:18:05,042 --> 00:18:07,002
maybe let her
break your head with a bottle.

334
00:18:07,086 --> 00:18:09,338
Honey, all I saw

335
00:18:09,421 --> 00:18:13,175
was that old chick's hands
on that toodle doddle...

336
00:18:13,258 --> 00:18:14,258
Adam.

337
00:18:14,676 --> 00:18:16,678
[mellow jazz music playing]

338
00:18:17,846 --> 00:18:21,016
[Mitchell] <i>Van Peebles insertion
of Black life without self-pity</i>

339
00:18:21,100 --> 00:18:24,228
<i>into the art-house world
was a fresh, new breeze.</i>

340
00:18:31,610 --> 00:18:35,447
<i>Studio movies were trapped
in their old-fashioned patriarchal need</i>

341
00:18:35,531 --> 00:18:36,824
<i>to shape the culture</i>

342
00:18:36,907 --> 00:18:38,826
<i>rather than respond to it.</i>

343
00:18:38,909 --> 00:18:41,703
<i>The corpses of misguided musicals
for all ages,</i>

344
00:18:41,787 --> 00:18:46,250
<i>such as this, um... </i>[questioningly]
<i>...awesome Best Picture nominee.</i>

345
00:18:46,333 --> 00:18:50,462
<i>But the best news of '68
was Sidney Poitier's graduation</i>

346
00:18:50,546 --> 00:18:54,007
<i>from self-sacrifice
for miscast white movie stars</i>

347
00:18:54,091 --> 00:18:55,759
<i>to world domination.</i>

348
00:18:55,843 --> 00:18:59,012
<i>Both </i>Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
<i>and </i>In the Heat of the Night

349
00:18:59,096 --> 00:19:04,184
<i>went wide release in 1968, the year
of their Best Picture nominations,</i>

350
00:19:04,268 --> 00:19:08,147
<i>where his white costars
gazed at his magnificent intensity.</i>

351
00:19:08,981 --> 00:19:10,524
Don't misunderstand me.

352
00:19:11,108 --> 00:19:13,986
I love your daughter.
There is nothing I wouldn't do

353
00:19:14,069 --> 00:19:16,738
to try to keep her as happy
as she was the day I met her.

354
00:19:16,822 --> 00:19:20,492
But it seems to me, without your approval,
we will make no sense at all.

355
00:19:22,953 --> 00:19:26,540
[Mitchell] <i>As Mark Harris wrote
in his book, </i>Pictures at a Revolution,

356
00:19:26,623 --> 00:19:30,127
<i>"Poitier is </i>the<i> top box office star
in America."</i>

357
00:19:30,210 --> 00:19:32,212
[mellow funk music playing]

358
00:19:34,298 --> 00:19:38,927
<i>Unfortunately, he's also an example
of the entertainment industry's reaction</i>

359
00:19:39,011 --> 00:19:40,846
<i>to success by people of color.</i>

360
00:19:41,722 --> 00:19:44,975
<i>No one seems to think
that if Sidney Poitier can draw audiences,</i>

361
00:19:45,058 --> 00:19:50,522
<i>then surely one other Black man or woman
might possibly be able to do so.</i>

362
00:19:51,106 --> 00:19:54,943
<i>This is a time when a Black person
talking to a white person on-screen</i>

363
00:19:55,027 --> 00:19:57,821
<i>was considered adult entertainment.</i>

364
00:19:57,905 --> 00:19:59,907
[ominous music playing]

365
00:20:04,369 --> 00:20:06,246
<i>Black success in media</i>

366
00:20:06,330 --> 00:20:10,250
<i>is often treated as the equivalent
of finding a $100 bill on the subway,</i>

367
00:20:10,334 --> 00:20:12,252
<i>a non-repeatable phenomenon.</i>

368
00:20:13,420 --> 00:20:17,174
<i>When movies were first being built around,
God help us, Elvis Presley</i>

369
00:20:17,841 --> 00:20:19,092
<i>or The Beatles,</i>

370
00:20:19,176 --> 00:20:23,263
<i>whose first releases in the US
were on a Black-owned record label,</i>

371
00:20:23,347 --> 00:20:26,475
<i>why wasn't anyone seeking out
these women rock pioneers</i>

372
00:20:26,558 --> 00:20:28,143
<i>for careers in the movies?</i>

373
00:20:28,227 --> 00:20:30,395
[playing rock song]

374
00:20:30,479 --> 00:20:33,607
["If I'm in Luck
I Might Get Picked Up" playing]

375
00:20:34,816 --> 00:20:39,363
<i>♪ I said if I'm in luck
I just might get picked up ♪</i>

376
00:20:40,656 --> 00:20:44,743
[Mitchell] <i>It wouldn't be long
for a new day, or night, to drop</i>

377
00:20:44,826 --> 00:20:47,913
<i>for where Black talent
was most likely to be recognized,</i>

378
00:20:47,996 --> 00:20:49,414
<i>the independent film world.</i>

379
00:20:49,998 --> 00:20:53,377
<i>Writer-director George Romero
created a new kind of action hero</i>

380
00:20:53,460 --> 00:20:58,799
<i>by putting a movie and a gun
in the hand of Duane Jones, a Black actor,</i>

381
00:20:58,882 --> 00:21:01,718
<i>in one of the most influential films
of all time.</i>

382
00:21:01,802 --> 00:21:04,554
- I think you should just calm down.
- [woman groans]

383
00:21:04,638 --> 00:21:08,934
Oh! I screamed, "Johnny! Johnny, help me!"

384
00:21:09,017 --> 00:21:11,186
[Mitchell] <i>Romero also
breaks with tradition</i>

385
00:21:11,270 --> 00:21:13,814
<i>by never having the hero's race mentioned</i>

386
00:21:13,897 --> 00:21:17,025
<i>because the role wasn't written
for a Black actor.</i>

387
00:21:17,776 --> 00:21:21,196
I'll be back to reinforce
the windows and doors later.

388
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,198
But you'll be all right for now, okay?

389
00:21:23,282 --> 00:21:24,825
[sweeping string music playing]

390
00:21:25,951 --> 00:21:26,951
Okay?

391
00:21:27,286 --> 00:21:29,162
You want the Black guy with you.

392
00:21:29,246 --> 00:21:31,957
[chuckles] You want
the Black guy with you.

393
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:34,167
'Cause he's gonna help you get out.

394
00:21:34,251 --> 00:21:36,545
See, if you kill him off, you're dead.

395
00:21:36,628 --> 00:21:38,714
See, we know how to get out.

396
00:21:39,756 --> 00:21:43,260
We know how to get away from the zombies.

397
00:21:43,343 --> 00:21:46,680
We know how to get away
from the, you know, killing plants,

398
00:21:46,763 --> 00:21:50,142
anything that's coming to get you,
'cause we're used to...

399
00:21:50,934 --> 00:21:52,644
We know how to get outta the way.

400
00:21:53,562 --> 00:21:58,066
We know how to get outta the way
and let... let other stuff happen.

401
00:21:59,151 --> 00:22:02,529
[Mitchell] <i>The depiction of the undead
stalking potential victims</i>

402
00:22:02,612 --> 00:22:04,948
<i>and windows boarded up to keep them away</i>

403
00:22:05,032 --> 00:22:07,743
<i>reminded me of TV riot footage.</i>

404
00:22:07,826 --> 00:22:11,288
<i>Never has a film been as loaded
with allegory and metaphor,</i>

405
00:22:11,371 --> 00:22:15,208
<i>intentional and inadvertent,
as </i>Night of the Living Dead.

406
00:22:15,292 --> 00:22:17,461
- [solemn music playing]
- [guns firing]

407
00:22:24,384 --> 00:22:27,012
All right, hit him in the head,
right between the eyes.

408
00:22:27,095 --> 00:22:28,095
[gunshot]

409
00:22:28,138 --> 00:22:31,767
[Mitchell] <i>Because Jones dies,
picked off after fighting to save whites,</i>

410
00:22:31,850 --> 00:22:35,604
Night of the Living Dead <i>was embraced
by militant African Americans.</i>

411
00:22:35,687 --> 00:22:38,857
<i>They felt it was a metaphor
for not staying with your race.</i>

412
00:22:38,940 --> 00:22:42,527
<i>This was a sentiment I heard voiced
by the boyfriends of my older sisters.</i>

413
00:22:42,611 --> 00:22:44,780
Good shot! Okay, he's dead.

414
00:22:44,863 --> 00:22:47,532
Let's go get him.
That's another one for the fire.

415
00:22:48,784 --> 00:22:52,204
[Mitchell] <i>And in an end
as chilling as the movie itself,</i>

416
00:22:52,287 --> 00:22:55,123
<i>he's killed
and tossed onto a pile of corpses.</i>

417
00:22:55,207 --> 00:22:56,249
[flames crackling]

418
00:23:00,462 --> 00:23:03,465
[Robert F. Kennedy] I have
some very sad news for all of you,

419
00:23:03,965 --> 00:23:08,345
and that is that Martin Luther King
was shot and was killed tonight

420
00:23:08,428 --> 00:23:10,555
- in Memphis, Tennessee.
- [crowd screaming]

421
00:23:10,639 --> 00:23:13,975
[Mitchell] <i>Coming in the year
of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination</i>

422
00:23:14,059 --> 00:23:18,313
<i>and only a few years after the murders
of Medgar Evers and Malcolm X,</i>

423
00:23:18,397 --> 00:23:20,774
<i>this movie death had larger implications</i>

424
00:23:20,857 --> 00:23:23,318
<i>than this writer
and director ever imagined.</i>

425
00:23:23,402 --> 00:23:24,486
[ominous sting plays]

426
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:27,697
Living Dead's <i>success
should have been confirmation</i>

427
00:23:27,781 --> 00:23:30,367
<i>of mainstream interest in Black actors.</i>

428
00:23:30,450 --> 00:23:34,663
<i>In the year that includes Peter Sellers
playing a character of Indian descent</i>

429
00:23:34,746 --> 00:23:37,165
<i>in the movie biz satire</i> The Party,

430
00:23:37,249 --> 00:23:41,002
<i>1968 was also a year
with Yul Brynner as Pancho Villa,</i>

431
00:23:41,628 --> 00:23:45,173
<i>and unfortunately,
Woody Strode as an Apache.</i>

432
00:23:47,092 --> 00:23:50,470
[TV host] American feature films
have always been directed by white men,

433
00:23:50,554 --> 00:23:54,057
even when the films dealt with Black life
and used Black actors.

434
00:23:54,141 --> 00:23:55,725
Black directors are excluded,

435
00:23:55,809 --> 00:23:59,229
although Blacks now make up
30% of the total moviegoing audience.

436
00:23:59,312 --> 00:24:02,858
And my associate, William Greaves,
has just finished producing and directing

437
00:24:02,941 --> 00:24:05,819
his first feature film,
<i>Take One and Take Two.</i>

438
00:24:05,902 --> 00:24:07,863
It's in the final stages of editing.

439
00:24:09,072 --> 00:24:11,366
Hello, just to set the record straight,

440
00:24:11,450 --> 00:24:15,120
there've been a number of films
of Black... by Black feature-film directors

441
00:24:15,203 --> 00:24:19,207
in the '40s, like Powell Lindsay,
Oscar Micheaux, and Bill Alexander.

442
00:24:19,708 --> 00:24:22,002
These directors were denied access
to Hollywood,

443
00:24:22,085 --> 00:24:23,503
and their films were seen only

444
00:24:23,587 --> 00:24:25,797
in the Black communities
across the country.

445
00:24:26,756 --> 00:24:28,985
[Mitchell] <i>One of the myths
that did constantly resurface</i>

446
00:24:29,009 --> 00:24:31,261
<i>during 1968 through '78,</i>

447
00:24:31,344 --> 00:24:35,140
<i>when a handful of Black directors
finally got to step behind the camera,</i>

448
00:24:35,223 --> 00:24:39,060
<i>was that this was the first time
Black directors got such chances.</i>

449
00:24:40,604 --> 00:24:42,564
<i>In fact, because they had to,</i>

450
00:24:42,647 --> 00:24:45,192
<i>African Americans often wrote and directed</i>

451
00:24:45,275 --> 00:24:48,028
<i>back when one person writing
and directing was rare</i>

452
00:24:48,111 --> 00:24:50,405
<i>and discouraged by the studios.</i>

453
00:24:50,489 --> 00:24:53,700
<i>But the Black press
supported these theaters and movies,</i>

454
00:24:53,783 --> 00:24:56,578
<i>even as they were ignored
by the mainstream.</i>

455
00:24:57,496 --> 00:25:00,123
<i>And, getting his start in the silent era,</i>

456
00:25:00,207 --> 00:25:03,668
<i>was writer, director,
and occasional actor Oscar Micheaux.</i>

457
00:25:04,169 --> 00:25:06,630
<i>He made films
for the circuit of Black theaters,</i>

458
00:25:06,713 --> 00:25:08,632
<i>many of which were not in very good shape</i>

459
00:25:08,715 --> 00:25:12,177
<i>because there was not
a consistent flow of Black films</i>

460
00:25:12,260 --> 00:25:14,804
<i>despite the consistency
of Black audiences.</i>

461
00:25:14,888 --> 00:25:16,640
[mellow jazz music playing]

462
00:25:16,723 --> 00:25:20,018
<i>Keep in mind,
many studios were afraid to offend Germany</i>

463
00:25:20,101 --> 00:25:21,895
<i>and risk losing </i>that<i> business,</i>

464
00:25:21,978 --> 00:25:25,232
<i>until they were kicked out
by the Nazis in 1942.</i>

465
00:25:25,774 --> 00:25:28,902
<i>But African-American money
wasn't good enough for them.</i>

466
00:25:28,985 --> 00:25:31,530
<i>Many of those Black theaters
were buildings and rooms</i>

467
00:25:31,613 --> 00:25:33,782
<i>that were converted into movie theaters.</i>

468
00:25:34,282 --> 00:25:37,619
<i>On very small budgets,
Micheaux and other filmmakers,</i>

469
00:25:37,702 --> 00:25:40,330
<i>even some whites,
created original material</i>

470
00:25:40,413 --> 00:25:44,125
<i>and adapted popular books
they couldn't afford to pay much for,</i>

471
00:25:44,209 --> 00:25:45,585
<i>but the authors went along</i>

472
00:25:45,669 --> 00:25:48,171
<i>because they wanted their books
turned into movies.</i>

473
00:25:51,049 --> 00:25:52,259
[upbeat music playing]

474
00:25:52,342 --> 00:25:56,263
<i>Astaire often played
master-servant relationships in his films,</i>

475
00:25:56,346 --> 00:26:00,892
<i>exaggerated in scenes where he's tapping
in front of a bunch of Black actors.</i>

476
00:26:03,019 --> 00:26:08,233
<i>As the studios continued to hammer out
a crude mythology about African Americans,</i>

477
00:26:08,316 --> 00:26:12,862
<i>director Alice Guy-Blaché
decided to do something else entirely.</i>

478
00:26:12,946 --> 00:26:16,324
<i>In 1912,
she directed </i>A Fool and His Money,

479
00:26:16,408 --> 00:26:20,787
<i>what's said to be the first film
with an all-African-American cast.</i>

480
00:26:20,870 --> 00:26:25,792
<i>Her artistry showed a playful clarity
and did not diminish those actors.</i>

481
00:26:25,875 --> 00:26:27,877
[jaunty piano music playing]

482
00:26:29,337 --> 00:26:33,341
<i>She was successful enough in those days
that studios sought her out,</i>

483
00:26:33,425 --> 00:26:35,719
<i>and given the care
she used to make her art,</i>

484
00:26:35,802 --> 00:26:37,971
<i>it was only logical
that she turned down the chance</i>

485
00:26:38,054 --> 00:26:40,473
<i>to make the first </i>Tarzan<i> movie.</i>

486
00:26:42,225 --> 00:26:45,895
<i>The Black filmmakers of that era
were hustling, driven cinema lovers</i>

487
00:26:45,979 --> 00:26:49,608
<i>who worked an early version
of independent film.</i>

488
00:26:49,691 --> 00:26:52,569
<i>Back in this day,
"independent film" didn't mean</i>

489
00:26:52,652 --> 00:26:54,613
<i>being a cool, desirable outsider</i>

490
00:26:54,696 --> 00:26:57,949
<i>whose success got you access
to incredible resources.</i>

491
00:26:58,033 --> 00:27:00,368
<i>It meant you were locked out
of the theaters</i>

492
00:27:00,452 --> 00:27:02,829
<i>by the studios who owned them.</i>

493
00:27:02,912 --> 00:27:06,833
<i>You were left to invent ways
to get your product to audiences.</i>

494
00:27:06,916 --> 00:27:09,085
<i>Micheaux and his like-minded spirits</i>

495
00:27:09,169 --> 00:27:14,424
<i>were making dramas, comedies,
musicals, and murder mysteries.</i>

496
00:27:14,507 --> 00:27:18,136
<i>Sometimes smashing the genres together
into a single film</i>

497
00:27:18,219 --> 00:27:20,472
<i>because their resources were limited</i>

498
00:27:20,555 --> 00:27:22,766
<i>even though their ambitions were not.</i>

499
00:27:22,849 --> 00:27:25,977
<i>Because, for most of the history
of the movies,</i>

500
00:27:26,061 --> 00:27:29,648
<i>studios have been content
to leave Black money on the table,</i>

501
00:27:29,731 --> 00:27:33,777
<i>and Black enterprise has responded,
creating, as it always has,</i>

502
00:27:33,860 --> 00:27:37,322
<i>a de facto underground economy
and culture.</i>

503
00:27:37,405 --> 00:27:38,740
<i>♪ I got shoes ♪</i>

504
00:27:38,823 --> 00:27:41,034
<i>♪ When I get to Heaven
Gonna put on my shoes ♪</i>

505
00:27:41,117 --> 00:27:43,745
<i>♪ Gonna walk all over that Heaven ♪</i>

506
00:27:43,828 --> 00:27:46,915
[Mitchell] <i>Though we wouldn't see
evidence of it until later,</i>

507
00:27:46,998 --> 00:27:49,751
<i>actor-turned-filmmaker
William Greaves used the medium</i>

508
00:27:49,834 --> 00:27:52,337
<i>in a way that feels novelistic now.</i>

509
00:27:52,420 --> 00:27:54,130
<i>After losing interest in acting</i>

510
00:27:54,214 --> 00:27:56,925
<i>because of the simplistic uplift
he'd been cast in...</i>

511
00:27:57,008 --> 00:28:00,887
Well, now, Aunt Hattie,
everything moves fast in war.

512
00:28:01,429 --> 00:28:04,349
Even our religious services
had to be speeded up.

513
00:28:04,432 --> 00:28:06,810
<i>...he begins production
on a pioneering effort,</i>

514
00:28:06,893 --> 00:28:09,062
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm<i>.</i>

515
00:28:09,145 --> 00:28:10,230
[sniffles]

516
00:28:10,313 --> 00:28:14,275
No, I said, "Don't touch me, please."
Don't ever touch me ever again, ever.

517
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:18,738
[Mitchell] Symbiopsychotaxiplasm's
<i>ambitions</i>, <i>both formal and freewheeling,</i>

518
00:28:18,822 --> 00:28:20,615
<i>were as big as its title.</i>

519
00:28:20,699 --> 00:28:24,285
<i>It plays with time in every way possible.</i>

520
00:28:24,369 --> 00:28:26,121
<i>The director, Bill Greaves,</i>

521
00:28:26,204 --> 00:28:29,874
<i>he is so far in... into,
you know, making the film,</i>

522
00:28:29,958 --> 00:28:31,334
<i>that he has no perspective.</i>

523
00:28:31,418 --> 00:28:34,713
<i>And if you ask him,
"What is the film about?" you know,</i>

524
00:28:34,796 --> 00:28:38,258
<i>he just gives you some answer
that's just vaguer than the question.</i>

525
00:28:38,341 --> 00:28:40,427
[Louise Greaves] I think
he was kind of torn.

526
00:28:40,510 --> 00:28:43,972
He wanted to see the scene well-done.

527
00:28:44,639 --> 00:28:48,143
He wanted his actors
to be inspired in some way.

528
00:28:48,226 --> 00:28:52,355
So I think he was being both pushed
and pulled in both directions.

529
00:28:52,856 --> 00:28:54,899
That's my theory, anyway.

530
00:28:55,650 --> 00:28:58,778
[Mitchell] <i>For decades, people
would tie themselves up into knots</i>

531
00:28:58,862 --> 00:29:02,157
<i>trying to describe </i>Symbiopsychotaxiplasm.

532
00:29:02,907 --> 00:29:06,911
<i>It's now a kind of film so common
that it's become its own genre,</i>

533
00:29:06,995 --> 00:29:10,039
<i>the innovative, social satire, prank film.</i>

534
00:29:10,123 --> 00:29:11,541
[dramatic music playing]

535
00:29:11,624 --> 00:29:15,503
<i>Director Jules Dassin, who had been,
if you'll pardon the expression,</i>

536
00:29:15,587 --> 00:29:19,466
<i>blacklisted, brought race politics
to a studio thriller</i>

537
00:29:19,549 --> 00:29:23,428
<i>in </i>Uptight, <i>which he wrote
for the film's Black costars.</i>

538
00:29:23,511 --> 00:29:28,349
<i>Dassin, Dee, and Mayfield
were shrewd, earnest, and shameless,</i>

539
00:29:28,433 --> 00:29:33,772
<i>enfolding the world-gone-wrong impact
of Dr. King's death into a genre film.</i>

540
00:29:35,774 --> 00:29:38,276
[Fishburne] Martin Luther King
was assassinated in '68.

541
00:29:38,777 --> 00:29:42,572
My mother dropped everything
and went to the funeral.

542
00:29:42,655 --> 00:29:44,491
She didn't know this man,

543
00:29:44,574 --> 00:29:48,411
but she dropped everything
and put on her best clothes and left.

544
00:29:49,037 --> 00:29:51,498
And that was, like,
"Oh, so this is important?"

545
00:29:51,581 --> 00:29:53,374
Like, this guy was important.

546
00:29:53,458 --> 00:29:57,086
What he was doing was important.
What he was talking about was important.

547
00:29:57,170 --> 00:29:58,546
[sad string music playing]

548
00:29:58,630 --> 00:29:59,672
<i>We</i> are important.

549
00:30:00,256 --> 00:30:03,218
Our voices, our hopes,
our dreams, our aspirations,

550
00:30:03,301 --> 00:30:05,178
all that stuff, that's important.

551
00:30:05,261 --> 00:30:08,014
[Martin Luther King]
<i>We hold these truths to be self-evident.</i>

552
00:30:08,097 --> 00:30:10,642
[Mitchell] Uptight <i>depicted
the shaky anguish</i>

553
00:30:10,725 --> 00:30:14,771
<i>and free-floating fury
of a society desperate for answers,</i>

554
00:30:14,854 --> 00:30:16,856
<i>the heart of genre film.</i>

555
00:30:16,940 --> 00:30:18,691
[Jackson] The day after
Dr. King got killed,

556
00:30:18,775 --> 00:30:21,569
we got on a plane in Atlanta,
from Morehouse Spelman,

557
00:30:21,653 --> 00:30:24,864
and flew to Memphis
and marched with the garbage workers.

558
00:30:24,948 --> 00:30:28,201
And we had those "I am a man" signs.
We used to have them in the house.

559
00:30:28,284 --> 00:30:29,285
[music continues]

560
00:30:35,250 --> 00:30:36,125
[music fades]

561
00:30:36,209 --> 00:30:38,962
[Mitchell] <i>In an audacious turn
on the heist genre,</i>

562
00:30:39,045 --> 00:30:41,631
<i>a group of revolutionaries
is out to stage a robbery</i>

563
00:30:41,714 --> 00:30:44,968
<i>while Cleveland reels
after Dr. King's assassination.</i>

564
00:30:45,635 --> 00:30:47,262
<i>A key member of the team,</i>

565
00:30:47,345 --> 00:30:50,682
<i>at loose ends because of the chaos
spilling from King's death,</i>

566
00:30:50,765 --> 00:30:52,684
<i>has a crisis of conscience.</i>

567
00:30:52,767 --> 00:30:55,395
I've never felt so bad in all my life.

568
00:30:55,895 --> 00:31:00,275
Uptight<i> is a contemporary version
of a 1935 John Ford movie</i>

569
00:31:00,358 --> 00:31:04,279
<i>and begins a cycle where Black concerns
are folded into remakes.</i>

570
00:31:04,362 --> 00:31:07,031
[Jackson] Is that the one
that's like a remake of <i>The Informer?</i>

571
00:31:07,115 --> 00:31:08,491
I knew what <i>The Informer</i> was,

572
00:31:08,575 --> 00:31:10,702
so when I saw that,
I knew exactly what it was.

573
00:31:10,785 --> 00:31:13,329
So, you look at it,
and everybody had a thing

574
00:31:13,413 --> 00:31:16,499
about, you know, certain kinds of people
was just the police.

575
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,252
If you're at a party,
and you're passing a joint around,

576
00:31:19,335 --> 00:31:21,880
and a dude don't take the joint
and hands it to somebody else...

577
00:31:21,963 --> 00:31:24,716
[muttering]...it's like, "Oh man,
he's the police." You know?

578
00:31:24,799 --> 00:31:29,053
Or... or somebody is acting strange,
you know, around the group when y'all...

579
00:31:29,137 --> 00:31:31,222
you know, when we was revolutionaries,

580
00:31:31,306 --> 00:31:35,143
when you had a revolutionary cadre
of your own, uh,

581
00:31:35,226 --> 00:31:37,478
there was always somebody who was suspect.

582
00:31:37,562 --> 00:31:42,609
So having <i>that</i> movie be that
was, you know, like that.

583
00:31:42,692 --> 00:31:46,571
[Mitchell] <i>In his autobiography,
Booker T. Jones, who composed the score,</i>

584
00:31:46,654 --> 00:31:50,116
<i>said some called </i>Uptight
<i>the first blaxploitation film.</i>

585
00:31:51,242 --> 00:31:53,953
<i>On another continent,
from another culture,</i>

586
00:31:54,037 --> 00:31:56,080
<i>was a studio film from Italy,</i>

587
00:31:56,164 --> 00:31:58,833
<i>and, like many movies
that changed the medium,</i>

588
00:31:58,917 --> 00:32:01,628
<i>it was from a genre
dismissed as second-rate,</i>

589
00:32:01,711 --> 00:32:03,922
<i>in this case, the spaghetti western.</i>

590
00:32:04,005 --> 00:32:05,006
[footsteps running]

591
00:32:06,174 --> 00:32:07,592
[dramatic music plays]

592
00:32:07,675 --> 00:32:09,302
<i>A little later in the movie,</i>

593
00:32:09,385 --> 00:32:12,013
<i>this scene was something
the director wanted to use</i>

594
00:32:12,096 --> 00:32:15,725
<i>to drive a stake
through the heart of audience expectation.</i>

595
00:32:15,808 --> 00:32:19,062
<i>Making Henry Fonda cold-blooded
was shattering.</i>

596
00:32:19,145 --> 00:32:22,148
<i>He was America's big-screen moral compass.</i>

597
00:32:22,231 --> 00:32:24,776
<i>But Isaac Hayes, in need of a hit,</i>

598
00:32:24,859 --> 00:32:28,112
<i>was inspired by seeing
Leone's perverse use of Fonda,</i>

599
00:32:28,196 --> 00:32:31,032
<i>who belonged on the movie Mount Rushmore
of white decency</i>

600
00:32:31,115 --> 00:32:34,077
<i>with John Wayne,
Jimmy Stewart, and Shirley Temple.</i>

601
00:32:34,577 --> 00:32:36,454
[bullet ricochets]

602
00:32:36,537 --> 00:32:40,333
<i>So moved that producer-performer Hayes
created this piece of music.</i>

603
00:32:40,416 --> 00:32:42,418
["Walk On By" by Isaac Hayes playing]

604
00:32:58,935 --> 00:33:02,105
<i>Hayes told me that he would escape
the malfunctioning air-conditioning</i>

605
00:33:02,188 --> 00:33:04,983
<i>at Stax Studios
by going to see this movie,</i>

606
00:33:05,066 --> 00:33:07,193
<i>which he caught at least ten times.</i>

607
00:33:07,276 --> 00:33:09,821
<i>Woody Strode's towering presence
convinced Hayes</i>

608
00:33:09,904 --> 00:33:12,115
<i>that he could one day be a movie star,</i>

609
00:33:12,198 --> 00:33:16,327
<i>and in a genre where Black inclusion
was marginal at best, the Western.</i>

610
00:33:16,411 --> 00:33:20,957
<i>More importantly,</i> Once Upon a Time
<i>also motivated Hayes to create this</i>

611
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:22,875
<i>for his </i>Hot Buttered Soul <i>album.</i>

612
00:33:23,376 --> 00:33:25,378
["Walk On By" continues playing]

613
00:33:34,762 --> 00:33:38,057
<i>When Gordon Parks adapted
his semi-autobiographical novel,</i>

614
00:33:38,141 --> 00:33:40,685
The Learning Tree, <i>in 1969,</i>

615
00:33:40,768 --> 00:33:45,314
<i>he made the first studio-financed film
by an African-American director.</i>

616
00:33:45,398 --> 00:33:48,735
<i>Warner Bros. got its money's worth
from the photographer-turned-filmmaker.</i>

617
00:33:49,318 --> 00:33:53,573
<i>He wrote, directed, produced,
and composed the score.</i>

618
00:33:53,656 --> 00:33:57,035
<i>He joked to me
that the only reason he didn't star in it</i>

619
00:33:57,118 --> 00:33:58,953
<i>was because he was too tall.</i>

620
00:33:59,037 --> 00:34:03,374
Learning Tree <i>follows Newt, a 12-year-old,
over the course of a summer.</i>

621
00:34:04,542 --> 00:34:08,046
<i>One incident carries a resonance
that the movie can't shake.</i>

622
00:34:08,129 --> 00:34:09,129
Run, Tuck, run!

623
00:34:09,172 --> 00:34:13,468
<i>A moment so potent
it seems surreal and way too real,</i>

624
00:34:13,551 --> 00:34:15,720
<i>a beat that didn't get it's due
at the time.</i>

625
00:34:15,803 --> 00:34:17,847
- [man] Stop, damn it! I'll shoot!
- [gun fires]

626
00:34:20,558 --> 00:34:22,310
[eerie music playing]

627
00:34:29,358 --> 00:34:31,360
[somber music playing]

628
00:34:38,076 --> 00:34:39,869
You didn't have to shoot Tuck.

629
00:34:41,579 --> 00:34:43,706
Now you can see what happens to criminals.

630
00:34:43,790 --> 00:34:45,625
[Mitchell] <i>The type of scene
we all knew about</i>

631
00:34:45,708 --> 00:34:48,503
<i>but never expected to see in a movie.</i>

632
00:34:48,586 --> 00:34:52,423
<i>And Parks also told me he packed
as much as he could into the film,</i>

633
00:34:52,507 --> 00:34:57,261
<i>such as this glorious image
claiming the Western for Black audiences,</i>

634
00:34:57,345 --> 00:34:58,805
<i>because he didn't know</i>

635
00:34:58,888 --> 00:35:01,557
<i>if he'd ever get a chance
to make another one.</i>

636
00:35:02,558 --> 00:35:06,270
<i>1969 took us from the hyperreal
to the unreal.</i>

637
00:35:06,354 --> 00:35:08,439
<i>The wildness flowered in full force</i>

638
00:35:08,523 --> 00:35:14,487
<i>in writer-director Robert Downey Sr.'s
revolutionary comedy about revolution,</i>

639
00:35:14,570 --> 00:35:16,989
<i>the advertising satire </i>Putney Swope.

640
00:35:17,073 --> 00:35:19,325
You can't eat an air conditioner.

641
00:35:20,701 --> 00:35:22,620
[Mitchell] <i>Here, a Black man,
Putney Swope,</i>

642
00:35:22,703 --> 00:35:25,456
<i>is suddenly made
the head of an advertising agency...</i>

643
00:35:25,540 --> 00:35:27,208
You're gonna make a great chairman.

644
00:35:27,291 --> 00:35:30,461
<i>...and immediately upends
the way the agency does business.</i>

645
00:35:30,545 --> 00:35:34,132
I have a feeling that there's
a lot of untapped talent around here.

646
00:35:35,216 --> 00:35:36,050
I didn't do it!

647
00:35:36,134 --> 00:35:38,261
Then what are you doing?
Taking her temperature?

648
00:35:38,928 --> 00:35:42,932
Boss, don't fire me. I got a wife,
three kids, and a Shetland pony.

649
00:35:43,015 --> 00:35:47,603
You can get more said with comedy
than you can get said straight,

650
00:35:48,146 --> 00:35:51,440
and I think
that's what Blacks had to survive.

651
00:35:51,524 --> 00:35:55,319
You had to, uh, make 'em laugh
under the subtext.

652
00:35:55,862 --> 00:35:57,989
Downey saw an opening

653
00:35:58,072 --> 00:36:01,075
where we could play
and be cutting and biting.

654
00:36:02,618 --> 00:36:06,914
And I don't use words like "genius,"
but it was a stroke of something.

655
00:36:06,998 --> 00:36:10,960
[Mitchell] <i>Unhappy with the performance
of his star, actor Arnold Johnson,</i>

656
00:36:11,043 --> 00:36:15,006
<i>director Downey dubbed his own voice
for his lead Black character...</i>

657
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:17,925
Truth and Soul!

658
00:36:18,009 --> 00:36:20,178
- [man] TS, baby.
- That's right!

659
00:36:20,261 --> 00:36:21,971
<i>...a move that surely later influenced</i>

660
00:36:22,054 --> 00:36:24,974
<i>his son's Oscar-nominated role
in</i> Tropic Thunder.

661
00:36:25,057 --> 00:36:28,186
'Cause I'm trying to come up a little,
but it's just... it's tough.

662
00:36:28,269 --> 00:36:29,770
- No, you look good.
- Any tips?

663
00:36:32,148 --> 00:36:35,902
[Mitchell] <i>1969 was a watershed period
in Black film,</i>

664
00:36:35,985 --> 00:36:38,779
<i>in which stories took a harsher
and more realistic look</i>

665
00:36:38,863 --> 00:36:40,656
<i>at Black life in the past,</i>

666
00:36:40,740 --> 00:36:44,994
<i>such as with the first American films
to deal, in somewhat stark terms,</i>

667
00:36:45,077 --> 00:36:46,204
<i>with slavery.</i>

668
00:36:46,287 --> 00:36:48,414
<i>The movie was called </i>Slaves<i>,</i>

669
00:36:48,497 --> 00:36:50,541
<i>which both starred Dionne Warwick</i>

670
00:36:50,625 --> 00:36:53,169
<i>and offered her singing
about a different kind of hurt</i>

671
00:36:53,252 --> 00:36:55,171
<i>than one might have expected from her.</i>

672
00:36:56,088 --> 00:36:59,258
<i>Ossie Davis plays a slave
attempting to hold onto logic</i>

673
00:36:59,342 --> 00:37:00,843
<i>in a system that has none.</i>

674
00:37:00,927 --> 00:37:03,262
Twelve hundred twice. Anyone else?

675
00:37:03,346 --> 00:37:07,391
[Mitchell] <i>Davis's regal slow burn
doesn't hide his despair.</i>

676
00:37:07,475 --> 00:37:09,727
<i>In fact, it magnifies this.</i>

677
00:37:09,810 --> 00:37:12,188
- [tense music playing]
- [camera shutter clicks]

678
00:37:16,567 --> 00:37:19,612
<i>The historic tumult continues
when Rupert Crosse becomes</i>

679
00:37:19,695 --> 00:37:23,616
<i>the first Black actor to be nominated
for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor</i>

680
00:37:23,699 --> 00:37:24,867
<i>for </i>The Reivers.

681
00:37:24,951 --> 00:37:26,494
[car horn honks]

682
00:37:26,577 --> 00:37:28,704
[chuckling]

683
00:37:29,205 --> 00:37:31,249
How do you start this thing?

684
00:37:31,332 --> 00:37:35,795
[Mitchell] <i>Crosse's sunny fluidity
frees McQueen from his laconic narcissism.</i>

685
00:37:35,878 --> 00:37:37,630
<i>He pays attention to Crosse</i>

686
00:37:37,713 --> 00:37:40,925
<i>and allows </i>us<i> to honor Crosse
in the same way.</i>

687
00:37:41,008 --> 00:37:44,470
<i>Ten years earlier,
Crosse was featured in </i>Shadows,

688
00:37:44,553 --> 00:37:50,851
<i>John Cassavetes' 1959 race drama
that was, of course, independently made.</i>

689
00:37:50,935 --> 00:37:53,396
You like that one
about the rabbit and the tree?

690
00:37:53,479 --> 00:37:54,605
I don't know that one.

691
00:37:55,106 --> 00:37:58,109
You know that one about the rabbit
that fell on out the tree and says,

692
00:37:58,192 --> 00:38:00,194
"Man, that lovemaking's for the birds."

693
00:38:00,278 --> 00:38:01,445
[laughs]

694
00:38:01,529 --> 00:38:02,809
[Mitchell] <i>Director Mark Rydell,</i>

695
00:38:02,863 --> 00:38:06,450
<i>who knew Crosse from the Actors Studio,
brought him into </i>The Reivers.

696
00:38:06,534 --> 00:38:09,078
[Rydell] <i>Rupert Crosse
was 6 foot 5 inches tall,</i>

697
00:38:09,161 --> 00:38:12,707
<i>and I knew he was right for the part
to play opposite Steve.</i>

698
00:38:13,541 --> 00:38:16,168
<i>It was awesome
to drive up to Steve McQueen's house</i>

699
00:38:16,252 --> 00:38:19,255
<i>because there were maybe ten garages</i>

700
00:38:19,338 --> 00:38:23,259
<i>with all kinds of cars,
Ferraris and, uh, Aston Martins</i>

701
00:38:23,342 --> 00:38:25,386
<i>and racing motorcycles.</i>

702
00:38:25,469 --> 00:38:28,222
<i>An enormous piece of property,
a courtyard.</i>

703
00:38:28,306 --> 00:38:29,765
<i>It was... it was very lavish.</i>

704
00:38:29,849 --> 00:38:32,184
<i>And Rupert had never seen
anything like that before,</i>

705
00:38:32,268 --> 00:38:35,688
<i>and I must tell you,
I hadn't either till I met Steve.</i>

706
00:38:36,272 --> 00:38:38,983
<i>I lived a little bit more modestly
but certainly better than Rupert,</i>

707
00:38:39,066 --> 00:38:42,153
<i>who had no... no money
and was living like a young actor.</i>

708
00:38:42,236 --> 00:38:45,573
<i>Well, we walked into the house,
and Rupert met Steve,</i>

709
00:38:45,656 --> 00:38:50,578
<i>and, uh, Steve looked up at this giant,
and we sat down in his kind of library,</i>

710
00:38:50,661 --> 00:38:53,914
<i>and Steve began to talk
about, uh, tae kwon do.</i>

711
00:38:53,998 --> 00:38:57,126
<i>You know, he was a master
of those fighting disciplines,</i>

712
00:38:57,209 --> 00:39:00,629
<i>and, uh, he was showing Rupert
some moves, and Rupert said,</i>

713
00:39:00,713 --> 00:39:04,300
<i>"No, you're off-balance,"
said Rupert from his chair.</i>

714
00:39:04,383 --> 00:39:05,468
[chuckles]

715
00:39:05,551 --> 00:39:08,554
<i>And I saw... And Steve looked at him,
he said, "Oh?"</i>

716
00:39:09,180 --> 00:39:11,515
<i>He said, "Yes, you're off-balance,
you know."</i>

717
00:39:11,599 --> 00:39:15,353
<i>"It's wrong, the way you're standing."
So Steve said, "Show me."</i>

718
00:39:15,436 --> 00:39:19,857
<i>And Rupert uncoiled
and stood up at his height,</i>

719
00:39:19,940 --> 00:39:22,693
<i>and they faced one another,
and in two seconds,</i>

720
00:39:22,777 --> 00:39:24,945
<i>Steve was flying through the air</i>

721
00:39:25,029 --> 00:39:28,574
<i>under the billiard table in the...
Actually, the next room.</i>

722
00:39:28,657 --> 00:39:31,369
<i>So... And I thought,
"Well, the picture's over."</i>

723
00:39:31,452 --> 00:39:33,287
<i>"You know, there goes Rupert."</i>

724
00:39:33,954 --> 00:39:37,083
<i>But the truth of the matter
is Steve was thrilled, you know,</i>

725
00:39:37,166 --> 00:39:39,543
<i>that, uh... that this guy
was not afraid of him.</i>

726
00:39:39,627 --> 00:39:42,463
[Mitchell] <i>Among the curious
and forward-thinking artists</i>

727
00:39:42,546 --> 00:39:44,382
<i>that populated LA's film world,</i>

728
00:39:44,465 --> 00:39:48,344
<i>which included Jack Nicholson
and screenwriter Robert Towne,</i>

729
00:39:48,427 --> 00:39:52,431
<i>Rupert Crosse was a charismatic figure,
admired for his talent.</i>

730
00:39:52,515 --> 00:39:54,433
<i>As Jim Brown and Rupert Crosse</i>

731
00:39:54,517 --> 00:39:57,103
<i>were presenting a new type
of Black masculinity,</i>

732
00:39:57,686 --> 00:40:00,940
<i>Brown, who was simultaneously
courtly and impatient,</i>

733
00:40:01,023 --> 00:40:02,900
<i>and Crosse's smiling insolence,</i>

734
00:40:03,401 --> 00:40:06,987
<i>Muhammad Ali, who was for me
the second Black public figure</i>

735
00:40:07,071 --> 00:40:10,533
<i>to be the same with Black audiences
as with white audiences,</i>

736
00:40:10,616 --> 00:40:13,327
<i>had his version of courtliness
and insolence displayed</i>

737
00:40:13,411 --> 00:40:16,705
<i>in the 1970 documentary</i>
a.k.a. Cassius Clay.

738
00:40:16,789 --> 00:40:19,125
[narrator] <i>He was paying lawyers
to keep him out of jail,</i>

739
00:40:19,208 --> 00:40:21,168
<i>paying alimony to his first wife,</i>

740
00:40:21,961 --> 00:40:24,380
<i>supporting his current wife and child.</i>

741
00:40:25,047 --> 00:40:29,468
[Mitchell] <i>This unusual documentary
caught Ali at the crossroads of who he was</i>

742
00:40:29,552 --> 00:40:30,970
<i>and who he would become.</i>

743
00:40:31,053 --> 00:40:33,764
<i>Important because it shows
the self-possession</i>

744
00:40:33,848 --> 00:40:36,016
<i>that will be the core of Black film.</i>

745
00:40:36,517 --> 00:40:40,312
<i>And the first such Black figure
to break through in the same way as Ali,</i>

746
00:40:40,396 --> 00:40:42,440
<i>not trying to hide
from the mainstream gaze,</i>

747
00:40:42,523 --> 00:40:45,901
<i>was Jack Johnson,
whose struggles were depicted in the play</i>

748
00:40:45,985 --> 00:40:48,279
<i>and now the movie </i>The Great White Hope,

749
00:40:48,362 --> 00:40:51,157
<i>where James Earl Jones
would become the second Black man</i>

750
00:40:51,240 --> 00:40:53,159
<i>to get a Best Actor nomination.</i>

751
00:40:57,121 --> 00:40:59,790
[woman screaming]

752
00:41:04,545 --> 00:41:07,006
[Mitchell] <i>James Earl Jones
rose to the occasion</i>

753
00:41:07,089 --> 00:41:08,924
<i>as a lean sexual presence</i>

754
00:41:09,008 --> 00:41:11,677
<i>for one of the few times
in his on-screen career.</i>

755
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,054
- No, no! I'm...
- Put your clothes on, Miss Bachman.

756
00:41:14,138 --> 00:41:15,598
- We'll take you into town.
- Jake!

757
00:41:15,681 --> 00:41:17,808
Don't you fret now. Just get dressed.

758
00:41:17,892 --> 00:41:21,228
[Mitchell] <i>Interracial sexuality
and the unease it created</i>

759
00:41:21,312 --> 00:41:24,356
<i>whipped up waves of anxiety
in film in 1970.</i>

760
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:26,650
The Great White Hope <i>reminded viewers</i>

761
00:41:26,734 --> 00:41:29,195
<i>that those relationships
were based on appetites.</i>

762
00:41:29,278 --> 00:41:33,073
<i>The changes left
at least one esteemed filmmaker at a loss,</i>

763
00:41:33,157 --> 00:41:36,785
<i>director William Wyler,
whose ability to depict societal shift</i>

764
00:41:36,869 --> 00:41:40,206
<i>can be seen in films
such as </i>The Best Years of Our Lives.

765
00:41:41,165 --> 00:41:42,374
<i>And Wyler set a template</i>

766
00:41:42,458 --> 00:41:46,337
<i>with his 1965 proto-stalker film,</i>
The Collector.

767
00:41:46,420 --> 00:41:49,757
<i>His last film
was </i>The Liberation of L.B. Jones,

768
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:54,261
<i>and his power to coherently translate
up-to-the-minute drama failed him</i>

769
00:41:54,345 --> 00:41:58,265
<i>with this hysterical fetishizing
of Black female flesh.</i>

770
00:41:58,349 --> 00:42:00,392
[melancholy organ music playing]

771
00:42:02,478 --> 00:42:05,898
- You fancy goin' to lawyers?
- Sugar boy, you bustin' my arm.

772
00:42:05,981 --> 00:42:09,401
You fancy goin' to lawyers!
You think they wouldn't warn a white man?

773
00:42:10,152 --> 00:42:13,906
I seen fools,
but you take the sap-suckin' prize.

774
00:42:14,740 --> 00:42:18,035
[Mitchell] <i>After directing the documentary</i>
King: A Filmed Record,

775
00:42:18,118 --> 00:42:20,829
<i>Sidney Lumet turned to something
that sounded tantalizing,</i>

776
00:42:20,913 --> 00:42:24,416
<i>a Gore Vidal script
adapted from a Tennessee Williams play</i>

777
00:42:24,500 --> 00:42:26,377
<i>dealing with race and sex</i>

778
00:42:26,460 --> 00:42:29,922
<i>with James Coburn,
Robert Hooks, and Lynn Redgrave.</i>

779
00:42:30,005 --> 00:42:33,509
<i>The desperate-to-be-lurid result
was </i>Last of the Mobile Hotshots,

780
00:42:33,592 --> 00:42:35,010
<i>which got an X rating,</i>

781
00:42:35,094 --> 00:42:39,807
<i>apparently because a Black man
might have sex with a white woman.</i>

782
00:42:41,183 --> 00:42:46,105
The oven door's broke,
the roof leaks, the toilet runs all day,

783
00:42:46,188 --> 00:42:48,440
and you awful cute to be a landlord.

784
00:42:48,524 --> 00:42:53,362
[Mitchell] <i>Diana Sands' ability to enchant
was evident in 1970's </i>The Landlord,

785
00:42:53,445 --> 00:42:57,950
<i>and this early story of the turmoil
caused by an overprivileged white man</i>

786
00:42:58,033 --> 00:43:01,579
<i>gentrifying an all-Black Brooklyn street
continued the trend,</i>

787
00:43:01,662 --> 00:43:05,374
<i>that of a Black writer, Bill Gunn,
adapting a novel</i>

788
00:43:05,457 --> 00:43:08,168
<i>by a Black writer, Kristin Hunter.</i>

789
00:43:09,336 --> 00:43:13,090
<i>This actor's earthy commonsense command
was made for the screen.</i>

790
00:43:13,173 --> 00:43:16,427
<i>Sands could convey
as much with a chuckle and a smile</i>

791
00:43:16,510 --> 00:43:19,305
<i>as most actors could
with pages of dialogue.</i>

792
00:43:20,556 --> 00:43:21,765
[chuckles softly]

793
00:43:23,559 --> 00:43:26,520
[Glynn Turman] Diana Sands
was just the perfect auntie

794
00:43:26,604 --> 00:43:28,689
because she knew how to be a big kid.

795
00:43:28,772 --> 00:43:31,567
She was such a... a giving person,

796
00:43:31,650 --> 00:43:34,320
such a joy, uh, to be around.

797
00:43:35,904 --> 00:43:38,824
[Mitchell] <i>1970 brought Chester Himes
to the screen</i>

798
00:43:38,907 --> 00:43:40,659
<i>in a way that finally made sense.</i>

799
00:43:40,743 --> 00:43:42,911
<i>In his directorial debut,</i>

800
00:43:42,995 --> 00:43:47,833
<i>Ossie Davis spins the long-standing myth
of the emotional Black sexpot on its head</i>

801
00:43:47,916 --> 00:43:50,794
<i>by using a scene right from Himes' novel.</i>

802
00:43:50,878 --> 00:43:53,797
<i>In his book,
Himes adds a hint of bitterness</i>

803
00:43:53,881 --> 00:43:57,426
<i>to this turn-the-tables anecdote
about a Black woman luring a white cop</i>

804
00:43:57,509 --> 00:43:59,428
<i>into sexual humiliation.</i>

805
00:43:59,511 --> 00:44:00,804
Please, baby.

806
00:44:00,888 --> 00:44:02,431
[romantic music playing]

807
00:44:03,140 --> 00:44:04,141
Please.

808
00:44:09,605 --> 00:44:11,732
[Mitchell] <i>The film adaptation
cranked the glee</i>

809
00:44:11,815 --> 00:44:14,360
<i>of an audience bored by Black degradation</i>

810
00:44:14,443 --> 00:44:18,656
<i>and revels in Davis's flipping the script
under a proscenium arch.</i>

811
00:44:18,739 --> 00:44:20,991
- [man] Halt in the name of the law!
- [gun fires]

812
00:44:21,075 --> 00:44:23,285
- Halt in the name of the law!
- [funk music playing]

813
00:44:23,869 --> 00:44:28,290
[Mitchell] <i>The Davis take on Himes'
Old Testament avenger Harlem cops</i>

814
00:44:28,374 --> 00:44:32,961
<i>was a playful and Afrocentric fable
that introduced the concept of high style,</i>

815
00:44:33,045 --> 00:44:36,090
<i>scored by </i>Hair<i> composer Galt MacDermot,
to Black action.</i>

816
00:44:36,173 --> 00:44:37,299
[tires skidding]

817
00:44:37,383 --> 00:44:38,884
<i>The beautifully dressed detectives,</i>

818
00:44:38,967 --> 00:44:43,180
<i>played by the wry Godfrey Cambridge
and quick-tempered Raymond St. Jacques,</i>

819
00:44:43,263 --> 00:44:47,142
<i>were part of an eager group
of Black stage actors Davis put together.</i>

820
00:44:47,226 --> 00:44:49,561
- What is it?
- Look at this.

821
00:44:50,104 --> 00:44:52,981
[Fishburne] Oh my God,
those blue shirts he was wearing,

822
00:44:53,065 --> 00:44:54,900
that suit he was wearing,

823
00:44:54,983 --> 00:44:59,405
the way he had his mustache manicured,
he was clean as a motherfucker, man.

824
00:44:59,488 --> 00:45:01,824
You saw that white joker.
Did you identify him?

825
00:45:03,409 --> 00:45:06,078
I don't know, Lieutenant.
Maybe yes, maybe no.

826
00:45:07,663 --> 00:45:09,373
All those kinda people look alike to me.

827
00:45:09,456 --> 00:45:13,919
[Mitchell] <i>As a stage actor himself,
Davis knew that audiences would respond</i>

828
00:45:14,002 --> 00:45:17,548
<i>to the warmth of Black actors
basking in their comrades' glory,</i>

829
00:45:17,631 --> 00:45:21,176
<i>an aspect he probably wanted
movie audiences to experience.</i>

830
00:45:22,386 --> 00:45:25,556
There's a lot of fantasy going on
in <i>Cotton Comes to Harlem.</i>

831
00:45:28,016 --> 00:45:29,184
It's a fairy tale.

832
00:45:29,268 --> 00:45:31,061
But what's great is

833
00:45:31,145 --> 00:45:33,522
Ossie Davis uses Harlem

834
00:45:34,231 --> 00:45:37,067
in a way that I don't think
we'd ever seen it before.

835
00:45:37,985 --> 00:45:39,445
It's totally authentic.

836
00:45:39,528 --> 00:45:41,155
It is totally itself.

837
00:45:41,238 --> 00:45:45,784
And he's got this fantasy playing out
in the midst of the reality of Harlem.

838
00:45:46,744 --> 00:45:49,580
[Mitchell] <i>Davis took a mantra
from Black revolutionaries</i>

839
00:45:49,663 --> 00:45:51,707
<i>and made it a call-and-response song...</i>

840
00:45:51,790 --> 00:45:56,545
- ["Black Enough" by Melba Moore playing]
- <i>♪ Black enough for me ♪</i>

841
00:45:56,628 --> 00:45:59,757
[Mitchell] <i>...of looking forward to the day
when Black pride will be celebrated</i>

842
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:03,886
<i>by society at large
rather than viewed as a demand for change.</i>

843
00:46:03,969 --> 00:46:07,014
<i>Which it was, by the way,
but the song gives it a lilt.</i>

844
00:46:07,681 --> 00:46:12,144
<i>♪ Black enough for me ♪</i>

845
00:46:12,227 --> 00:46:14,688
It's that one line
that repeats itself throughout,

846
00:46:14,772 --> 00:46:16,899
which is fantastic.

847
00:46:16,982 --> 00:46:18,609
Am I Black enough for you?!

848
00:46:19,443 --> 00:46:22,780
[Fishburne] Calvin Lockhart
and his way of using it when he preaches,

849
00:46:22,863 --> 00:46:26,116
and then Godfrey Cambridge
and his way of using it.

850
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:28,160
Is that Black enough for you?

851
00:46:28,243 --> 00:46:30,996
It changes. It morphs.
It has several meanings.

852
00:46:31,079 --> 00:46:32,623
Is that Black enough for you?

853
00:46:33,540 --> 00:46:34,958
It ain't, but it's gonna be.

854
00:46:35,042 --> 00:46:36,668
[chuckles]

855
00:46:36,752 --> 00:46:39,171
That still resonates.

856
00:46:39,254 --> 00:46:41,774
[Mitchell] <i>Though Davis recognized
the need to make the composer</i>

857
00:46:41,799 --> 00:46:43,133
<i>part of the storytelling</i>

858
00:46:43,217 --> 00:46:45,427
<i>by including MacDermot
on </i>Cotton Comes to Harlem,

859
00:46:45,511 --> 00:46:48,764
<i>it took Melvin Van Peebles
to make the music communicate</i>

860
00:46:48,847 --> 00:46:51,475
<i>the shocking nature
of the Black experience.</i>

861
00:46:51,975 --> 00:46:54,436
<i>His 1970 </i>Watermelon Man<i> is a satire</i>

862
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,565
<i>in which a liberal white man
wakes up one day to find out he's Black.</i>

863
00:46:58,649 --> 00:46:59,650
[screaming]

864
00:46:59,733 --> 00:47:03,278
<i>Illustrating the bone-deep horror
of being Black for whites,</i>

865
00:47:03,362 --> 00:47:07,074
<i>Godfrey Cambridge shifts the tone
from openly broad and comedic...</i>

866
00:47:07,658 --> 00:47:08,700
[both scream]

867
00:47:08,784 --> 00:47:11,870
Jeff! Jeff! Jeff!
There's a Negro in your shower!

868
00:47:11,954 --> 00:47:15,999
[Mitchell] <i>...to acting the richly observed
and deeper character transformed</i>

869
00:47:16,083 --> 00:47:18,126
<i>by being soaked in empathy,</i>

870
00:47:18,210 --> 00:47:21,797
<i>an evolution Van Peebles
wanted audiences to feel.</i>

871
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,759
When we got married, I had no idea
it was going to be an interracial thing.

872
00:47:25,843 --> 00:47:29,096
- You never told me.
- Well, I just got wind of it myself.

873
00:47:29,179 --> 00:47:32,057
[Mitchell] <i>Van Peebles engulfs a slight
and sleight-of-hand plot</i>

874
00:47:32,140 --> 00:47:36,228
<i>by blending sketch-comedy concepts
rendered in big glossy movie terms</i>

875
00:47:36,311 --> 00:47:37,980
<i>to meticulously make a film</i>

876
00:47:38,063 --> 00:47:41,859
<i>about the power of dawning Black awareness
and responsibility.</i>

877
00:47:41,942 --> 00:47:43,443
Where do you think you're going?

878
00:47:43,527 --> 00:47:46,238
- I'm lunching with Clark Dunwoody.
- Not in here, you're not.

879
00:47:46,321 --> 00:47:47,865
[Mitchell] <i>In a pandemic world,</i>

880
00:47:47,948 --> 00:47:50,409
Watermelon Man
<i>has gained a new timeliness,</i>

881
00:47:50,492 --> 00:47:54,580
<i>as whites now understand
the concept of living on borrowed time</i>

882
00:47:54,663 --> 00:47:56,623
<i>the moment you step outside
your front door,</i>

883
00:47:56,707 --> 00:47:59,710
<i>as African Americans always have.</i>

884
00:48:00,294 --> 00:48:03,422
<i>Like Gordon Parks
on </i>The Learning Tree <i>the year before,</i>

885
00:48:03,505 --> 00:48:06,758
<i>Van Peebles composed music
for his studio directing debut.</i>

886
00:48:06,842 --> 00:48:10,762
When my father did <i>Watermelon Man,</i>
and they were trying to decide

887
00:48:10,846 --> 00:48:13,432
whether <i>Watermelon Man</i>
should come out theatrically,

888
00:48:13,515 --> 00:48:17,102
they were having a little screening,
and all the bigwigs were comin' in,

889
00:48:17,185 --> 00:48:18,854
and they're all white guys,

890
00:48:18,937 --> 00:48:22,733
and there's a guy, a brother named Willy,
who would sweep up in the screening room.

891
00:48:22,816 --> 00:48:25,216
And my dad had talked to Willy
and gave him a couple of bucks

892
00:48:25,277 --> 00:48:28,071
and said, "When they screen my movie,
you make sure you like it."

893
00:48:28,155 --> 00:48:29,448
So Willy's screening the movie,

894
00:48:29,531 --> 00:48:31,909
they screen, uh, <i>Watermelon Man,</i>
Willy start...

895
00:48:31,992 --> 00:48:34,453
[chuckling] "Look at that! Oh!"

896
00:48:34,536 --> 00:48:35,746
"That sure is fun..."

897
00:48:35,829 --> 00:48:36,747
[laughs]

898
00:48:36,830 --> 00:48:39,541
And they were looking at him,
"Well, Willy likes it."

899
00:48:39,625 --> 00:48:43,003
And Willy, "Oh, boss, that sure is good.
Look at that." [chuckles]

900
00:48:43,086 --> 00:48:44,588
"Willy, is this funny to you?"

901
00:48:44,671 --> 00:48:47,841
"Oh yeah, I can't wait to see this.
When is it coming out?"

902
00:48:47,925 --> 00:48:51,345
Well, theatrical release.
That was their one-man focus group.

903
00:48:51,428 --> 00:48:55,057
So my dad just did racial jujitsu
and flipped it against them.

904
00:48:57,893 --> 00:49:02,022
[Mitchell] <i>Gordon Parks,
making a second studio film in 1971,</i>

905
00:49:02,105 --> 00:49:04,858
<i>fully incorporated the marriage
of music and film,</i>

906
00:49:04,942 --> 00:49:08,362
<i>a defiant break from
the classically influenced European scores</i>

907
00:49:08,445 --> 00:49:09,696
<i>of studio fare.</i>

908
00:49:09,780 --> 00:49:13,533
<i>With this movie, Parks follows up
on his plan to include Isaac Hayes.</i>

909
00:49:13,617 --> 00:49:16,036
["Theme from Shaft"
by Isaac Hayes playing]

910
00:49:30,676 --> 00:49:34,471
Shaft<i> wasn't just a debut.
It was an announcement.</i>

911
00:49:34,554 --> 00:49:37,057
<i>In the same way that movies
such as </i>Easy Rider <i>screamed,</i>

912
00:49:37,641 --> 00:49:38,684
<i>"This is the '60s,"</i>

913
00:49:38,767 --> 00:49:42,771
Shaft<i> laid down a count of funk
and urban panache that said</i>

914
00:49:42,854 --> 00:49:44,690
<i>this was the 1970s.</i>

915
00:49:44,773 --> 00:49:47,818
<i>That a private eye didn't have to look
like he slept in his clothes</i>

916
00:49:47,901 --> 00:49:49,486
<i>or hid from view.</i>

917
00:49:49,569 --> 00:49:53,115
<i>The newness and audacity
of a camera following a Black man</i>

918
00:49:53,198 --> 00:49:55,659
<i>in a leather coat through Manhattan.</i>

919
00:49:55,742 --> 00:49:58,161
<i>A private eye, dressed like a combination</i>

920
00:49:58,245 --> 00:50:01,081
<i>of a revolutionary
and director Gordon Parks,</i>

921
00:50:01,164 --> 00:50:03,917
<i>as the sizzle of the hi-hat
cranked up the audience.</i>

922
00:50:04,584 --> 00:50:06,795
<i>The camera wasn't spying on the star.</i>

923
00:50:07,295 --> 00:50:08,630
<i>It was staring at him.</i>

924
00:50:09,756 --> 00:50:12,759
<i>This combination forever altered
the course of movies,</i>

925
00:50:12,843 --> 00:50:14,845
<i>right down to coming from a studio</i>

926
00:50:14,928 --> 00:50:18,348
<i>that was long known for delivering product
about an ideal America</i>

927
00:50:18,432 --> 00:50:22,561
<i>that framed straight hair and blue eyes
as the standard of beauty.</i>

928
00:50:22,644 --> 00:50:26,523
Shaft, "sex machine for all the chicks,"
ain't nobody said that about a brother.

929
00:50:27,024 --> 00:50:29,026
[mellow music playing]

930
00:50:29,526 --> 00:50:30,652
You all right?

931
00:50:31,903 --> 00:50:33,321
Baby, are you all right?

932
00:50:35,073 --> 00:50:36,992
I got to feeling like a machine.

933
00:50:37,826 --> 00:50:39,161
That's no way to feel.

934
00:50:47,961 --> 00:50:51,757
[Mitchell] <i>In 1971,
Van Peebles chose to make a movie</i>

935
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:55,844
<i>about the unremitting terror
Black Americans are subject to,</i>

936
00:50:55,927 --> 00:50:58,346
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.

937
00:50:58,430 --> 00:51:01,433
<i>The title alone
made the movie part of the revolution</i>

938
00:51:01,516 --> 00:51:03,643
<i>that would not be televised.</i>

939
00:51:03,727 --> 00:51:07,314
<i>In those days,
networks would never run such a title</i>

940
00:51:07,397 --> 00:51:10,484
<i>or the incendiary movie
that it accompanied.</i>

941
00:51:11,485 --> 00:51:13,153
- [women chuckling]
- What is it?

942
00:51:17,824 --> 00:51:19,284
[lively music playing]

943
00:51:19,367 --> 00:51:22,079
[Mitchell] <i>In the days
before porn was unavoidable</i>

944
00:51:22,162 --> 00:51:25,123
<i>and when Black sexuality
was still a punch line,</i>

945
00:51:25,207 --> 00:51:28,835
Sweetback<i> showed its nerve
by turning Black sex into a show</i>

946
00:51:28,919 --> 00:51:31,338
<i>and refusing to blink or turn away.</i>

947
00:51:31,421 --> 00:51:33,965
<i>It's a Van Peebles
brick-by-brick construction,</i>

948
00:51:34,049 --> 00:51:38,512
<i>a device to make the audience understand
what it's like to be objectified.</i>

949
00:51:38,595 --> 00:51:40,597
[indistinct chatter and encouragement]

950
00:51:41,223 --> 00:51:42,599
[mellow music playing]

951
00:51:42,682 --> 00:51:45,018
[Mitchell] <i>Making "badass"
a part of the title</i>

952
00:51:45,102 --> 00:51:46,686
<i>was such a badass move</i>

953
00:51:46,770 --> 00:51:49,481
<i>that it virtually guaranteed the movie
an X rating,</i>

954
00:51:49,564 --> 00:51:51,483
<i>which</i> Sweetback <i>eventually got.</i>

955
00:51:51,566 --> 00:51:54,903
<i>Melvin Van Peebles
used the perks of exploitation</i>

956
00:51:54,986 --> 00:51:58,198
<i>and a new liberalism in movie culture
to his advantage.</i>

957
00:51:58,281 --> 00:52:01,535
<i>He loved the sheer effrontery
of being a Black man</i>

958
00:52:01,618 --> 00:52:04,037
<i>with facial hair, smoking a cigar.</i>

959
00:52:04,538 --> 00:52:05,997
<i>A pop-culture gesture</i>

960
00:52:06,081 --> 00:52:10,544
<i>as eternal as Elvis Presley's smirk
and Megan Thee Stallion's fingernails.</i>

961
00:52:10,627 --> 00:52:14,339
Sweetback <i>came at a time
when the X rating was just invented,</i>

962
00:52:14,422 --> 00:52:17,259
<i>and porn moved
from sleazy downtown theaters</i>

963
00:52:17,342 --> 00:52:18,510
<i>to the suburbs.</i>

964
00:52:18,593 --> 00:52:21,429
Midnight Cowboy
<i>became the first X-rated film</i>

965
00:52:21,513 --> 00:52:23,265
<i>to win the Best Picture Oscar.</i>

966
00:52:23,348 --> 00:52:24,348
<i>The only one.</i>

967
00:52:24,891 --> 00:52:27,978
<i>Stanley Kubrick made </i>Clockwork Orange
<i>and got an X.</i>

968
00:52:28,979 --> 00:52:31,982
<i>And Marlon Brando
and director Bernardo Bertolucci</i>

969
00:52:32,065 --> 00:52:36,111
<i>would be nominated for Oscars
for the X-rated </i>Last Tango in Paris.

970
00:52:36,653 --> 00:52:41,491
<i>And there was the Black attempt
at X-rated social commentary, </i>Lialeh<i>,</i>

971
00:52:41,575 --> 00:52:44,202
<i>with a score
by funk legend Bernard Purdie.</i>

972
00:52:44,286 --> 00:52:48,123
Even if the Motion Picture Association
offered me a G for the film,

973
00:52:48,206 --> 00:52:50,208
I don't give them the right to, uh...

974
00:52:50,292 --> 00:52:54,421
to decide G or X, uh,
for the Black destiny.

975
00:52:56,006 --> 00:52:58,592
[Mitchell] <i>But Van Peebles
inadvertently opened a floodgate</i>

976
00:52:58,675 --> 00:53:00,010
<i>by hijacking the X-rating.</i>

977
00:53:00,594 --> 00:53:03,138
<i>It's rumored he self-applied the X-rating</i>

978
00:53:03,221 --> 00:53:06,850
<i>because it was the only symbol
not copyrighted by the ratings board,</i>

979
00:53:06,933 --> 00:53:10,270
<i>which let everyone know
the X was theirs for the taking,</i>

980
00:53:10,353 --> 00:53:14,524
<i>and the brave new world
of the double X and triple X was born.</i>

981
00:53:14,608 --> 00:53:18,904
<i>After all, you've never heard
of a double R or a triple PG-13.</i>

982
00:53:19,821 --> 00:53:23,033
<i>As with </i>Watermelon Man,
Sweetback<i> opens with running</i>

983
00:53:23,116 --> 00:53:25,076
<i>but not for comic effect in this case.</i>

984
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:27,787
<i>Sweetback is on the run for his life.</i>

985
00:53:27,871 --> 00:53:30,624
<i>Movement is what seems to keep him alive,</i>

986
00:53:30,707 --> 00:53:32,626
<i>as much of the film
is about forward motion.</i>

987
00:53:34,544 --> 00:53:38,089
<i>Van Peebles chose musicians
not just to supply music.</i>

988
00:53:38,173 --> 00:53:41,343
<i>He made Earth, Wind & Fire
his coconspirators.</i>

989
00:53:41,426 --> 00:53:43,386
He had a secretary who I had a crush on.

990
00:53:43,470 --> 00:53:46,306
I think everyone had a crush
on Priscilla, his secretary.

991
00:53:46,389 --> 00:53:49,809
She had a Afro like a halo, baby.
I'd be like, "God, look at Priscilla."

992
00:53:49,893 --> 00:53:51,186
"Just... What's she wearing..."

993
00:53:51,269 --> 00:53:53,855
"What's the Priscilla outfit du jour
gonna be?"

994
00:53:53,939 --> 00:53:57,442
But Priscilla had a boyfriend
who was a little, you know, possessive.

995
00:53:57,525 --> 00:53:58,765
She wanted to act in the movie,

996
00:53:58,818 --> 00:54:00,898
but her boyfriend said,
"You can't act in the movie."

997
00:54:00,946 --> 00:54:04,241
But he happened to have a new band
called Earth, Wind & Fire.

998
00:54:04,741 --> 00:54:08,620
So he said, "You can't act with Melvin.
However, I wanna do the music."

999
00:54:08,703 --> 00:54:10,080
[chuckles]

1000
00:54:10,163 --> 00:54:14,501
[Mitchell] <i>And their contribution added to
the sweaty paranoia of </i>Sweetback<i>.</i>

1001
00:54:14,584 --> 00:54:16,336
[jarring jazz music playing]

1002
00:54:16,419 --> 00:54:18,755
<i>Unlike the sweet and muscular R&B</i>

1003
00:54:18,838 --> 00:54:22,092
<i>we'd later instantly recognize
as Earth, Wind & Fire,</i>

1004
00:54:22,175 --> 00:54:26,846
<i>their </i>Sweetback<i> score is discordant,
ribbons of screeching avant-garde jazz</i>

1005
00:54:26,930 --> 00:54:29,599
<i>with a pounding layer
of percussion underneath.</i>

1006
00:54:29,683 --> 00:54:31,768
<i>The music exists to make us aware</i>

1007
00:54:31,851 --> 00:54:35,981
<i>we're being plunged into a world
the movies shied away from.</i>

1008
00:54:36,064 --> 00:54:37,899
<i>It combined genres swiftly,</i>

1009
00:54:37,983 --> 00:54:41,319
<i>with reflexes as keen
as those of director Van Peebles.</i>

1010
00:54:41,403 --> 00:54:43,321
<i>♪ Run, Sweetback! ♪</i>

1011
00:54:43,405 --> 00:54:44,823
[sprinklers swishing]

1012
00:54:44,906 --> 00:54:46,992
<i>- ♪ Run, motherfucker! ♪</i>
- [gospel beat playing]

1013
00:54:47,534 --> 00:54:51,579
<i>♪ They bled your sister!
But they won't bleed me! ♪</i>

1014
00:54:51,663 --> 00:54:53,540
<i>♪ Run, Sweetback! ♪</i>

1015
00:54:53,623 --> 00:54:55,041
<i>♪ Run, motherfucker! ♪</i>

1016
00:54:55,125 --> 00:54:57,377
<i>♪ They bled your mama! ♪</i>

1017
00:54:57,460 --> 00:54:59,504
<i>♪ They bled your papa
But they won't bleed me! ♪</i>

1018
00:54:59,587 --> 00:55:00,672
[imitates screeching]

1019
00:55:00,755 --> 00:55:02,966
[mellow funk music playing]

1020
00:55:03,049 --> 00:55:05,969
My dad would actually have me
talk to people in the lobby.

1021
00:55:06,052 --> 00:55:09,014
He'd say, "What d'you think?"
And I'd tell him. He'd say,

1022
00:55:09,097 --> 00:55:11,808
"I'm not interested in what you think.
I wanna find out later."

1023
00:55:11,891 --> 00:55:16,146
"Go talk to those folks in the lobby
and get an idea of how they saw the movie,

1024
00:55:16,229 --> 00:55:18,949
how they heard about the movie,
and what did they think of the film."

1025
00:55:19,024 --> 00:55:20,024
[exciting music playing]

1026
00:55:20,066 --> 00:55:23,445
[Mitchell] <i>It took an auteur and showman
and salesman, such as Melvin,</i>

1027
00:55:23,528 --> 00:55:27,949
<i>to understand that by making the composer
a creative partner on the project,</i>

1028
00:55:28,033 --> 00:55:29,576
<i>rather than just an employee,</i>

1029
00:55:29,659 --> 00:55:32,287
<i>the director was investing
in the movie's future.</i>

1030
00:55:32,787 --> 00:55:35,415
<i>Melvin saw that future
in a way that would eventually start</i>

1031
00:55:35,498 --> 00:55:37,709
<i>a new direction in the movie business.</i>

1032
00:55:37,792 --> 00:55:39,294
<i>First, he made the story</i>

1033
00:55:39,377 --> 00:55:41,963
<i>of the selling of the movie,
its marketing.</i>

1034
00:55:42,047 --> 00:55:46,343
<i>Otherwise, he'd have a Black movie
that would get little or no attention.</i>

1035
00:55:46,426 --> 00:55:49,304
<i>More importantly,
he had the soundtrack released first,</i>

1036
00:55:49,387 --> 00:55:52,474
<i>counting on enhanced visibility
as a sales tool.</i>

1037
00:55:53,224 --> 00:55:55,560
<i>He was an artist-entrepreneur.</i>

1038
00:55:55,643 --> 00:55:58,563
<i>It didn't matter if it was art
if no one saw it.</i>

1039
00:55:58,646 --> 00:55:59,814
[music fades]

1040
00:55:59,898 --> 00:56:03,485
<i>Gordon Parks changed
who the Black movie protagonist could be.</i>

1041
00:56:03,568 --> 00:56:05,987
<i>Sweetback and Shaft followed Muhammad Ali</i>

1042
00:56:06,071 --> 00:56:11,618
<i>into an era of Black figures
no longer asking for permission to be.</i>

1043
00:56:11,701 --> 00:56:14,371
<i>Their scenes were staged
to present them as assertive</i>

1044
00:56:14,454 --> 00:56:15,997
<i>rather than inviting,</i>

1045
00:56:16,081 --> 00:56:19,501
<i>a chill attitude
breaking with lowered-head likability.</i>

1046
00:56:20,001 --> 00:56:23,713
<i>A flinty and ironic distance
that forced the viewer to understand</i>

1047
00:56:23,797 --> 00:56:25,632
<i>rather than have all explained.</i>

1048
00:56:27,801 --> 00:56:31,012
Listen to what I'm telling you, man.
I'm here to help you.

1049
00:56:31,096 --> 00:56:33,306
I am an angel of God.

1050
00:56:33,390 --> 00:56:36,101
[Mitchell] <i>Harry Belafonte
brought his silken intensity</i>

1051
00:56:36,184 --> 00:56:39,020
<i>back to the big screen
for </i>The Angel Levine,

1052
00:56:39,104 --> 00:56:41,356
<i>an experimental drama he produced.</i>

1053
00:56:41,439 --> 00:56:44,734
<i>Ending his self-imposed exile
in this existential comedy</i>

1054
00:56:44,818 --> 00:56:47,862
<i>that added a twist
to the dilemma posed by Ralph Ellison</i>

1055
00:56:47,946 --> 00:56:49,948
<i>in his novel</i> Invisible Man.

1056
00:56:50,031 --> 00:56:53,743
<i>"What did I do to be so Black,
blue, and heaven-sent?"</i>

1057
00:56:54,452 --> 00:56:55,537
I am an angel.

1058
00:56:58,123 --> 00:56:59,958
Have you come to take me away?

1059
00:57:01,418 --> 00:57:02,418
No.

1060
00:57:03,837 --> 00:57:05,213
I've come to give you life.

1061
00:57:05,296 --> 00:57:08,633
[Mitchell] <i>As a more divine
and New Testament parallel,</i>

1062
00:57:08,716 --> 00:57:11,553
<i>Sidney Poitier starred as Brother John.</i>

1063
00:57:11,636 --> 00:57:14,431
<i>In this fantasy,
Poitier is a modest stranger</i>

1064
00:57:14,514 --> 00:57:18,351
<i>dropped into a conflict zone,
withholding approval and judgment</i>

1065
00:57:18,435 --> 00:57:22,439
<i>as a taciturn angel of death
torn between the past and the present.</i>

1066
00:57:22,522 --> 00:57:26,734
<i>This well-meaning fable
serves to reflect Poitier's own plight.</i>

1067
00:57:28,361 --> 00:57:30,905
<i>Ossie Davis followed up</i>
Cotton Comes to Harlem

1068
00:57:30,989 --> 00:57:34,993
<i>with a drama that focused on the tensions
of generations of Black women</i>

1069
00:57:35,076 --> 00:57:36,494
<i>in a single household.</i>

1070
00:57:36,578 --> 00:57:39,080
Dear Lord, if you help me
get this house for my mother,

1071
00:57:39,164 --> 00:57:41,916
I'll never ask you
for anything else, amen.

1072
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:46,087
[Mitchell] <i>His young woman protagonist
fighting to be heard and for her future,</i>

1073
00:57:46,171 --> 00:57:49,132
<i>a subject much closer
to landlocked reality</i>

1074
00:57:49,215 --> 00:57:50,592
<i>than his previous film.</i>

1075
00:57:51,176 --> 00:57:54,429
<i>Writer-director Ousmane Sembène
once said that,</i>

1076
00:57:54,512 --> 00:57:57,932
<i>"Between the on-screen families
in </i>Sounder<i> and </i>Black Girl,

1077
00:57:58,016 --> 00:57:59,559
<i>there was a complete universe."</i>

1078
00:58:00,351 --> 00:58:02,562
<i>"That's the kind of film
I'd like to make."</i>

1079
00:58:03,062 --> 00:58:07,525
<i>And the film universe he saw
inspired him to spend much of his career</i>

1080
00:58:07,609 --> 00:58:11,988
<i>dramatizing the impact on households
of absent Black masculinity.</i>

1081
00:58:12,906 --> 00:58:15,575
<i>Now, there's a line of reasoning
that contends</i>

1082
00:58:15,658 --> 00:58:19,662
<i>that 1939 was the best year
in movie history.</i>

1083
00:58:19,746 --> 00:58:24,334
<i>But it is axiomatic that 1939
affirmed America's movie stature</i>

1084
00:58:24,417 --> 00:58:25,793
<i>as mythmaker for the world.</i>

1085
00:58:26,377 --> 00:58:30,673
<i>No period that includes </i>Gone with the Wind
<i>will ever have that kind of appeal to me.</i>

1086
00:58:30,757 --> 00:58:34,511
<i>The men who ran the studios
created a pop culture mythology</i>

1087
00:58:34,594 --> 00:58:38,848
<i>that gave them the chance to run
as far as they could from their origins.</i>

1088
00:58:38,932 --> 00:58:42,393
<i>And they could will a hubristic version
of America into being,</i>

1089
00:58:43,144 --> 00:58:45,563
<i>an America that never existed</i>

1090
00:58:45,647 --> 00:58:48,191
<i>but much of this country
believes still did.</i>

1091
00:58:48,274 --> 00:58:50,735
<i>Probably most of the world still does.</i>

1092
00:58:50,818 --> 00:58:53,905
<i>1939 let the studios churn out</i>

1093
00:58:53,988 --> 00:58:56,616
<i>what they considered
to be moral and literary</i>

1094
00:58:56,699 --> 00:59:00,078
<i>and catered to mainstream audiences
with whitewashed myths.</i>

1095
00:59:00,161 --> 00:59:02,163
I know, Huck. I'm her slave.

1096
00:59:02,247 --> 00:59:05,041
But sometimes,
I can't help wondering if it's right.

1097
00:59:05,750 --> 00:59:10,004
[Mitchell] <i>It's a step past appropriation
to cultural colonialism.</i>

1098
00:59:10,088 --> 00:59:14,384
<i>White actors can do a much better job
with your culture, Latinx actors,</i>

1099
00:59:15,468 --> 00:59:17,011
<i>Pacific Islanders...</i>

1100
00:59:17,095 --> 00:59:18,972
- [applause]
- Miss Dorothy March,

1101
00:59:19,055 --> 00:59:21,140
in her impersonation of Bill Robinson,

1102
00:59:21,224 --> 00:59:22,308
the King of Harlem.

1103
00:59:23,142 --> 00:59:24,394
[Mitchell] <i>...Black people.</i>

1104
00:59:25,061 --> 00:59:27,897
<i>A body blow meant as a compliment.</i>

1105
00:59:29,274 --> 00:59:31,359
[bell tolling]

1106
00:59:31,442 --> 00:59:34,571
<i>Most importantly,
there was a handoff in 1939</i>

1107
00:59:34,654 --> 00:59:37,907
<i>that cemented the power
of a central and debilitating myth</i>

1108
00:59:37,991 --> 00:59:40,076
<i>about the place of Blacks in society.</i>

1109
00:59:40,159 --> 00:59:41,369
Quittin' time!

1110
00:59:41,452 --> 00:59:44,205
- Who says it's quittin' time?
- I said it's quittin' time.

1111
00:59:44,289 --> 00:59:47,584
I's the foreman. I's the one says
when it's quittin' time at Tara.

1112
00:59:47,667 --> 00:59:52,171
- Quittin' time! Quittin' time!
- [gentle, dreamy music playing]

1113
00:59:52,255 --> 00:59:54,841
[Mitchell] <i>They were both
adaptations of books.</i>

1114
00:59:54,924 --> 00:59:58,636
<i>The number-one grossing film
of all time until 1925</i>

1115
00:59:58,720 --> 01:00:01,306
<i>was D.W. Griffith's </i>The Birth of a Nation.

1116
01:00:01,389 --> 01:00:04,809
<i>An even bigger hit
was 1939's </i>Gone with the Wind,

1117
01:00:04,892 --> 01:00:08,271
<i>which remained the biggest
box-office sensation until 1965</i>

1118
01:00:09,147 --> 01:00:11,232
<i>and became champ again in 1971.</i>

1119
01:00:12,066 --> 01:00:16,529
<i>1972 should have been the year
for Rupert Crosse's career to flower.</i>

1120
01:00:16,613 --> 01:00:20,408
<i>His fans Jack Nicholson,
Robert Towne, and director Hal Ashby</i>

1121
01:00:20,491 --> 01:00:24,287
<i>created a role for Crosse
in the adaptation of</i> The Last Detail.

1122
01:00:24,370 --> 01:00:28,333
<i>But Crosse was diagnosed with leukemia
before shooting began.</i>

1123
01:00:28,416 --> 01:00:31,711
<i>Filming was delayed
in hopes he'd be able to participate,</i>

1124
01:00:31,794 --> 01:00:34,589
<i>but Crosse died before filming started.</i>

1125
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:37,759
<i>In an </i>Esquire <i>magazine article,</i>

1126
01:00:37,842 --> 01:00:42,013
<i>Ashby reflected on Crosse's humor
and grace in the face of mortality.</i>

1127
01:00:42,096 --> 01:00:44,807
<i>The phrase "corrosive lyricism" was coined</i>

1128
01:00:44,891 --> 01:00:48,478
<i>to summarize Ashby's style
and inspired by Crosse's outlook.</i>

1129
01:00:49,687 --> 01:00:51,689
[gentle piano music playing]

1130
01:00:57,945 --> 01:01:00,365
["Theme from Shaft"
by Isaac Hayes playing]

1131
01:01:01,991 --> 01:01:05,745
<i>Isaac Hayes used his performance
at the 1972 Oscars,</i>

1132
01:01:05,828 --> 01:01:08,956
<i>when he became
the first Black Best Song winner,</i>

1133
01:01:09,040 --> 01:01:12,835
<i>to show his </i>Hot Buttered Soul <i>grandeur
to the entire planet.</i>

1134
01:01:12,919 --> 01:01:14,962
<i>For me, watching at home, and thrilled</i>

1135
01:01:15,046 --> 01:01:19,592
<i>by watching Hayes turn slave chains
into superstar chain mail,</i>

1136
01:01:19,676 --> 01:01:22,512
<i>it felt like a comet
crashing into the Earth,</i>

1137
01:01:22,595 --> 01:01:24,806
<i>an alteration of the atmosphere,</i>

1138
01:01:24,889 --> 01:01:28,226
<i>letting us know
things would never be the same.</i>

1139
01:01:29,644 --> 01:01:31,771
<i>It was a dizzying, thrilling mix</i>

1140
01:01:31,854 --> 01:01:35,525
<i>that introduced an element that made
Black film culture more attractive</i>

1141
01:01:35,608 --> 01:01:38,194
<i>than films from the so-called mainstream.</i>

1142
01:01:38,277 --> 01:01:39,987
<i>That element was heroism.</i>

1143
01:01:40,071 --> 01:01:44,200
Now, cockroach, let's run that shit down
from the top again.

1144
01:01:44,283 --> 01:01:46,077
[Mitchell]
<i>Unlike their white counterparts,</i>

1145
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:48,287
<i>who wore their misery
like runway accessories,</i>

1146
01:01:48,371 --> 01:01:52,667
<i>Black actors played these antiheroes
with a confidence that bordered on heroism</i>

1147
01:01:52,750 --> 01:01:54,752
<i>and then crossed that border.</i>

1148
01:01:54,836 --> 01:01:56,295
You gonna drop back in. Yeah.

1149
01:01:56,379 --> 01:02:00,258
'Cause you didn't do nothin'
but talk that brotherhood love and peace.

1150
01:02:00,341 --> 01:02:02,427
You didn't change nothin',
which means work

1151
01:02:02,510 --> 01:02:05,263
and making that talk, talk, talk happen.

1152
01:02:05,346 --> 01:02:06,556
But we can't drop into nothin'

1153
01:02:06,639 --> 01:02:08,641
'cause we never had
nothin' to drop out of.

1154
01:02:08,725 --> 01:02:12,937
[Mitchell] <i>In the wake of</i> Shaft,
<i>there were bronze remakes of films noir.</i>

1155
01:02:13,020 --> 01:02:15,314
Hit Man, <i>a new take on</i> Get Carter.

1156
01:02:15,398 --> 01:02:18,568
You are a real superstar, baby.

1157
01:02:18,651 --> 01:02:21,738
[Mitchell] <i>And</i> Cool Breeze,
<i>yet another remake of</i> The Asphalt Jungle

1158
01:02:21,821 --> 01:02:23,865
<i>that made that term more literal</i>

1159
01:02:23,948 --> 01:02:27,368
<i>than the nouvelle vague
could ever have dreamed possible.</i>

1160
01:02:27,452 --> 01:02:30,371
<i>In these films,
protagonists stepped into the frame</i>

1161
01:02:30,455 --> 01:02:34,167
<i>with a swagger that'd never been allowed
in films above the lower depths.</i>

1162
01:02:36,419 --> 01:02:37,545
I hate to say this,

1163
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:42,759
but I am such a pretty motherfucker.

1164
01:02:44,177 --> 01:02:45,553
[laughs]

1165
01:02:45,636 --> 01:02:46,888
Yeah!

1166
01:02:46,971 --> 01:02:49,891
[Mitchell] <i>This peak year in Black film
moved so many boundaries</i>

1167
01:02:49,974 --> 01:02:51,476
<i>that movies were changed forever.</i>

1168
01:02:52,059 --> 01:02:55,730
<i>For the first time, two Black women
were nominated for Best Actress.</i>

1169
01:02:55,813 --> 01:02:57,940
<i>Diana Ross for her first leading role</i>

1170
01:02:58,024 --> 01:03:01,194
<i>and the divine Cicely Tyson for </i>Sounder...

1171
01:03:01,277 --> 01:03:03,988
Cropping season is a long way off,
Mr. Perkins.

1172
01:03:04,489 --> 01:03:06,574
By that time, Nathan ought to be home.

1173
01:03:07,366 --> 01:03:10,828
If he ain't, believe me,
the children and me will do the croppin'.

1174
01:03:10,912 --> 01:03:14,624
I never got the... the chance
to meet Miss Cicely Tyson.

1175
01:03:14,707 --> 01:03:16,417
She always reminded me of my grandmother.

1176
01:03:16,501 --> 01:03:20,922
She just kind of personified
this... this elegance

1177
01:03:21,005 --> 01:03:22,799
and this regal air of...

1178
01:03:22,882 --> 01:03:25,134
Just the way she moved and spoke.

1179
01:03:25,802 --> 01:03:26,844
No.

1180
01:03:26,928 --> 01:03:30,556
I'm fixin' to bake a cake for David Lee
to take to your daddy this time.

1181
01:03:30,640 --> 01:03:34,811
Good to see Cicely.
'Cause I grew up watching Cicely Tyson.

1182
01:03:34,894 --> 01:03:37,104
It was good to see <i>us</i>.

1183
01:03:37,688 --> 01:03:40,358
These movies were about <i>us.</i>

1184
01:03:41,526 --> 01:03:43,736
Son, don't get too used to this place,

1185
01:03:44,987 --> 01:03:47,406
'cause wherever you is,
I'm gonna love you.

1186
01:03:47,490 --> 01:03:51,661
[Mitchell] <i>...which also got a Best Actor
nomination for her costar, Paul Winfield.</i>

1187
01:03:51,744 --> 01:03:57,166
I didn't find myself, as a child,
attracted to movies where we were victims,

1188
01:03:57,250 --> 01:03:58,751
where we were powerless.

1189
01:03:58,835 --> 01:04:00,086
I didn't want that as a kid.

1190
01:04:00,670 --> 01:04:04,340
I saw <i>Sounder</i> again recently,
and I appreciate it much more as an adult.

1191
01:04:04,423 --> 01:04:06,843
I saw layers in it
that I just didn't see as a kid.

1192
01:04:06,926 --> 01:04:08,803
[keys rattling]

1193
01:04:08,886 --> 01:04:11,889
[Mitchell] <i>And Diana Ross
was nominated for Best Actress</i>

1194
01:04:11,973 --> 01:04:15,893
<i>for her first leading role,
in the first film about Billie Holiday,</i>

1195
01:04:15,977 --> 01:04:18,771
<i>the Motown-produced</i> Lady Sings the Blues.

1196
01:04:20,731 --> 01:04:21,774
[door clangs]

1197
01:04:21,858 --> 01:04:24,318
[keys rattling]

1198
01:04:25,528 --> 01:04:26,863
[melancholy music playing]

1199
01:04:26,946 --> 01:04:31,367
It wasn't a movie, as so many are,
about being Black.

1200
01:04:32,618 --> 01:04:34,120
It was about being talented.

1201
01:04:34,203 --> 01:04:38,291
It was Bob Mackie costumes...
[chuckles]...and Diana Ross's glamour

1202
01:04:38,374 --> 01:04:43,129
and Billy Dee Williams,
well, hell, you know. [chuckles]

1203
01:04:43,963 --> 01:04:45,298
[chuckles softly]

1204
01:04:46,048 --> 01:04:48,175
[De Passe] Frank Yablans
was running Paramount.

1205
01:04:48,259 --> 01:04:52,179
He told Berry Gordy,
after seeing a rough cut of the film,

1206
01:04:52,263 --> 01:04:54,807
that they weren't gonna put
any more money in it.

1207
01:04:54,891 --> 01:04:57,226
And Berry Gordy said to Frank,

1208
01:04:57,310 --> 01:04:59,979
"We're not finished.
We've got so much more to do."

1209
01:05:00,479 --> 01:05:01,480
And Frank said...

1210
01:05:01,564 --> 01:05:05,234
I won't go into the story...
[chuckling]...of what Frank <i>really</i> said,

1211
01:05:05,318 --> 01:05:09,196
but he basically said it's like you've got
the clap, and now you wanna give it to me.

1212
01:05:09,280 --> 01:05:11,949
Because we've never spent
more than this amount of money

1213
01:05:12,033 --> 01:05:14,076
on a quote-unquote Black film before.

1214
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:16,621
And he said, "Well, Frank, what can I do?"

1215
01:05:16,704 --> 01:05:20,458
He said, "Write me a check for $2 million,
and you can do anything you wanna do."

1216
01:05:21,959 --> 01:05:22,959
And he did.

1217
01:05:23,002 --> 01:05:26,714
[Mitchell] Lady Sings the Blues
<i>was an early, all-out glam show,</i>

1218
01:05:26,797 --> 01:05:30,092
<i>a gleaming establishment
of Black glamour in the movies.</i>

1219
01:05:30,176 --> 01:05:33,054
When I think of Diana Ross,
I also think of fashion

1220
01:05:33,137 --> 01:05:36,182
and how many references I've used of her

1221
01:05:36,265 --> 01:05:38,893
for red carpet events or for photo shoots

1222
01:05:38,976 --> 01:05:42,063
or for these different characters
that I guess I build.

1223
01:05:42,730 --> 01:05:46,567
The fingers and the hair
and the whole thing

1224
01:05:46,651 --> 01:05:48,194
is just like, "Oh my God!"

1225
01:05:48,277 --> 01:05:50,655
And then she can act.

1226
01:05:50,738 --> 01:05:51,864
[camera shutter clicks]

1227
01:05:51,948 --> 01:05:54,241
[Mitchell] <i>Not just for Ross
but her costar,</i>

1228
01:05:54,325 --> 01:05:58,245
<i>a literal embodiment
of tall, dark, and handsome,</i>

1229
01:05:58,329 --> 01:05:59,580
<i>Billy Dee Williams.</i>

1230
01:05:59,664 --> 01:06:00,998
[lively music playing]

1231
01:06:01,082 --> 01:06:06,212
When Billy Dee Williams came on,
every woman in Hollywood just hollered...

1232
01:06:06,295 --> 01:06:07,546
[screams hysterically]

1233
01:06:07,630 --> 01:06:09,840
And I'm... I'm saying, "Oh my God!"

1234
01:06:09,924 --> 01:06:11,050
"What... what the..."

1235
01:06:11,133 --> 01:06:13,260
[laughing] "What's goin' on?!"

1236
01:06:16,806 --> 01:06:20,184
First of all, when I walked down
those stairs, I fell in love with myself.

1237
01:06:20,267 --> 01:06:21,811
[laughs]

1238
01:06:21,894 --> 01:06:24,188
I said, "My goodness gracious!"

1239
01:06:24,855 --> 01:06:26,691
I mean, I was smitten.

1240
01:06:27,191 --> 01:06:29,193
[man] Do you want my arm to fall off?

1241
01:06:30,611 --> 01:06:33,411
[Williams] Even that scene, you know,
"Do you want my arm to fall off?"

1242
01:06:33,489 --> 01:06:35,032
I mean, couldn't contain myself.

1243
01:06:35,116 --> 01:06:38,744
I kept laughing
because I was getting special lighting.

1244
01:06:38,828 --> 01:06:40,913
You know, it was like the old movie days.

1245
01:06:40,997 --> 01:06:43,124
[chuckling]

1246
01:06:43,207 --> 01:06:45,042
I was in hysterics.

1247
01:06:45,126 --> 01:06:48,337
I had to contain myself. [laughing]

1248
01:06:48,421 --> 01:06:52,133
Oh, it was... it was very funny for me
because it was like something

1249
01:06:52,216 --> 01:06:54,510
that never happened to me before,

1250
01:06:54,593 --> 01:06:58,139
you know, in all of the experiences
I had doing cinema.

1251
01:06:58,222 --> 01:06:59,473
[romantic music playing]

1252
01:06:59,557 --> 01:07:02,518
[Mitchell] <i>'72 was a breakthrough year
for Black talent.</i>

1253
01:07:02,601 --> 01:07:06,355
<i>Playwright Lonne Elder III
was nominated for the </i>Sounder <i>screenplay,</i>

1254
01:07:06,439 --> 01:07:08,274
<i>and more importantly, it was the year</i>

1255
01:07:08,357 --> 01:07:11,277
<i>that the first Black woman
was nominated for screenwriting,</i>

1256
01:07:11,360 --> 01:07:15,364
<i>Suzanne De Passe, part of the script team
for</i> Lady Sings the Blues.

1257
01:07:15,448 --> 01:07:20,161
<i>It was a singular achievement
until Dee Rees was nominated in 2017</i>

1258
01:07:20,244 --> 01:07:22,538
<i>for her script for </i>Mudbound<i>,
which makes her</i>

1259
01:07:22,621 --> 01:07:26,292
<i>only the second Black woman
to be nominated for screenwriting.</i>

1260
01:07:26,375 --> 01:07:28,919
[De Passe] Mr. Gordy handed <i>me</i> the script.
And he said,

1261
01:07:30,337 --> 01:07:32,256
"Read this and tell me what you think."

1262
01:07:33,007 --> 01:07:35,051
And I was, like, horrified

1263
01:07:35,968 --> 01:07:38,387
because I felt it was very stereotypical.

1264
01:07:39,180 --> 01:07:42,725
The perception of... who we are

1265
01:07:42,808 --> 01:07:45,728
as opposed to who we are and can be.

1266
01:07:46,395 --> 01:07:50,191
And so I began working with Sidney Furie.
Then Chris Clark was added.

1267
01:07:50,274 --> 01:07:53,069
She was an artist on the label,
really bright woman.

1268
01:07:53,152 --> 01:07:54,904
She and I became a team.

1269
01:07:54,987 --> 01:07:56,489
[Mitchell] <i>The seeds are planted here</i>

1270
01:07:56,572 --> 01:07:59,825
<i>for what becomes
the most important story of the era.</i>

1271
01:07:59,909 --> 01:08:02,787
<i>It's the contribution by women
that becomes dominant.</i>

1272
01:08:04,038 --> 01:08:09,126
<i>In addition to the accolades,
the class of '72 was also action-packed.</i>

1273
01:08:10,544 --> 01:08:11,754
[bullets ricochet]

1274
01:08:11,837 --> 01:08:16,175
<i>The Western,</i> Buck and the Preacher,
<i>directed by Sidney Poitier</i>

1275
01:08:16,258 --> 01:08:19,345
<i>and also starring him and Harry Belafonte.</i>

1276
01:08:20,513 --> 01:08:23,557
<i>Belafonte had hopes for the film
that were never fulfilled.</i>

1277
01:08:23,641 --> 01:08:27,353
[Belafonte] The big blow was to find that
the Black community didn't support it.

1278
01:08:27,436 --> 01:08:31,816
That sent me into a place
where I felt betrayed.

1279
01:08:32,566 --> 01:08:36,070
I felt like, "Why didn't
the Black community support this film

1280
01:08:36,821 --> 01:08:41,325
the way the whites would've supported
<i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?</i>"

1281
01:08:41,408 --> 01:08:44,161
"This is our version of the same thing."
But they didn't.

1282
01:08:44,662 --> 01:08:48,290
And, uh, then I knew
I had several adversaries,

1283
01:08:48,374 --> 01:08:50,793
Black perception of itself

1284
01:08:50,876 --> 01:08:53,546
and Black perception as the world saw us.

1285
01:08:55,673 --> 01:08:58,509
[Mitchell] <i>Fred Williamson starred
in the revenge-slave Western</i>

1286
01:08:58,592 --> 01:09:00,719
The Legend of Nigger Charley,

1287
01:09:00,803 --> 01:09:03,722
<i>a title that was cheeky
and outrageous even then.</i>

1288
01:09:04,223 --> 01:09:07,059
<i>And by the way,
the title no longer exists.</i>

1289
01:09:07,143 --> 01:09:10,354
<i>The movie is now</i>
The Legend of Black Charley.

1290
01:09:10,437 --> 01:09:11,814
<i>This brazen poster,</i>

1291
01:09:11,897 --> 01:09:15,609
<i>featuring a slight turn
on the daguerreotype, said it all.</i>

1292
01:09:15,693 --> 01:09:19,530
<i>"Somebody warn the West.
Nigger Charley ain't running no more."</i>

1293
01:09:21,198 --> 01:09:25,119
<i>Black was also finally added
to the horror film in a serious way,</i>

1294
01:09:25,202 --> 01:09:30,249
<i>with a commanding William Marshall
starring as the tragic vampire Blacula.</i>

1295
01:09:30,332 --> 01:09:32,585
Slavery <i>has</i> merit, I believe.

1296
01:09:33,752 --> 01:09:34,752
"Merit"?

1297
01:09:35,337 --> 01:09:38,591
You find "merit" in barbarity?

1298
01:09:39,508 --> 01:09:40,668
[Mitchell] <i>I'd always thought</i>

1299
01:09:40,718 --> 01:09:43,012
<i>that the good thing
about the institutional racism</i>

1300
01:09:43,095 --> 01:09:46,682
<i>that kept Black people from being
central figures in horror films was,</i>

1301
01:09:46,765 --> 01:09:49,560
<i>for African Americans,
the implicit understanding</i>

1302
01:09:49,643 --> 01:09:53,022
<i>that no supernatural force
or threat of possession</i>

1303
01:09:53,105 --> 01:09:55,649
<i>could be more monstrous than slavery</i>

1304
01:09:55,733 --> 01:09:57,860
<i>or the Tuskegee Experiment,</i>

1305
01:09:57,943 --> 01:10:01,030
<i>or Emmett Till,
a real-life Black innocent,</i>

1306
01:10:01,113 --> 01:10:04,533
<i>who was the victim of monsters
even the movies were afraid of,</i>

1307
01:10:05,034 --> 01:10:07,244
<i>when they weren't glamorizing them.</i>

1308
01:10:09,038 --> 01:10:11,665
<i>With the Black press
forcing the mainstream media</i>

1309
01:10:11,749 --> 01:10:14,752
<i>to cover Emmett Till's death
with an unblinking gaze</i>

1310
01:10:14,835 --> 01:10:17,379
<i>and movies stepping up
to recount Black horrors</i>

1311
01:10:17,463 --> 01:10:20,424
<i>such as slavery and institutional cruelty,</i>

1312
01:10:20,507 --> 01:10:24,136
<i>a film take on the chaos caused
by the death of Emmett Till</i>

1313
01:10:24,220 --> 01:10:27,056
<i>was the moment
Black audiences were waiting for.</i>

1314
01:10:27,806 --> 01:10:33,103
<i>That it never happened was a subtle hint
of where the real power was in Hollywood.</i>

1315
01:10:33,187 --> 01:10:34,480
[tense music playing]

1316
01:10:35,147 --> 01:10:37,709
[Burnett] I remember the thing
that woke me up, really woke me up,

1317
01:10:37,733 --> 01:10:40,527
was the Emmett Till picture
on the <i>Jet </i>magazine.

1318
01:10:40,611 --> 01:10:44,698
I mean, talking about someone, grew up,
the next day, a different person.

1319
01:10:46,158 --> 01:10:49,453
I still have the images
I saw in <i>Jet </i>magazine about Emmett Till.

1320
01:10:49,536 --> 01:10:53,832
From that day on, I was aware
of what his mother must have felt like.

1321
01:10:53,916 --> 01:10:56,085
[tragic string music playing]

1322
01:10:56,168 --> 01:10:57,461
[Fargas] I remember as a kid,

1323
01:10:57,544 --> 01:11:00,923
looking at <i>Jet </i>magazine
and seeing Emmett Till's body,

1324
01:11:01,006 --> 01:11:03,300
and that impacted me.

1325
01:11:04,551 --> 01:11:07,888
In some ways, we've been worn down
to where we see pain and misery,

1326
01:11:07,972 --> 01:11:08,972
and it does nothing,

1327
01:11:10,140 --> 01:11:12,142
and it does nothing to us,

1328
01:11:12,226 --> 01:11:16,272
or it's onto the next one
because we know it's gonna happen again.

1329
01:11:16,355 --> 01:11:17,940
But it's getting more personal.

1330
01:11:18,023 --> 01:11:20,276
It's getting closer and closer to...

1331
01:11:21,277 --> 01:11:24,697
to just humanity, man's inhumanity to man.

1332
01:11:26,991 --> 01:11:29,326
[Mitchell] <i>That ongoing terror
was beautifully defined</i>

1333
01:11:29,410 --> 01:11:32,371
<i>with the release
of Marvin Gaye's </i>What's Going On.

1334
01:11:32,454 --> 01:11:36,083
<i>He was the first to sing
social protest as a seducer</i>

1335
01:11:36,166 --> 01:11:37,876
<i>rather than being declamatory.</i>

1336
01:11:37,960 --> 01:11:41,422
<i>And Gaye released
another epical album in '72.</i>

1337
01:11:41,505 --> 01:11:42,923
<i>This time a soundtrack</i>

1338
01:11:43,007 --> 01:11:46,093
<i>that gave him the opportunity
to return to his jazz roots.</i>

1339
01:11:46,176 --> 01:11:50,180
- ["Trouble Man" by Marvin Gaye playing]
<i>- ♪ I come up hard, but now I'm cool ♪</i>

1340
01:11:51,307 --> 01:11:54,893
<i>♪ I didn't make it, baby
Playin' by the rules... ♪</i>

1341
01:11:55,644 --> 01:11:59,148
[Mitchell] <i>Black film soundtracks
had so often taken their cues</i>

1342
01:11:59,231 --> 01:12:00,357
<i>from </i>What's Going On<i>,</i>

1343
01:12:00,858 --> 01:12:05,279
<i>one of the most gorgeous and honestly
revolutionary acts of Black pop culture,</i>

1344
01:12:05,362 --> 01:12:08,198
<i>so it made sense
for Marvin Gaye to do the same.</i>

1345
01:12:08,282 --> 01:12:10,993
<i>He submitted the state
of African-American affairs</i>

1346
01:12:11,076 --> 01:12:15,080
<i>and picked up his musical autobiography
with his </i>Trouble Man <i>score</i>

1347
01:12:15,164 --> 01:12:17,374
<i>where he left off at </i>What's Going On<i>.</i>

1348
01:12:17,958 --> 01:12:20,252
[suspenseful music playing]

1349
01:12:21,545 --> 01:12:24,173
<i>And the movie music
that would follow in its wake</i>

1350
01:12:24,256 --> 01:12:27,343
<i>continued to assess
the collateral damage of oppression</i>

1351
01:12:27,426 --> 01:12:29,053
<i>that he spelled out earlier.</i>

1352
01:12:29,136 --> 01:12:31,889
["Pusherman" by Curtis Mayfield playing]

1353
01:12:31,972 --> 01:12:33,599
<i>♪ I'm your pusherman... ♪</i>

1354
01:12:34,725 --> 01:12:37,519
[Mitchell] <i>But ironically,
the most sublime of these scores</i>

1355
01:12:37,603 --> 01:12:40,022
<i>came from an artist
whose influence was evident</i>

1356
01:12:40,105 --> 01:12:43,108
<i>on Marvin Gaye's break
from old-time pop-soul.</i>

1357
01:12:43,192 --> 01:12:45,361
<i>It, too, included a honeyed falsetto</i>

1358
01:12:45,444 --> 01:12:48,113
<i>rendering the struggle
of Black American life.</i>

1359
01:12:48,197 --> 01:12:52,034
<i>♪ Ain't I clean? Bad machine
Super cool, super mean ♪</i>

1360
01:12:52,117 --> 01:12:55,788
<i>♪ Dealin' good for the Man
Super fly, here I stand ♪</i>

1361
01:12:55,871 --> 01:12:56,997
<i>♪ Secret stash... ♪</i>

1362
01:12:57,081 --> 01:13:00,334
[Mitchell] <i>Curtis Mayfield's
lyric summaries of social conditions</i>

1363
01:13:00,417 --> 01:13:03,962
<i>and a militant refusal
to surrender to institutional inertia</i>

1364
01:13:04,046 --> 01:13:06,965
<i>can be heard
throughout his entire solo career.</i>

1365
01:13:07,049 --> 01:13:11,512
<i>Mayfield's musical output for this decade
spanned 20 albums,</i>

1366
01:13:11,595 --> 01:13:13,764
<i>among them five soundtracks.</i>

1367
01:13:14,515 --> 01:13:17,851
<i>His sinewy intimacy
and piercing songwriting</i>

1368
01:13:17,935 --> 01:13:20,312
<i>set the tone in Black film from then on,</i>

1369
01:13:20,396 --> 01:13:24,983
<i>starting with </i>Super Fly,<i> as an example
for many of his fellow musicians.</i>

1370
01:13:25,067 --> 01:13:27,945
<i>And Mayfield took his lead
from Melvin Van Peebles</i>

1371
01:13:28,028 --> 01:13:31,156
<i>with the unusual tactic
of releasing the </i>Super Fly<i> score</i>

1372
01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:33,117
before<i> the movie came out.</i>

1373
01:13:33,951 --> 01:13:36,203
<i>Because it was an immediate sensation,</i>

1374
01:13:36,286 --> 01:13:40,374
<i>the</i> Super Fly <i>soundtrack
served as an invitation to the movie.</i>

1375
01:13:40,999 --> 01:13:44,253
<i>John Calley, who ran Warner Bros.
in the 1970s,</i>

1376
01:13:44,336 --> 01:13:47,172
<i>told me he thought </i>Super Fly
<i>started a trend,</i>

1377
01:13:47,256 --> 01:13:50,008
<i>using the soundtracks
to create excitement about the movies</i>

1378
01:13:50,092 --> 01:13:52,428
<i>prior to theatrical release.</i>

1379
01:13:53,053 --> 01:13:55,013
<i>The textures of Mayfield's score,</i>

1380
01:13:55,097 --> 01:13:58,308
<i>dramatizing and commenting
on the life of the protagonist,</i>

1381
01:13:58,392 --> 01:14:00,936
<i>was reflected
in the down and dirty accomplishment</i>

1382
01:14:01,019 --> 01:14:03,188
<i>of cinematographer James Signorelli.</i>

1383
01:14:03,272 --> 01:14:07,025
<i>One of the best foot-chase scenes
in movies, with no stuntmen,</i>

1384
01:14:07,109 --> 01:14:10,154
<i>was caught in the film's
guerilla shooting style by Signorelli.</i>

1385
01:14:10,237 --> 01:14:11,798
[Signorelli] He had to have
a route of escape.

1386
01:14:11,822 --> 01:14:13,007
Jimmy was the guy he was chasing.

1387
01:14:13,031 --> 01:14:14,825
[exciting funk music playing]

1388
01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:23,292
We were standing around,
and Ron said, "I can jump that fence."

1389
01:14:26,712 --> 01:14:29,256
And that was all there was to it.
That was all the rehearsal.

1390
01:14:29,339 --> 01:14:31,884
It certainly wasn't more than one take,
I'll tell you that.

1391
01:14:31,967 --> 01:14:34,928
It was definitely a combination
of the two aesthetics.

1392
01:14:35,012 --> 01:14:38,682
One was the documentary photography
that people had been doing,

1393
01:14:38,765 --> 01:14:42,394
particularly Leacock, Pennebaker,
you know, Maysles, all those guys,

1394
01:14:42,478 --> 01:14:44,813
myself included, you know, Bob Elfstrom.

1395
01:14:44,897 --> 01:14:48,442
The stuff that we were all doing
was bleeding into the technique

1396
01:14:48,525 --> 01:14:49,735
of shooting feature films,

1397
01:14:49,818 --> 01:14:53,238
particularly where the environment
was a third party.

1398
01:14:53,322 --> 01:14:56,158
[Mitchell] <i>Signorelli's improvisational
approach was applied</i>

1399
01:14:56,241 --> 01:14:58,535
<i>to other kinds of action in </i>Super Fly,

1400
01:14:58,619 --> 01:15:02,247
<i>such as the scene
with Sheila Frazier and star Ron O'Neal</i>

1401
01:15:02,331 --> 01:15:05,125
<i>that was frank and passionate
about Black love.</i>

1402
01:15:05,209 --> 01:15:07,836
I can feel from you
what it's like out there.

1403
01:15:09,338 --> 01:15:10,881
I see what it does to you,

1404
01:15:10,964 --> 01:15:14,259
and I know... I know how dope
helps hold your head together.

1405
01:15:15,135 --> 01:15:17,095
I don't want your privacy, baby.

1406
01:15:18,347 --> 01:15:20,849
All I wanna do
is help you share the weight.

1407
01:15:20,933 --> 01:15:24,520
- [sensual funk music playing]
- [Frazier] I said, "Once the suds go away,

1408
01:15:24,603 --> 01:15:28,357
we have to stop it and refill the suds
because I don't wanna be seen."

1409
01:15:28,440 --> 01:15:31,735
I don't know what I was thinking about.
It was pretty hard not to be seen.

1410
01:15:31,818 --> 01:15:33,111
[laughs]

1411
01:15:33,195 --> 01:15:37,824
I would not know
that at the premiere of that movie

1412
01:15:37,908 --> 01:15:40,327
that they put that scene in slow motion.

1413
01:15:40,410 --> 01:15:43,330
[Signorelli] And I believe at one point,
Judith Crist said,

1414
01:15:43,413 --> 01:15:46,792
"It was the most tasteful
and erotic scene in cinema history."

1415
01:15:48,794 --> 01:15:52,381
[Frazier] Richard Roundtree was the one
who helped me get the audition.

1416
01:15:52,464 --> 01:15:56,385
Richard said, "You've gotta walk in
like it's yours."

1417
01:15:57,511 --> 01:15:58,845
I said, "Okay, all right."

1418
01:15:58,929 --> 01:16:02,391
So I walked in,
and I put my feet up on the desk,

1419
01:16:02,474 --> 01:16:04,685
on Sig Shore's desk,
and I said, "You know what,

1420
01:16:04,768 --> 01:16:07,646
you don't have to see another person
because the film is mine."

1421
01:16:08,730 --> 01:16:10,649
Gordon said, "You've got this!"

1422
01:16:10,732 --> 01:16:14,027
Well, after Gordon told me I had it,
and I was so ecstatic,

1423
01:16:14,111 --> 01:16:16,822
then he had to call me
and apologize and say,

1424
01:16:16,905 --> 01:16:20,450
"I'm so sorry,
but Sig Shore wanted a different look."

1425
01:16:20,534 --> 01:16:22,869
"He wanted a very voluptuous woman."

1426
01:16:22,953 --> 01:16:26,248
It was so devastating,
I just changed all...

1427
01:16:26,331 --> 01:16:27,749
I had two telephones.

1428
01:16:27,833 --> 01:16:29,501
I changed both... both numbers,

1429
01:16:29,585 --> 01:16:32,504
so I would never have to speak
to anybody again.

1430
01:16:33,171 --> 01:16:34,715
About three months later,

1431
01:16:34,798 --> 01:16:37,384
this guy walks up to me,
you know, and he's like,

1432
01:16:37,467 --> 01:16:39,928
"I'm a producer."
I'm like, "Good for you."

1433
01:16:40,012 --> 01:16:41,847
So he says, "Well, what's your name?"

1434
01:16:41,930 --> 01:16:44,391
So I gave him my name.
He says, "Oh my God!"

1435
01:16:44,474 --> 01:16:46,977
"We've been trying to find you
for three months."

1436
01:16:47,060 --> 01:16:49,938
"We've been trying to find you."
I'm saying, "Who's 'we'?"

1437
01:16:50,022 --> 01:16:52,899
So he says, "Well, I'm a producer
on a movie called <i>Super Fly</i>."

1438
01:16:52,983 --> 01:16:53,983
I said, "Eh-eh."

1439
01:16:55,402 --> 01:16:58,739
And as soon as I got home,
the phone was ringing off the hook.

1440
01:16:58,822 --> 01:17:01,992
[Mitchell] <i>The result,
John Calley told me, was that </i>Super Fly,

1441
01:17:02,075 --> 01:17:06,413
<i>an independently made project
that Warner Bros. bought for $150,000,</i>

1442
01:17:06,496 --> 01:17:09,166
<i>a pittance by even 1972 standards,</i>

1443
01:17:09,249 --> 01:17:12,961
<i>went on to gross around $30 million.</i>

1444
01:17:13,045 --> 01:17:15,839
[Ron O'Neal] <i>Super Fly</i> has played
to an awful lot of white people.

1445
01:17:15,922 --> 01:17:18,800
It's the only way you can do
19, 20 million dollars.

1446
01:17:18,884 --> 01:17:20,636
We've been in Boston 17 weeks.

1447
01:17:20,719 --> 01:17:24,431
We ran out of Black people in three weeks...
[chuckling]...in Boston, you know?

1448
01:17:25,182 --> 01:17:28,226
[male reporter] Super Fly,
<i>slang for cocaine among users,</i>

1449
01:17:28,310 --> 01:17:31,563
<i>is the story
of a Black New York City narcotics dealer.</i>

1450
01:17:31,647 --> 01:17:35,734
<i>Strong objections to the film
were raised today by R.L. Livingston</i>

1451
01:17:35,817 --> 01:17:38,403
<i>of the Better Influence Association
in Fort Worth.</i>

1452
01:17:38,487 --> 01:17:42,574
I don't know what this council <i>can</i> do,
but I'm bringing it to your attention

1453
01:17:42,658 --> 01:17:44,826
because you are the city council
of Fort Worth,

1454
01:17:44,910 --> 01:17:47,496
and you represent
the problem-solving division here,

1455
01:17:47,579 --> 01:17:51,875
and I hope that we can do this thing here
without the citizens going up on their own

1456
01:17:51,958 --> 01:17:54,836
to boycott such trash and filth
in our community.

1457
01:17:55,629 --> 01:18:00,801
How do you see your role in <i>Super Fly,</i>
as a positive force or a negative one?

1458
01:18:01,385 --> 01:18:05,013
Obviously, I consider it a positive one,
or I never would have done the film.

1459
01:18:05,097 --> 01:18:06,640
When we made <i>Super Fly,</i>

1460
01:18:06,723 --> 01:18:10,769
we made it about the way
things <i>actually</i> are,

1461
01:18:11,645 --> 01:18:15,899
and we hoped it would be judged
and criticized on that basis.

1462
01:18:15,982 --> 01:18:19,319
Uh, but my... from my observation, you know,

1463
01:18:19,403 --> 01:18:22,072
<i>Super Fly</i> has been largely criticized
from some...

1464
01:18:22,155 --> 01:18:23,155
[inhales deeply]

1465
01:18:23,198 --> 01:18:25,534
...some, you know, some sphere,

1466
01:18:25,617 --> 01:18:29,329
some... some plane, some plateau,
you know, that has no bearing on the film.

1467
01:18:30,163 --> 01:18:33,458
[Bobby Seale] They use the Black community
to make the movies in the first place.

1468
01:18:33,542 --> 01:18:36,712
Uh, we're tired of these white producers
coming in and making Black movies

1469
01:18:36,795 --> 01:18:39,423
and then, in turn,
are exploiting the Black community.

1470
01:18:39,506 --> 01:18:42,968
Also, the Black extras who live in Oakland
and Berkeley and around the area

1471
01:18:43,051 --> 01:18:44,344
are only getting $10 a day.

1472
01:18:44,428 --> 01:18:46,096
They should be getting $50 a day.

1473
01:18:46,179 --> 01:18:48,306
- [chanting]
- [feet stomping]

1474
01:18:48,390 --> 01:18:51,977
I think all the artists,
since I know them personally,

1475
01:18:52,477 --> 01:18:54,980
uh, you know, are responsible people

1476
01:18:55,063 --> 01:18:59,735
who are concerned about what is happening
in the Black communities.

1477
01:18:59,818 --> 01:19:04,614
We are, of course, uh,
not able to make a motion picture alone.

1478
01:19:04,698 --> 01:19:08,034
Many other elements
go into the making of a motion picture,

1479
01:19:08,118 --> 01:19:12,080
most important of which, I suppose,
initially, would be huge sums of money.

1480
01:19:14,249 --> 01:19:16,126
[Mitchell]
<i>The footballers-turned-movie stars</i>

1481
01:19:16,209 --> 01:19:18,587
<i>Jim Brown and Fred Williamson</i>

1482
01:19:18,670 --> 01:19:21,047
<i>came through
that year with two films each,</i>

1483
01:19:21,131 --> 01:19:24,801
<i>with impatient titles
that are both synonyms and descriptors.</i>

1484
01:19:24,885 --> 01:19:27,637
<i>Like </i>Shaft<i>, whose sequel,</i>
Shaft's Big Score,

1485
01:19:27,721 --> 01:19:30,682
<i>sounds like it could be
an athlete-turned-actor adventure.</i>

1486
01:19:30,766 --> 01:19:32,642
[mellow funk music playing]

1487
01:19:32,726 --> 01:19:37,063
<i>And these films were all solidly tattooed
with the label "blaxploitation,"</i>

1488
01:19:37,147 --> 01:19:41,693
<i>a brand that offered acknowledgment
and dismissal simultaneously.</i>

1489
01:19:41,777 --> 01:19:44,988
<i>Though these films coursed through
the bloodstream of American social</i>

1490
01:19:45,071 --> 01:19:46,364
<i>and popular culture,</i>

1491
01:19:46,448 --> 01:19:48,950
<i>they were seldom addressed
in mainstream media,</i>

1492
01:19:49,034 --> 01:19:51,244
<i>except, of course, to provoke panic.</i>

1493
01:19:51,328 --> 01:19:56,416
When I think of the word "blaxploitation,"
I think of the commodifying of Blackness.

1494
01:19:57,417 --> 01:19:59,586
"How do we package and sell Blackness?"

1495
01:19:59,669 --> 01:20:05,634
"Exploitation" because they were
white writers, white producers,

1496
01:20:05,717 --> 01:20:06,718
white director,

1497
01:20:06,802 --> 01:20:09,262
and then they took it
to the Black community,

1498
01:20:09,346 --> 01:20:13,433
and the Black community ate it up,
made them a lot of money,

1499
01:20:14,309 --> 01:20:15,602
but not us.

1500
01:20:17,229 --> 01:20:18,980
Is that not exploitation?

1501
01:20:19,981 --> 01:20:24,653
[Mitchell] <i>Though the blaxploitation brand
so often provoked debate and condemnation,</i>

1502
01:20:24,736 --> 01:20:28,031
<i>the films quite often generated
appeal and profit.</i>

1503
01:20:31,576 --> 01:20:33,870
<i>Mainstream movies now regarded as classic</i>

1504
01:20:33,954 --> 01:20:36,122
<i>feature white stars, bored with heroism,</i>

1505
01:20:36,206 --> 01:20:39,751
<i>becoming antiheroes
as a way of wrestling with that issue</i>

1506
01:20:39,835 --> 01:20:42,045
<i>and frustrating audiences in the bargain.</i>

1507
01:20:43,380 --> 01:20:44,506
[intriguing music playing]

1508
01:20:44,589 --> 01:20:49,427
<i>The Black stars, and one wonders
why that wasn't a film title from the era,</i>

1509
01:20:49,511 --> 01:20:52,264
<i>made audiences beneficiaries
of another natural evolution,</i>

1510
01:20:52,889 --> 01:20:54,516
<i>swag in their own beauty</i>

1511
01:20:54,599 --> 01:20:57,018
<i>and reveling in being
in the center of the frame.</i>

1512
01:20:58,144 --> 01:21:01,523
<i>Certainly, in the Five Families scene
from </i>The Godfather,

1513
01:21:01,606 --> 01:21:04,943
<i>Francis Coppola showed the thoughtlessness
of these characters in this scene,</i>

1514
01:21:05,026 --> 01:21:08,947
<i>clearly meant to be an indictment of them
and not an approval of their thoughts.</i>

1515
01:21:09,030 --> 01:21:12,868
In my city, we would keep the trafficking
to dark people, the colored.

1516
01:21:12,951 --> 01:21:16,037
They're animals anyway,
so let them lose their souls.

1517
01:21:16,121 --> 01:21:19,124
[Mitchell] <i>Still, even understanding
what the film's intent was,</i>

1518
01:21:19,207 --> 01:21:21,501
<i>that sentiment
can be a little hard to hear.</i>

1519
01:21:21,585 --> 01:21:24,337
<i>But it did ask a question
answered by many Black films,</i>

1520
01:21:24,421 --> 01:21:26,590
<i>which showed the rot left by drugs.</i>

1521
01:21:26,673 --> 01:21:27,841
No! No! For God's sake!

1522
01:21:31,136 --> 01:21:34,389
["People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul"
by James Brown playing]

1523
01:21:34,472 --> 01:21:36,308
[Mitchell] <i>Black films
created a warrior class</i>

1524
01:21:36,391 --> 01:21:38,268
<i>where there hadn't been one before.</i>

1525
01:21:38,351 --> 01:21:42,272
<i>Black audiences no longer had
to sift through stories to find subtext</i>

1526
01:21:42,355 --> 01:21:45,859
<i>that explained why Black characters
hovered in the margins.</i>

1527
01:21:45,942 --> 01:21:48,778
<i>They now inhabited center frame
by natural right.</i>

1528
01:21:48,862 --> 01:21:51,656
<i>And at a time
when the only mainstream movie hero</i>

1529
01:21:51,740 --> 01:21:53,783
<i>was Bond, James Bond,</i>

1530
01:21:53,867 --> 01:21:58,830
<i>who, in 1973, saw Roger Moore's 007
go nose-to-false-nose</i>

1531
01:21:58,914 --> 01:22:02,667
<i>with the series' first
and, to date, only Black big bad,</i>

1532
01:22:02,751 --> 01:22:04,085
<i>played by Yaphet Kotto,</i>

1533
01:22:04,169 --> 01:22:07,172
<i>in this ever-changing world
in which Bond lived.</i>

1534
01:22:09,549 --> 01:22:10,592
Quite revealing.

1535
01:22:12,427 --> 01:22:15,513
[Mitchell] <i>Black movies were portraying
the dilemmas of the inner city,</i>

1536
01:22:15,597 --> 01:22:18,099
<i>the ravages of crime, and the drug war.</i>

1537
01:22:18,183 --> 01:22:21,978
<i>Only, in these films,
African-American leads were fighting back.</i>

1538
01:22:22,062 --> 01:22:24,272
<i>It was understood that cops wouldn't help.</i>

1539
01:22:24,356 --> 01:22:27,317
<i>They were often as indifferent
as they were corrupt.</i>

1540
01:22:27,400 --> 01:22:30,904
<i>Jim Brown reprised Slaughter,
his verb-as-surname character,</i>

1541
01:22:30,987 --> 01:22:32,489
<i>in </i>Slaughter's Big Rip-Off,

1542
01:22:32,572 --> 01:22:35,158
<i>complemented by the singular
two-fisted funk</i>

1543
01:22:35,241 --> 01:22:37,035
<i>of an early James Brown score.</i>

1544
01:22:37,118 --> 01:22:38,118
[song ends]

1545
01:22:38,161 --> 01:22:41,414
<i>In </i>Hit!<i>, Billy Dee Williams
was a CIA agent</i>

1546
01:22:41,498 --> 01:22:44,042
<i>who recruits an unlikely group
of walking wounded</i>

1547
01:22:44,125 --> 01:22:46,920
<i>in his personal fight
against international drug dealers.</i>

1548
01:22:47,003 --> 01:22:48,630
<i>He lost his daughter to drugs.</i>

1549
01:22:48,713 --> 01:22:50,840
What's it gonna do for you
to kill me, man?

1550
01:22:52,133 --> 01:22:53,259
I'm just a worker.

1551
01:22:53,843 --> 01:22:58,807
It really required
a kind of a... a mentality

1552
01:22:58,890 --> 01:23:03,311
that he was capable
of using whatever, uh, he needed to use

1553
01:23:03,395 --> 01:23:06,940
in order to accomplish his mission.

1554
01:23:07,023 --> 01:23:09,567
- [seagulls squawking]
- [solemn piano music playing]

1555
01:23:09,651 --> 01:23:11,111
That's very interesting.

1556
01:23:11,611 --> 01:23:16,324
And, in a way that, for...
uh, little brown-skinned boys like me

1557
01:23:16,408 --> 01:23:19,119
never had the opportunity
to do that kind of stuff.

1558
01:23:20,036 --> 01:23:22,789
And the fact that Sidney
wanted me to play that character,

1559
01:23:22,872 --> 01:23:24,708
felt I was right for that character,

1560
01:23:24,791 --> 01:23:27,794
I tried to use it
in the best way that I could.

1561
01:23:28,753 --> 01:23:30,213
Again, it was an opportunity

1562
01:23:30,296 --> 01:23:34,134
to show a side
that you normally would not see on-screen.

1563
01:23:34,634 --> 01:23:38,304
I think that adds to the vulnerability.
I was thinking about vulnerability.

1564
01:23:38,388 --> 01:23:43,685
It makes the character a little bit more
than just a ruthless kind of individual.

1565
01:23:46,896 --> 01:23:49,649
[Mitchell] Gordon's War <i>featured
a group of Black Vietnam vets</i>

1566
01:23:49,733 --> 01:23:53,403
<i>using their skills to return fire
against drug dealers.</i>

1567
01:23:53,486 --> 01:23:56,823
<i>It featured a couple
of startlingly original visual high points</i>

1568
01:23:56,906 --> 01:23:59,701
<i>that have been quoted in films ever since.</i>

1569
01:23:59,784 --> 01:24:01,828
New Jack City, <i>to name just one,</i>

1570
01:24:01,911 --> 01:24:05,999
<i>scored by Angelo Badalamenti,
who would later work with David Lynch.</i>

1571
01:24:06,666 --> 01:24:07,584
Got a light?

1572
01:24:07,667 --> 01:24:10,378
<i>This MacGyver-like action moment
with an aerosol can,</i>

1573
01:24:10,462 --> 01:24:13,590
<i>which could be seen as a metaphor
for its environmental danger,</i>

1574
01:24:13,673 --> 01:24:16,509
<i>has made its way
into innumerable action films.</i>

1575
01:24:16,593 --> 01:24:20,096
[screaming]

1576
01:24:20,180 --> 01:24:22,766
[Mitchell] <i>Audiences of all colors
came out to see these movies</i>

1577
01:24:22,849 --> 01:24:25,685
<i>because they could feel
the adrenaline in the actors,</i>

1578
01:24:25,769 --> 01:24:30,565
<i>many of whom came from the stage,
and those actors' exhilaration in working.</i>

1579
01:24:30,648 --> 01:24:33,860
- [upbeat funk music playing]
<i>- </i>Second runner-up, Pretty Tony!

1580
01:24:33,943 --> 01:24:36,988
[Mitchell] <i>In</i> The Mack, <i>for example,
Dick Anthony Williams as Pretty Tony</i>

1581
01:24:37,072 --> 01:24:40,575
<i>is as compelling as any figure
in a '30s gangster movie.</i>

1582
01:24:40,658 --> 01:24:43,745
<i>He told me his improvisations
came out of wanting to portray</i>

1583
01:24:43,828 --> 01:24:46,081
<i>an inner-city version
of Edward G. Robinson</i>

1584
01:24:46,164 --> 01:24:49,209
<i>brought up-to-date with turns of phrases
he heard growing up.</i>

1585
01:24:50,668 --> 01:24:53,963
Nigga, next time you hear
grown folks talkin',

1586
01:24:54,047 --> 01:24:55,590
shut the fuck up. Hear?

1587
01:24:55,673 --> 01:24:58,760
[Mitchell] <i>The impact
of that kind of concise hypermasculinity</i>

1588
01:24:58,843 --> 01:25:02,847
<i>would be felt decades later, in lines
that seem to be written for Black actors,</i>

1589
01:25:02,931 --> 01:25:04,557
<i>if not spoken by them.</i>

1590
01:25:04,641 --> 01:25:06,601
- Want me to shoot this guy?
- Shit.

1591
01:25:06,684 --> 01:25:07,519
[man chuckles]

1592
01:25:07,602 --> 01:25:10,939
You shoot me in a dream,
you better wake up and apologize.

1593
01:25:11,022 --> 01:25:11,898
[chuckles]

1594
01:25:11,981 --> 01:25:14,192
[mellow funk music playing]

1595
01:25:14,275 --> 01:25:16,155
[Mitchell] <i>There was
a more specific realization</i>

1596
01:25:16,194 --> 01:25:18,863
<i>of Edward G. Robinson to come
in</i> Black Caesar.

1597
01:25:18,947 --> 01:25:22,951
They never look at me. They never look
at my face, my nose, my lame foot.

1598
01:25:23,034 --> 01:25:24,577
All they know is that I'm Black.

1599
01:25:24,661 --> 01:25:25,995
[dramatic drumbeat playing]

1600
01:25:26,079 --> 01:25:28,957
[Mitchell] <i>Imagine if the man
who inspired Cohen to write </i>Black Caesar,

1601
01:25:29,040 --> 01:25:33,044
<i>Sammy Davis Jr., got to star
in the work he set into motion,</i>

1602
01:25:33,128 --> 01:25:36,005
<i>but Cohen ended up
with Fred Williamson as Black Caesar.</i>

1603
01:25:36,881 --> 01:25:39,759
<i>When he asked the studio head
to account for the size difference</i>

1604
01:25:39,843 --> 01:25:41,427
<i>between Williamson and Davis,</i>

1605
01:25:41,511 --> 01:25:44,180
<i>the studio head
thought for a moment and said,</i>

1606
01:25:44,264 --> 01:25:45,640
<i>"Give Fred a limp."</i>

1607
01:25:48,017 --> 01:25:50,061
[upbeat Motown music playing]

1608
01:25:50,145 --> 01:25:53,523
<i>A 1973 concert documentary,</i>
Save the Children,

1609
01:25:53,606 --> 01:25:56,985
<i>filmed at the 1972 Operation PUSH rally,</i>

1610
01:25:57,068 --> 01:26:01,447
<i>had appearances that ranged
from Jesse Jackson to The Jackson 5,</i>

1611
01:26:01,990 --> 01:26:05,201
<i>from Nancy Wilson to Zulema,</i>

1612
01:26:05,285 --> 01:26:07,745
<i>and put music
and progressive politics together.</i>

1613
01:26:07,829 --> 01:26:10,665
<i>It was a massive enterprise to assemble.</i>

1614
01:26:12,375 --> 01:26:14,252
We started with the Motown acts.

1615
01:26:14,335 --> 01:26:17,005
So once we'd booked Marvin Gaye,

1616
01:26:17,088 --> 01:26:18,214
Temptations,

1617
01:26:18,298 --> 01:26:20,800
Gladys Knight & the Pips,
you know, folks like that,

1618
01:26:20,884 --> 01:26:23,344
it started to be this thing
about people wanted to do it.

1619
01:26:23,428 --> 01:26:28,308
And then, Clarence had a record company,
so he got Bill Withers and Nancy Wilson

1620
01:26:28,391 --> 01:26:29,934
and Sammy Davis Jr.

1621
01:26:30,018 --> 01:26:33,062
Quincy was already involved
so he got Roberta Flack,

1622
01:26:33,146 --> 01:26:36,649
and he put together a house band
that was an all-star band.

1623
01:26:38,026 --> 01:26:42,113
And so this thing
sort of turned into this amazing gathering

1624
01:26:42,197 --> 01:26:46,159
of some of the best musicians
that were available at that time.

1625
01:26:46,242 --> 01:26:47,952
It was big. It was huge.

1626
01:26:48,036 --> 01:26:50,205
And it was a... a huge success,

1627
01:26:50,288 --> 01:26:53,416
'cause all of those musicians
brought their best game.

1628
01:26:53,499 --> 01:26:56,753
<i>♪ Tonight ♪</i>

1629
01:26:57,253 --> 01:27:01,424
<i>♪ I gave the greatest performance
Of my life ♪</i>

1630
01:27:02,175 --> 01:27:07,180
It got to a point where
the level of artistry was off the roof.

1631
01:27:07,263 --> 01:27:08,181
It was crazy.

1632
01:27:08,264 --> 01:27:09,349
[funk music playing]

1633
01:27:09,432 --> 01:27:12,727
[Mitchell] <i>Black female characters
determined to be recognized</i>

1634
01:27:12,810 --> 01:27:15,188
<i>not merely because of
their proximity to a man.</i>

1635
01:27:15,939 --> 01:27:17,982
<i>No longer compliant arm candy,</i>

1636
01:27:18,066 --> 01:27:21,236
<i>they also threw down
against a battalion of stuntmen.</i>

1637
01:27:21,819 --> 01:27:24,447
<i>It was the final frontier
for Black actresses</i>

1638
01:27:24,530 --> 01:27:27,033
<i>and established a definition of heroism</i>

1639
01:27:27,116 --> 01:27:30,078
<i>that allowed for directness
rather than martyrdom.</i>

1640
01:27:30,161 --> 01:27:33,456
<i>Before this,
movies often conflated Black femininity</i>

1641
01:27:33,539 --> 01:27:34,958
<i>with romanticized masochism.</i>

1642
01:27:36,209 --> 01:27:39,963
<i>What audiences were getting
was something entirely new.</i>

1643
01:27:40,046 --> 01:27:42,799
Black films are just, like...
It's an evolution.

1644
01:27:42,882 --> 01:27:45,551
It's not something that's gonna come
and pop automatically,

1645
01:27:45,635 --> 01:27:48,888
and everything will happen immediately
because nothing happens that way,

1646
01:27:48,972 --> 01:27:50,306
and things will take time.

1647
01:27:50,390 --> 01:27:52,267
Progress has to be a slow thing

1648
01:27:52,350 --> 01:27:55,019
in order for it to be definite,
you know, and beneficial, I think,

1649
01:27:55,103 --> 01:27:56,771
so it's gonna take a little while.

1650
01:27:56,854 --> 01:28:00,483
There's so many different areas
that haven't been... been realized yet

1651
01:28:00,566 --> 01:28:02,902
as far as Black actors are concerned.

1652
01:28:02,986 --> 01:28:07,282
And, uh, it's all new to me.
I'm... I'm a new actress, as you know,

1653
01:28:07,365 --> 01:28:10,159
and, uh, I've just begun to work,

1654
01:28:10,243 --> 01:28:12,787
and there's so many areas of work
I haven't touched yet.

1655
01:28:12,870 --> 01:28:14,789
I have a lot more training
that I have to get

1656
01:28:14,872 --> 01:28:17,375
before I can really call myself
an actress.

1657
01:28:17,458 --> 01:28:19,585
[Mitchell] <i>Laurence Olivier once said,</i>

1658
01:28:19,669 --> 01:28:22,755
<i>"When you're young,
you're too bashful to play a hero."</i>

1659
01:28:22,839 --> 01:28:23,840
<i>"You debunk it."</i>

1660
01:28:23,923 --> 01:28:25,383
<i>"It's only when you're older</i>

1661
01:28:25,466 --> 01:28:28,553
<i>that you understand
the pictorial beauty of heroism."</i>

1662
01:28:28,636 --> 01:28:32,098
<i>Black actors not only understood
that beauty, they embraced it</i>

1663
01:28:32,181 --> 01:28:35,143
<i>because of the communal thirst
we had for heroes.</i>

1664
01:28:35,226 --> 01:28:39,272
<i>America, in the throes of uncertainty,
embraced those Black heroes</i>

1665
01:28:39,355 --> 01:28:44,277
<i>who were played onto the screens
with dynamic and celebratory music scores.</i>

1666
01:28:44,360 --> 01:28:47,905
<i>Remember, it was </i>Shaft
<i>that saved MGM from bankruptcy.</i>

1667
01:28:47,989 --> 01:28:51,159
<i>And the newest arrival
to this extraordinary league</i>

1668
01:28:51,242 --> 01:28:55,288
<i>that redefined accomplishment and glory
in the movies was Pam Grier.</i>

1669
01:28:55,371 --> 01:28:59,917
<i>From 1970 until 1973,
she appeared in seven films,</i>

1670
01:29:00,001 --> 01:29:02,712
<i>with each role
giving her more screen time.</i>

1671
01:29:02,795 --> 01:29:05,631
<i>A 1970s </i>Esquire<i> magazine article</i>

1672
01:29:05,715 --> 01:29:08,926
<i>on rising stars that would go on
to change the movies,</i>

1673
01:29:09,010 --> 01:29:12,513
<i>a group that included Steven Spielberg,
who was just finishing </i>Jaws<i>,</i>

1674
01:29:12,597 --> 01:29:16,100
<i>and George Lucas, fighting to start
something called </i>The Star Wars,

1675
01:29:16,184 --> 01:29:18,436
<i>Pam Grier was
one of the few actors mentioned,</i>

1676
01:29:18,519 --> 01:29:22,523
<i>described as, "One of three actresses
whose movies consistently make money."</i>

1677
01:29:22,607 --> 01:29:24,942
<i>"The other two are named Barbra and Liza."</i>

1678
01:29:25,026 --> 01:29:28,988
<i>Grier said, "I'm the only lady
in movies nowadays who isn't a victim."</i>

1679
01:29:29,072 --> 01:29:33,409
<i>"Determination was key working roles
such as a half-panther madwoman,"</i>

1680
01:29:33,493 --> 01:29:34,952
<i>as the article says.</i>

1681
01:29:35,036 --> 01:29:37,830
<i>In '73, she was also in</i>
Scream Blacula Scream...

1682
01:29:37,914 --> 01:29:40,249
Now, with such a lovely guide,

1683
01:29:40,333 --> 01:29:43,336
I'm afraid I'd lose my concentration
on the artwork.

1684
01:29:44,170 --> 01:29:45,505
How about that?

1685
01:29:46,547 --> 01:29:48,216
[Mitchell] <i>...and</i> Black Mama White Mama.

1686
01:29:48,299 --> 01:29:51,177
You can stick that up your ass.
Now, let's go!

1687
01:29:51,677 --> 01:29:52,804
[gun fires]

1688
01:29:52,887 --> 01:29:54,347
[birds chirping]

1689
01:29:56,641 --> 01:29:59,560
[Mitchell] <i>But it was in </i>Coffy
<i>that she proved herself a movie star.</i>

1690
01:29:59,644 --> 01:30:02,647
<i>Toni Morrison once told me,
"It was a dismissal</i>

1691
01:30:02,730 --> 01:30:05,775
<i>to call Grier's characters,
such as Coffy, 'a badass.'"</i>

1692
01:30:05,858 --> 01:30:07,819
<i>"It diminished her as an actress."</i>

1693
01:30:07,902 --> 01:30:10,279
<i>And more importantly,
she thought Grier's performance</i>

1694
01:30:10,363 --> 01:30:13,741
<i>dealt with the moral complexities
demanded of Black women.</i>

1695
01:30:13,825 --> 01:30:16,369
<i>The toll of maintaining her equilibrium</i>

1696
01:30:16,452 --> 01:30:19,497
<i>while taking the law into her own hands
and dealing with betrayal</i>

1697
01:30:19,580 --> 01:30:22,792
<i>showed in her performance
as she avenges her sister's death,</i>

1698
01:30:22,875 --> 01:30:25,169
<i>a metaphor for Black women juggling roles</i>

1699
01:30:25,253 --> 01:30:28,214
<i>such as protectors
and nurturers simultaneously.</i>

1700
01:30:28,297 --> 01:30:30,341
- Now, come on.
- [woman] Howie, what are you doing?

1701
01:30:31,134 --> 01:30:32,427
Come back to bed...

1702
01:30:32,927 --> 01:30:34,303
[unsettling music playing]

1703
01:30:34,387 --> 01:30:35,471
[gasps]

1704
01:30:36,431 --> 01:30:39,809
Coffy, baby. You gotta understand.
I... I thought you were dead!

1705
01:30:40,476 --> 01:30:42,103
- [groans]
- [screams]

1706
01:30:42,812 --> 01:30:45,648
[Mitchell] <i>But often, and finally, alone.</i>

1707
01:30:45,731 --> 01:30:48,693
<i>Still, moving on.
Hopefully, towards community.</i>

1708
01:30:48,776 --> 01:30:50,027
<i>She'd be an archangel</i>

1709
01:30:50,111 --> 01:30:52,321
<i>delivering her people
from the end of the world.</i>

1710
01:30:52,405 --> 01:30:55,116
<i>Always around the corner
for African Americans.</i>

1711
01:30:55,700 --> 01:30:58,494
Coffy <i>allows Grier
a final moment of respite</i>

1712
01:30:58,578 --> 01:31:01,456
<i>in a new version
of a picture-postcard shot.</i>

1713
01:31:02,748 --> 01:31:06,294
<i>In 1973, we were in the midst
of botched opportunities,</i>

1714
01:31:06,377 --> 01:31:09,922
<i>such as </i>Shaft in Africa,
<i>and responses to Black action films,</i>

1715
01:31:10,006 --> 01:31:13,301
<i>such as the adaptation of the play</i>
Five on the Black Hand Side,

1716
01:31:13,384 --> 01:31:15,052
<i>which starred a young Glynn Turman.</i>

1717
01:31:15,136 --> 01:31:16,888
What <i>does</i> that feel like?

1718
01:31:18,931 --> 01:31:21,684
Feels like a lifetime ago,
tell you the truth.

1719
01:31:21,767 --> 01:31:26,147
It's amazing
that all of that was happening then,

1720
01:31:27,732 --> 01:31:30,443
and, uh, that I got to work

1721
01:31:30,526 --> 01:31:33,154
with such wonderful,
wonderful, iconic people,

1722
01:31:33,821 --> 01:31:34,821
you know.

1723
01:31:35,573 --> 01:31:36,741
And it, uh...

1724
01:31:37,950 --> 01:31:39,702
It's a history, man, that...

1725
01:31:41,078 --> 01:31:44,999
You don't go into it thinking
that it's going to have any import.

1726
01:31:46,209 --> 01:31:48,002
It was just, like, uh,

1727
01:31:48,753 --> 01:31:49,754
survival.

1728
01:31:50,463 --> 01:31:51,463
You're young.

1729
01:31:52,048 --> 01:31:54,675
You know, you're trying to get started
in the business.

1730
01:31:54,759 --> 01:31:56,511
You're trying to put your foot down

1731
01:31:56,594 --> 01:31:59,347
and make a mark for yourself
in the business.

1732
01:31:59,430 --> 01:32:03,059
[Mitchell] <i>There also came a film
that was like the answer to a riddle.</i>

1733
01:32:03,142 --> 01:32:05,311
<i>What would you get if you gave the star</i>

1734
01:32:05,394 --> 01:32:08,064
<i>of a terrible and ghastly
World War II sitcom</i>

1735
01:32:08,147 --> 01:32:10,775
<i>and the editor of that show
a chance to make a movie?</i>

1736
01:32:10,858 --> 01:32:15,404
<i>Ivan Dixon, who quit </i>Hogan's Heroes,
<i>and Michael Kahn, that show's editor,</i>

1737
01:32:15,488 --> 01:32:17,448
<i>first worked together on </i>Trouble Man.

1738
01:32:17,532 --> 01:32:19,909
<i>But Dixon's dream project
was an adaptation</i>

1739
01:32:19,992 --> 01:32:24,789
<i>of Sam Greenlee's agitprop satiric novel,</i>
The Spook Who Sat by the Door,

1740
01:32:24,872 --> 01:32:27,375
<i>in which a Black man,
recruited by the CIA,</i>

1741
01:32:27,458 --> 01:32:31,379
<i>takes the agency's tactics to the streets
and creates a revolution.</i>

1742
01:32:31,462 --> 01:32:34,757
<i>Dixon's years of struggle
to get this project completed</i>

1743
01:32:34,840 --> 01:32:35,841
<i>could </i>be<i> a movie.</i>

1744
01:32:36,342 --> 01:32:38,636
<i>Finally raising the money
to make half the movie</i>

1745
01:32:38,719 --> 01:32:41,347
<i>and showing action sequences
to get studio interest,</i>

1746
01:32:41,430 --> 01:32:45,518
<i>a bidding war, won by United Artists,
got him the other half.</i>

1747
01:32:46,227 --> 01:32:49,438
<i>According to Dixon,
the studio was appalled by a film</i>

1748
01:32:49,522 --> 01:32:52,567
<i>they feared might cause
actual riots and lawsuits</i>

1749
01:32:52,650 --> 01:32:54,986
<i>instead of a riot at the box office.</i>

1750
01:32:55,069 --> 01:32:58,823
<i>It included a line that I thought belonged
in the annals of film history,</i>

1751
01:32:58,906 --> 01:33:01,492
<i>alongside "an offer he couldn't refuse."</i>

1752
01:33:02,577 --> 01:33:03,577
[man] <i>Remember,</i>

1753
01:33:04,078 --> 01:33:07,248
<i>a Black man
with a mop, tray, or broom in his hand</i>

1754
01:33:07,748 --> 01:33:10,459
<i>can go damn near anywhere in this country.</i>

1755
01:33:10,543 --> 01:33:12,086
<i>And a smiling Black man</i>

1756
01:33:12,753 --> 01:33:13,671
<i>is invisible.</i>

1757
01:33:13,754 --> 01:33:16,274
[Mitchell] <i>This line brought down
the house when I saw the movie</i>

1758
01:33:16,299 --> 01:33:18,301
<i>in Detroit in 1973,</i>

1759
01:33:18,384 --> 01:33:22,263
<i>and it continues to set off fireworks
and inspiration decades later.</i>

1760
01:33:22,346 --> 01:33:25,158
[Nipsey Hussle] <i>I'mma name my last album</i>
The Spook That Sat by the Door.

1761
01:33:25,182 --> 01:33:26,462
Basically, he used their agenda,

1762
01:33:26,517 --> 01:33:30,146
which was to have a token nigga
in the CIA for political reasons.

1763
01:33:30,229 --> 01:33:32,773
- You know, we gonna speak blunt. Fuck it.
- [woman] Right.

1764
01:33:32,857 --> 01:33:34,984
Um, he used it against 'em.

1765
01:33:35,067 --> 01:33:36,152
[gun fires]

1766
01:33:36,819 --> 01:33:40,281
[Mitchell] <i>Dixon told me
that when </i>Spook<i> ended its theatrical run,</i>

1767
01:33:40,364 --> 01:33:42,908
<i>United Artists called him in
for a meeting and told him</i>

1768
01:33:42,992 --> 01:33:45,286
<i>the movie was being tracked
by US Intelligence,</i>

1769
01:33:45,369 --> 01:33:47,288
<i>which means there's a photo of me</i>

1770
01:33:47,371 --> 01:33:50,249
<i>and my high-school friends
somewhere in Langley.</i>

1771
01:33:50,333 --> 01:33:52,335
<i>This movie created such a furor</i>

1772
01:33:52,418 --> 01:33:53,502
<i>that Dixon felt</i>

1773
01:33:53,586 --> 01:33:56,255
<i>his theatrical moviemaking career
was finished.</i>

1774
01:33:56,839 --> 01:33:59,508
<i>A film about insurrection
was being treated</i>

1775
01:33:59,592 --> 01:34:01,302
<i>as if it were the act itself.</i>

1776
01:34:02,094 --> 01:34:03,095
Don't quit

1777
01:34:04,639 --> 01:34:06,015
until you either win,

1778
01:34:06,891 --> 01:34:07,891
or you die.

1779
01:34:07,933 --> 01:34:12,104
[Mitchell] The Spook Who Sat by the Door
<i>infused a genre film, the spy thriller,</i>

1780
01:34:12,188 --> 01:34:13,439
<i>with a Black perspective</i>

1781
01:34:13,522 --> 01:34:18,319
<i>and forced audiences to reexamine
how narrow that genre had been.</i>

1782
01:34:18,944 --> 01:34:22,948
Ganja & Hess <i>finds visuals,
either poetic or realistic and harsh,</i>

1783
01:34:23,032 --> 01:34:25,409
<i>to keep its emotional fluidity constant.</i>

1784
01:34:25,493 --> 01:34:27,995
- [unsettling music playing]
- [screams]

1785
01:34:31,040 --> 01:34:32,958
[Mitchell] <i>Duane Jones,
steely and determined</i>

1786
01:34:33,042 --> 01:34:36,170
<i>as the monster killer
in</i> Night of the Living Dead,

1787
01:34:36,253 --> 01:34:40,633
<i>is cast as the monster here,
and his resolve to keep his soul alive</i>

1788
01:34:40,716 --> 01:34:44,011
<i>as the movie shifts
from dreamscape to bloody reality</i>

1789
01:34:44,095 --> 01:34:46,639
<i>became a metaphor
for the life of Bill Gunn,</i>

1790
01:34:46,722 --> 01:34:49,183
<i>the film's writer, director, and costar.</i>

1791
01:34:49,725 --> 01:34:51,727
<i>Real-life horror played out for Gunn,</i>

1792
01:34:51,811 --> 01:34:54,730
<i>who witnessed his triumph
edited into different versions,</i>

1793
01:34:54,814 --> 01:34:58,109
<i>each badly titled recut
worse than the previous one,</i>

1794
01:34:58,192 --> 01:35:00,611
<i>transforming his art
into something monstrous.</i>

1795
01:35:00,695 --> 01:35:02,363
[melancholy string music playing]

1796
01:35:02,446 --> 01:35:04,532
<i>Gunn fought to work in the movies</i>

1797
01:35:04,615 --> 01:35:08,119
<i>even after his directorial debut
titled</i> Stop!

1798
01:35:08,202 --> 01:35:09,662
<i>Ishmael Reed writes,</i>

1799
01:35:09,745 --> 01:35:13,290
<i>"Warner Bros. was so upset with </i>Stop!
<i>that it buried the film</i>

1800
01:35:13,374 --> 01:35:16,669
<i>and got Gunn to return
his writing and directing fees."</i>

1801
01:35:16,752 --> 01:35:18,546
- [siren wails]
- [funk music playing]

1802
01:35:19,171 --> 01:35:24,343
<i>1974 was another seismic movement
of the needle for Black film.</i>

1803
01:35:24,427 --> 01:35:25,720
[men] The Black 6.

1804
01:35:29,682 --> 01:35:31,600
[Mitchell] <i>A jolt
courtesy of Diahann Carroll</i>

1805
01:35:31,684 --> 01:35:34,812
<i>as a weary but determined
mother of six in </i>Claudine<i>.</i>

1806
01:35:34,895 --> 01:35:37,095
[woman on phone] <i>Sorry,
that number's been disconnected.</i>

1807
01:35:37,648 --> 01:35:39,191
"Disconnected"?!

1808
01:35:39,275 --> 01:35:43,154
[Mitchell] <i>Diahann Carroll, whose beauty
was deepened by a core of calm,</i>

1809
01:35:43,237 --> 01:35:46,031
<i>was one of those
who seized the opportunity to be free</i>

1810
01:35:46,115 --> 01:35:47,450
<i>of her civilized smoothness.</i>

1811
01:35:47,533 --> 01:35:48,451
What is that...

1812
01:35:48,534 --> 01:35:52,037
Please, Francis! Don't do that!
You'll electrocute yourself!

1813
01:35:52,538 --> 01:35:54,915
[Mitchell] <i>As the titular character
in this drama,</i>

1814
01:35:54,999 --> 01:35:56,876
<i>Claudine fought the welfare system</i>

1815
01:35:56,959 --> 01:35:59,587
<i>and the streets of Chicago
for the souls of her children.</i>

1816
01:35:59,670 --> 01:36:03,132
<i>And she won, in that her kids
were still alive at the end.</i>

1817
01:36:03,215 --> 01:36:07,178
<i>For her efforts, Carroll got
a Best Actress Oscar nomination.</i>

1818
01:36:07,261 --> 01:36:09,930
Claudine <i>also benefited
from being one of the five scores</i>

1819
01:36:10,014 --> 01:36:11,182
<i>that Curtis Mayfield wrote.</i>

1820
01:36:11,766 --> 01:36:14,435
<i>It was a song cycle
in which all the songs came</i>

1821
01:36:14,518 --> 01:36:18,272
<i>from the perspectives of the characters,
sung by Gladys Knight & the Pips.</i>

1822
01:36:18,355 --> 01:36:20,441
<i>Including one that, in the song,</i>

1823
01:36:20,524 --> 01:36:23,736
<i>precisely outlined a centuries-old fear
faced by people of color.</i>

1824
01:36:23,819 --> 01:36:25,964
["To Be Invisible"
by Gladys Knight & the Pips playing]

1825
01:36:25,988 --> 01:36:27,615
<i>♪ To be invisible ♪</i>

1826
01:36:28,741 --> 01:36:31,660
<i>♪ Will be my claim to fame ♪</i>

1827
01:36:32,870 --> 01:36:34,288
<i>♪ A girl with no name ♪</i>

1828
01:36:34,371 --> 01:36:36,499
I actually was cast in<i> Claudine</i>

1829
01:36:37,666 --> 01:36:40,586
when Diana Sands
was cast to play Claudine<i>.</i>

1830
01:36:41,837 --> 01:36:43,589
And then she passed away.

1831
01:36:44,548 --> 01:36:47,176
And so they, you know...
they reshuffled the deck,

1832
01:36:47,259 --> 01:36:49,011
and they found another bunch of actors.

1833
01:36:49,094 --> 01:36:50,095
I mean, they had...

1834
01:36:50,971 --> 01:36:53,057
I had auditioned, uh,

1835
01:36:53,140 --> 01:36:55,100
for the second-youngest son,

1836
01:36:55,184 --> 01:36:58,395
but I wound up
not being cast in it after that.

1837
01:36:58,479 --> 01:37:00,105
You know, they... they recast it.

1838
01:37:00,731 --> 01:37:01,774
[upbeat music playing]

1839
01:37:01,857 --> 01:37:05,569
[Mitchell] <i>An intriguing piece
of editorial in action-leather camouflage</i>

1840
01:37:05,653 --> 01:37:08,364
<i>was </i>Three the Hard Way,
<i>which teamed Jim Brown</i>

1841
01:37:09,031 --> 01:37:10,658
<i>and Fred Williamson</i>

1842
01:37:10,741 --> 01:37:13,327
<i>with martial artist Jim Kelly's Afro.</i>

1843
01:37:13,410 --> 01:37:15,371
Three cities and three of us.

1844
01:37:15,454 --> 01:37:17,581
[Mitchell] <i>They take on
a neo-Nazi organization,</i>

1845
01:37:17,665 --> 01:37:21,210
<i>which develops a poison
that only kills African Americans</i>

1846
01:37:21,293 --> 01:37:26,549
<i>and will be dumped into the water supplies
of LA, Detroit, and Washington, D.C.,</i>

1847
01:37:26,632 --> 01:37:29,426
<i>all of which look suspiciously
like Los Angeles.</i>

1848
01:37:29,510 --> 01:37:32,263
<i>I thought it was
the most laughable thing I'd ever seen</i>

1849
01:37:32,346 --> 01:37:35,266
<i>until my father explained
the Tuskegee Experiment to me,</i>

1850
01:37:35,349 --> 01:37:40,271
<i>and </i>Three the Hard Way <i>was suddenly
a meditation on justifiable paranoia,</i>

1851
01:37:40,354 --> 01:37:44,233
<i>the scientific term for which
is "African American," I believe.</i>

1852
01:37:45,776 --> 01:37:49,655
<i>1974 follows that film
with a heartbreaking footnote,</i>

1853
01:37:49,738 --> 01:37:52,825
<i>one of the final film performances
of Diana Sands.</i>

1854
01:37:52,908 --> 01:37:56,954
Honeybaby, Honeybaby <i>was a messy cocktail
with a splash of spy caper,</i>

1855
01:37:57,037 --> 01:38:00,708
<i>a twist of action melodrama,
a zest of character comedy,</i>

1856
01:38:00,791 --> 01:38:05,504
<i>and so insecure it begins
with the movie describing itself to you.</i>

1857
01:38:05,588 --> 01:38:07,214
Hey, how you doin'?

1858
01:38:07,298 --> 01:38:11,218
My name is J. Eric Bell,
and I just got back from Beirut, Lebanon,

1859
01:38:11,302 --> 01:38:15,723
while filming a movie,
<i>Honeybaby, Honeybaby, </i>on location.

1860
01:38:15,806 --> 01:38:18,517
[Mitchell] <i>'74 was bookended with Sands.</i>

1861
01:38:18,601 --> 01:38:21,812
<i>Another of her last film appearances
is in </i>Willie Dynamite,

1862
01:38:21,896 --> 01:38:26,692
<i>which starred stage actor Roscoe Orman,
who is now better known for another role.</i>

1863
01:38:27,192 --> 01:38:30,279
[Orman] I used to joke when Willie
finally left after that last scene,

1864
01:38:30,362 --> 01:38:33,282
he turned the corner, and there was
this big yellow bird on the street.

1865
01:38:33,365 --> 01:38:36,493
[laughing]

1866
01:38:37,286 --> 01:38:38,120
But it was true.

1867
01:38:38,203 --> 01:38:41,248
I mean, within... within that year
following <i>Willie Dynamite,</i>

1868
01:38:41,332 --> 01:38:43,417
there I was as Gordon on <i>Sesame Street.</i>

1869
01:38:43,500 --> 01:38:45,252
[intriguing funk music playing]

1870
01:38:45,336 --> 01:38:46,378
[exhales]

1871
01:38:47,421 --> 01:38:48,422
Looking for work?

1872
01:38:50,341 --> 01:38:52,843
[Mitchell] <i>The light in Orman's eyes,
as Willie Dynamite,</i>

1873
01:38:52,927 --> 01:38:55,846
<i>signaled his eagerness
to work with an acting partner</i>

1874
01:38:55,930 --> 01:38:59,642
<i>whose radiant toughness
matched up with his coldhearted savvy.</i>

1875
01:38:59,725 --> 01:39:02,978
[Orman] I had the incredible good fortune
of working with,

1876
01:39:03,062 --> 01:39:05,731
you know, one of the great actors
of all time.

1877
01:39:05,814 --> 01:39:10,152
Diana, she was
so well-grounded and educated

1878
01:39:10,235 --> 01:39:14,281
in terms of the art
of... of, uh, performance,

1879
01:39:14,365 --> 01:39:15,366
you know, and, uh...

1880
01:39:15,950 --> 01:39:18,494
Of course she and Lorraine Hansberry
were close friends,

1881
01:39:18,577 --> 01:39:22,623
and Sidney and Ruby
and Ossie and all of 'em, you know.

1882
01:39:22,706 --> 01:39:24,833
I mean, these were all my mentors as well.

1883
01:39:24,917 --> 01:39:27,294
[jaunty piano music playing]

1884
01:39:27,378 --> 01:39:30,130
Willie was a performer,
and those courthouse steps,

1885
01:39:30,214 --> 01:39:32,299
you know, that was like Baryshnikov.

1886
01:39:32,383 --> 01:39:35,886
Platform shoes,
high-heeled platform shoe...

1887
01:39:35,970 --> 01:39:37,972
[laughing]

1888
01:39:38,764 --> 01:39:41,058
I'd probably break
every bone in my body now.

1889
01:39:42,935 --> 01:39:43,811
[music ends]

1890
01:39:43,894 --> 01:39:46,480
[Mitchell] Three the Hard Way <i>director
Gordon Parks Jr.</i>

1891
01:39:46,563 --> 01:39:49,483
<i>had another film that year,</i>
Thomasine & Bushrod,

1892
01:39:49,566 --> 01:39:51,944
<i>an Afrocentric and bucolic Western</i>

1893
01:39:52,027 --> 01:39:55,322
<i>that braided a Black twist
into </i>Bonnie and Clyde <i>with its pairing</i>

1894
01:39:55,406 --> 01:39:58,325
<i>of two of the most beautiful people
in the American West,</i>

1895
01:39:58,409 --> 01:40:01,412
<i>Vonetta McGee and Max Julien, on the run.</i>

1896
01:40:01,495 --> 01:40:04,081
<i>Their scenes together
toyed with a movie-star version</i>

1897
01:40:04,164 --> 01:40:05,958
<i>of their own real-life chemistry.</i>

1898
01:40:06,041 --> 01:40:07,584
How you doin', Mr. Bushrod?

1899
01:40:09,003 --> 01:40:12,589
I do fine, Thomasine. I do fine.
I just never thought I'd see you again.

1900
01:40:14,216 --> 01:40:15,467
Here I am.

1901
01:40:15,551 --> 01:40:19,013
- [romantic music playing]
- And you look good. Damn, you look good.

1902
01:40:20,180 --> 01:40:23,392
[Mitchell] <i>It showcased
the languorous, easy score by Arthur Lee</i>

1903
01:40:23,475 --> 01:40:26,103
<i>and the script by its star, Max Julien.</i>

1904
01:40:26,770 --> 01:40:29,773
[Turman] <i>Thomasine & Bushrod</i>
was so much fun. Uh...

1905
01:40:29,857 --> 01:40:31,984
Max Julien was such a great guy

1906
01:40:32,067 --> 01:40:34,737
and such an innovative guy
and a daring guy.

1907
01:40:34,820 --> 01:40:37,781
He produced that movie.
He wrote it, produced it, you know.

1908
01:40:37,865 --> 01:40:39,533
He was... He called the shots.

1909
01:40:39,616 --> 01:40:41,535
So, of all those motion pictures

1910
01:40:41,618 --> 01:40:44,621
that came out of
the "Black exploitation," quote, period,

1911
01:40:44,705 --> 01:40:48,959
Max was one of the few Blacks
who controlled his own product.

1912
01:40:49,043 --> 01:40:49,918
I knew one thing.

1913
01:40:50,002 --> 01:40:53,505
I knew that
Max and Vonetta were revolutionary.

1914
01:40:54,131 --> 01:40:57,051
Max would just say, you know,
"I'm not gonna take this shit."

1915
01:40:57,134 --> 01:40:58,635
[laughs]

1916
01:40:58,719 --> 01:41:01,388
And he didn't, you know, and, uh...

1917
01:41:01,472 --> 01:41:03,640
"Let's do our own, man.
We'll just do our own."

1918
01:41:04,266 --> 01:41:05,934
[mysterious music playing]

1919
01:41:06,018 --> 01:41:08,979
[Mitchell] <i>In the adaptation
of the autobiographical book</i>

1920
01:41:09,063 --> 01:41:11,231
The Education of Sonny Carson,

1921
01:41:11,315 --> 01:41:15,319
<i>the young protagonist is subjected to
extremes of Black masculinity,</i>

1922
01:41:15,402 --> 01:41:19,323
<i>in a film that floats
between the brutal and the poetic.</i>

1923
01:41:20,199 --> 01:41:23,786
<i>This time, director Michael Campus,
who also made </i>The Mack<i>,</i>

1924
01:41:23,869 --> 01:41:25,954
<i>tells a story about a Black hero</i>

1925
01:41:26,038 --> 01:41:28,874
<i>who </i>can't<i> outwit
the prison-industrial complex</i>

1926
01:41:29,708 --> 01:41:32,252
<i>and is nearly suffocated by incarceration.</i>

1927
01:41:32,336 --> 01:41:36,882
<i>For Sonny, the antidote
is moving from one urban tribe to another</i>

1928
01:41:36,965 --> 01:41:38,383
<i>to prove his worth.</i>

1929
01:41:38,467 --> 01:41:42,012
<i>One of its most harrowing scenes
shows the adolescent Sonny</i>

1930
01:41:42,096 --> 01:41:45,933
<i>running the literal gauntlet
to be jumped into a gang.</i>

1931
01:41:46,016 --> 01:41:48,435
- [blows thudding]
- [unsettling music playing]

1932
01:41:48,519 --> 01:41:50,521
[grunting]

1933
01:41:50,604 --> 01:41:54,066
You wanna deal with the Lords,
you deal with us later, you understand?

1934
01:41:54,149 --> 01:41:58,028
[Mitchell] <i>Clanton's charged,
fully felt acting proves his understanding</i>

1935
01:41:58,112 --> 01:42:02,241
<i>of Sonny's psychic scar tissue
from a lifetime of violence.</i>

1936
01:42:03,075 --> 01:42:05,119
[Jackson] He just so opposite
of who that dude was.

1937
01:42:05,202 --> 01:42:06,870
He was <i>not</i> that guy.

1938
01:42:07,454 --> 01:42:08,705
He was acting.

1939
01:42:09,540 --> 01:42:11,208
You know. You coulda...

1940
01:42:11,291 --> 01:42:14,002
They... they coulda found that out
the same way I did.

1941
01:42:14,086 --> 01:42:16,547
Just by saying,
"Come in this room and talk to us."

1942
01:42:16,630 --> 01:42:22,010
[Mitchell] <i>If the decade 1968 through 1978
was about talent seizing opportunity,</i>

1943
01:42:22,094 --> 01:42:24,263
<i>there's no better tribute
to that motivation</i>

1944
01:42:24,346 --> 01:42:26,390
<i>than the reinvention of Sidney Poitier,</i>

1945
01:42:26,473 --> 01:42:28,767
<i>who turned himself
into a blue-collar straight man</i>

1946
01:42:28,851 --> 01:42:30,227
<i>in</i> Uptown Saturday Night.

1947
01:42:30,310 --> 01:42:31,436
You all right, baby?

1948
01:42:32,062 --> 01:42:33,313
I'm fine.

1949
01:42:33,397 --> 01:42:36,400
I love... Sidney's comedy.

1950
01:42:36,483 --> 01:42:37,609
Gentlemen.

1951
01:42:37,693 --> 01:42:40,279
[Fishburne] He is incredibly funny in it.

1952
01:42:40,362 --> 01:42:46,201
And I love that
it is a depiction of Black life

1953
01:42:46,285 --> 01:42:47,870
in a normalized way.

1954
01:42:47,953 --> 01:42:50,205
[Mitchell] <i>Such was
Poitier's physical command</i>

1955
01:42:50,289 --> 01:42:53,167
<i>that he made himself
visibly uncomfortable in a suit,</i>

1956
01:42:53,250 --> 01:42:56,336
<i>the kind of thing
that he usually wore like a second skin.</i>

1957
01:42:56,837 --> 01:42:58,046
<i>Audiences were giddy</i>

1958
01:42:58,130 --> 01:43:00,799
<i>that he could satirize
his own stylish earnestness,</i>

1959
01:43:00,883 --> 01:43:04,803
<i>and he was a movie star once more
in one of his biggest hits ever.</i>

1960
01:43:04,887 --> 01:43:08,015
<i>And if Poitier could make himself
bigger than life in the movies</i>

1961
01:43:08,098 --> 01:43:10,851
<i>in an entirely new way,
then anything was possible.</i>

1962
01:43:11,894 --> 01:43:15,314
["Can't Seem to Find Him"
by The Love Unlimited Orchestra playing]

1963
01:43:25,741 --> 01:43:28,035
<i>Perhaps the greatest legacy of this era,</i>

1964
01:43:28,118 --> 01:43:31,121
<i>during a time of strain and reassessment
in the mainstream,</i>

1965
01:43:31,205 --> 01:43:33,707
<i>and such moments being reflected
in most movies,</i>

1966
01:43:33,790 --> 01:43:38,128
<i>is the joy that Black performers took
in being before the camera.</i>

1967
01:43:38,212 --> 01:43:40,214
["Can't Seem to Find Him" continues]

1968
01:43:42,925 --> 01:43:46,470
<i>There are probably more entrances
given protagonists of Black films</i>

1969
01:43:46,553 --> 01:43:49,431
<i>than in all the movies
of the 1930s put together.</i>

1970
01:43:49,514 --> 01:43:52,434
<i>In some cases,
the actors got multiple entrances,</i>

1971
01:43:52,517 --> 01:43:54,978
<i>and the soundtracks
ushered them onto the screen.</i>

1972
01:43:55,062 --> 01:43:57,481
<i>The engagement these movies
demanded from audiences</i>

1973
01:43:57,564 --> 01:44:01,443
<i>often played like the moments in musicals
before a dance number erupts,</i>

1974
01:44:01,526 --> 01:44:03,654
<i>and the air is charged.</i>

1975
01:44:03,737 --> 01:44:05,781
["Can't Seem to Find Him" continues]

1976
01:44:19,753 --> 01:44:22,714
<i>It was this decade's movies
that gave notice,</i>

1977
01:44:22,798 --> 01:44:26,093
<i>careers, and new leases on life
to Black talent.</i>

1978
01:44:26,176 --> 01:44:29,137
<i>The industry would squander
that potential for them.</i>

1979
01:44:29,221 --> 01:44:30,889
<i>For example</i>, <i>Cleavon Little...</i>

1980
01:44:30,973 --> 01:44:32,975
Hey, where the white women at?

1981
01:44:34,559 --> 01:44:37,896
[Mitchell] <i>...whose quicksilver
straight-man verve was as responsible</i>

1982
01:44:37,980 --> 01:44:41,066
<i>for the success of </i>Blazing Saddles
<i>as anything else.</i>

1983
01:44:41,608 --> 01:44:43,277
What did you expect?

1984
01:44:43,819 --> 01:44:44,945
"Welcome, sonny"?

1985
01:44:45,654 --> 01:44:48,115
[Mitchell] <i>Cleavon Little
never found another leading role</i>

1986
01:44:48,198 --> 01:44:50,158
<i>to showcase his abilities,</i>

1987
01:44:50,242 --> 01:44:52,536
<i>unlike his costar, Gene Wilder.</i>

1988
01:44:53,412 --> 01:44:55,414
[playing "That's the Way of the World"]

1989
01:44:55,998 --> 01:44:58,458
<i>♪ That's the way of the world ♪</i>

1990
01:44:59,334 --> 01:45:02,170
[Mitchell] <i>That surge
of musical endorphins informed a film</i>

1991
01:45:02,254 --> 01:45:05,590
<i>with probably the best-selling
Black soundtrack of the period,</i>

1992
01:45:05,674 --> 01:45:08,260
<i>directed by the producer of </i>Super Fly.

1993
01:45:08,343 --> 01:45:12,347
<i>It's a musical so undercooked
the band doesn't bother to speak.</i>

1994
01:45:12,431 --> 01:45:16,560
<i>Some might say the film's music
was so transporting they don't need to.</i>

1995
01:45:16,643 --> 01:45:20,439
<i>And the spiritual wallop of songs
such as "That's the Way of the World"</i>

1996
01:45:20,522 --> 01:45:21,606
<i>proved that point.</i>

1997
01:45:21,690 --> 01:45:23,859
<i>♪ Hey, yeah ♪</i>

1998
01:45:24,735 --> 01:45:27,738
[Mitchell] <i>The first major studio version
of a slave narrative,</i>

1999
01:45:27,821 --> 01:45:29,489
<i>the adaptation of </i>Mandingo<i>,</i>

2000
01:45:29,573 --> 01:45:33,243
<i>slaps onto the screen
with its gaudy inhumanity intact.</i>

2001
01:45:33,327 --> 01:45:35,412
<i>This decades-old literary sensation</i>

2002
01:45:35,495 --> 01:45:38,040
<i>was adapted by Oscar-nominee
Norman Wexler,</i>

2003
01:45:38,123 --> 01:45:42,252
<i>with a cast that includes James Mason
and his florid accent...</i>

2004
01:45:42,336 --> 01:45:43,337
Get down there.

2005
01:45:44,463 --> 01:45:45,463
All right.

2006
01:45:47,007 --> 01:45:50,886
[Mitchell] <i>...which seems less crazy
after the trashy parade of racism.</i>

2007
01:45:50,969 --> 01:45:54,014
<i>The movie's obsession with Black sexuality</i>

2008
01:45:54,097 --> 01:45:55,932
<i>and ridiculing white fear of it</i>

2009
01:45:56,016 --> 01:45:59,811
<i>inspired the body-worshipping photography
of Robert Mapplethorpe.</i>

2010
01:46:01,480 --> 01:46:04,107
That's proof Black Jesus
was the revenant's cousin too.

2011
01:46:04,191 --> 01:46:08,070
[Mitchell] <i>But Black film continues
to explode through one genre after another</i>

2012
01:46:08,153 --> 01:46:10,489
<i>with writer-director
Ralph Bakshi's </i>Coonskin,

2013
01:46:10,572 --> 01:46:14,034
<i>a combination of live action and animation
that stars Barry White,</i>

2014
01:46:14,117 --> 01:46:17,537
<i>actor-playwright Charles Gordone,
and Philip Michael Thomas,</i>

2015
01:46:17,621 --> 01:46:21,583
<i>who would later star in </i>Miami Vice
<i>and coin the acronym EGOT.</i>

2016
01:46:21,666 --> 01:46:25,253
<i>Starting with its assaultive title,
Bakshi's experiment packs in</i>

2017
01:46:25,337 --> 01:46:28,090
<i>much commentary on race
and its cinematic treatment.</i>

2018
01:46:28,173 --> 01:46:30,092
<i>From parodying Br'er Rabbit</i>

2019
01:46:30,175 --> 01:46:31,760
<i>to sending up Krazy Kat.</i>

2020
01:46:31,843 --> 01:46:35,222
Night after night, Malcolm remains cool.

2021
01:46:36,306 --> 01:46:39,476
[Mitchell] <i>Conceptually,</i>
Coonskin <i>stirred up so much turmoil</i>

2022
01:46:39,559 --> 01:46:41,728
<i>that it scandalized
as well as entertained,</i>

2023
01:46:41,812 --> 01:46:43,021
<i>which was its point.</i>

2024
01:46:43,105 --> 01:46:46,691
- [bullets ricocheting]
- [frantic drumbeat playing]

2025
01:46:48,026 --> 01:46:50,362
This load is getting too heavy to tote.

2026
01:46:50,445 --> 01:46:53,073
[Mitchell] <i>For good or ill,
there's still nothing else like it.</i>

2027
01:46:53,156 --> 01:46:55,992
<i>Random and abrupt police intrusion
in Black life</i>

2028
01:46:56,076 --> 01:46:58,620
<i>played on as part of Black film.</i>

2029
01:46:58,703 --> 01:47:00,163
<i>In</i> Cornbread, Earl and Me,

2030
01:47:00,247 --> 01:47:04,042
<i>a young Black life ended by a cop's bullet
is the center of the story,</i>

2031
01:47:04,126 --> 01:47:07,712
<i>back when such a thing still drew a gasp
because it was so rarely dramatized</i>

2032
01:47:08,296 --> 01:47:10,841
<i>but got knowing nods from Black audiences.</i>

2033
01:47:10,924 --> 01:47:12,551
- [police shouting]
- [gunshot]

2034
01:47:14,177 --> 01:47:16,179
[chorus vocalizing dramatically]

2035
01:47:16,263 --> 01:47:18,723
[Mitchell] <i>The spill of orange soda
in the climactic scene</i>

2036
01:47:18,807 --> 01:47:21,810
<i>crudely but imaginatively worked
as a stand-in for bloodshed</i>

2037
01:47:22,602 --> 01:47:24,688
<i>and still sends a chill through me.</i>

2038
01:47:25,272 --> 01:47:26,481
Cornbread!

2039
01:47:26,565 --> 01:47:29,109
That movie, for me,
is the original <i>Boyz n the Hood.</i>

2040
01:47:30,152 --> 01:47:31,153
[shot echoes]

2041
01:47:31,236 --> 01:47:33,321
<i>Cornbread, Earl and Me </i>is a tragic story.

2042
01:47:33,947 --> 01:47:37,200
And <i>Boyz n the Hood</i>
is also a tragic story.

2043
01:47:37,784 --> 01:47:41,371
And those things
are almost 20-something years apart.

2044
01:47:41,997 --> 01:47:45,459
[all] We do not enter
public transportation illegally.

2045
01:47:45,542 --> 01:47:48,545
[Mitchell] <i>From the high-flying </i>Shaft
<i>and athletes-turned-adventurers,</i>

2046
01:47:48,628 --> 01:47:51,965
<i>action downshifted
into something drawn like real life.</i>

2047
01:47:52,048 --> 01:47:55,844
Cooley High, <i>a Black inner-city version
of </i>American Graffiti,

2048
01:47:55,927 --> 01:47:59,222
<i>with the ups and downs
of a coming-of-age story emerged.</i>

2049
01:47:59,306 --> 01:48:02,601
<i>And the story was given a resident lift
from Motown songs,</i>

2050
01:48:02,684 --> 01:48:06,104
<i>which would have been the soundtrack
of the characters' lives in 1964</i>

2051
01:48:06,188 --> 01:48:07,689
<i>when</i> Cooley High <i>was set.</i>

2052
01:48:07,772 --> 01:48:11,234
<i>The heady perfume of nostalgia
washed over Black audiences,</i>

2053
01:48:11,318 --> 01:48:13,737
<i>- who welcomed it.
- </i>[Motown music playing]

2054
01:48:13,820 --> 01:48:15,071
That's Motown music.

2055
01:48:15,822 --> 01:48:20,702
And it's the backdrop
of Black people's lives...

2056
01:48:20,785 --> 01:48:21,785
[inhales]

2057
01:48:22,329 --> 01:48:23,329
...on film.

2058
01:48:24,748 --> 01:48:27,417
That's nice. That's... that's a nice change.

2059
01:48:27,501 --> 01:48:30,837
[laughing]

2060
01:48:30,921 --> 01:48:32,047
[Motown music playing]

2061
01:48:32,130 --> 01:48:34,170
[Turman] One of the first scenes
I remember shooting

2062
01:48:34,216 --> 01:48:36,134
is the scene running for the bus.

2063
01:48:36,843 --> 01:48:39,846
That was exactly
how I grew up in Manhattan.

2064
01:48:39,930 --> 01:48:42,891
That's what we did.
That's what me and my crew did.

2065
01:48:42,974 --> 01:48:45,852
We ran and jumped on the back of the bus
going down 7th Avenue.

2066
01:48:45,936 --> 01:48:48,772
I'll never forget it.
But here was the thing...

2067
01:48:48,855 --> 01:48:53,401
[laughing]...when we did that
going down 7th Avenue,

2068
01:48:53,485 --> 01:48:56,696
we jumped on the bus,
and 7th Avenue was cobblestone,

2069
01:48:56,780 --> 01:48:59,074
so you held on for dear life!

2070
01:49:00,408 --> 01:49:02,118
Can I have a hot dog, please?

2071
01:49:02,202 --> 01:49:05,163
[Mitchell] <i>Turman plays
the big comedic moments and the reality</i>

2072
01:49:05,247 --> 01:49:08,333
<i>so that he becomes
an important ingredient in </i>Cooley High

2073
01:49:08,416 --> 01:49:10,252
<i>rather than overwhelm it with his spice.</i>

2074
01:49:10,335 --> 01:49:12,616
- Could I have ketchup on it?
- We don't have any ketchup.

2075
01:49:13,547 --> 01:49:15,191
- You ain't got no ketchup?
- That's right.

2076
01:49:15,215 --> 01:49:17,375
[man] Got some relish?
Can I have relish on it, please?

2077
01:49:17,425 --> 01:49:18,545
[woman] I don't have relish.

2078
01:49:18,593 --> 01:49:20,363
- [man] You got no relish?
- [woman] No relish.

2079
01:49:20,387 --> 01:49:21,906
- [man] What you got?
- [woman] Mustard.

2080
01:49:21,930 --> 01:49:23,348
- Mustard?!
- [woman] That's it.

2081
01:49:23,431 --> 01:49:26,142
You mean, a big establishment like this,
and all you got is mustard?

2082
01:49:26,226 --> 01:49:28,436
- That's right.
- I don't like mustard. Do you?

2083
01:49:28,520 --> 01:49:30,105
Yeah, I like mustard.

2084
01:49:30,188 --> 01:49:32,440
Oh yeah? Well then, here.
You eat the hot dog.

2085
01:49:33,650 --> 01:49:35,652
And along that road,

2086
01:49:35,735 --> 01:49:40,991
you hit certain spots that make you go,
"Whoa! Yeah, this is... Yeah!"

2087
01:49:41,074 --> 01:49:43,159
All of a sudden,
a call comes from nowhere.

2088
01:49:43,243 --> 01:49:47,163
Doesn't even come from my agent.
It comes from some strange other place.

2089
01:49:47,247 --> 01:49:49,749
"Glynn, Ingmar Bergman
is looking for you."

2090
01:49:50,917 --> 01:49:55,213
I said, "I'm in no mood to play.
I'm sitting here in the fucking dark."

2091
01:49:55,297 --> 01:49:58,425
"My kids are hungry.
I'm... We're eating potatoes."

2092
01:49:59,259 --> 01:50:00,719
And I hung up the phone.

2093
01:50:00,802 --> 01:50:03,305
And the call came.
He said, "No, for real, Glynn."

2094
01:50:03,388 --> 01:50:04,681
He was looking for me.

2095
01:50:04,764 --> 01:50:06,933
And he'd seen <i>Cooley High</i>

2096
01:50:07,601 --> 01:50:12,981
and, you know, said he knew right then
that I was the one to be in his movie.

2097
01:50:13,064 --> 01:50:18,278
So... so you go from pockets
of that kind of disaster to

2098
01:50:19,237 --> 01:50:20,280
euphoria.

2099
01:50:21,156 --> 01:50:22,991
And then, so it's a ride that...

2100
01:50:23,074 --> 01:50:25,452
It's... unbelievable ride.

2101
01:50:30,373 --> 01:50:33,251
[laughs] You are outrageous,
you know that?

2102
01:50:33,335 --> 01:50:35,503
[Mitchell] <i>Old-school glamour,
as portrayed again</i>

2103
01:50:35,587 --> 01:50:37,589
<i>by Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams,</i>

2104
01:50:37,672 --> 01:50:42,052
<i>still proved potent
in the 1975 romantic melodrama</i> Mahogany.

2105
01:50:42,135 --> 01:50:45,889
You gotta give 'em some pizzazz.
Show 'em your charm. Ow!

2106
01:50:45,972 --> 01:50:49,392
I always feel like, sometimes Black men
always feel like they have to...

2107
01:50:49,476 --> 01:50:53,104
Maybe there's a good reason for it.
There are obvious reasons for it, I guess.

2108
01:50:53,188 --> 01:50:57,901
But, uh, always this need
to show their strength.

2109
01:50:58,443 --> 01:51:00,862
Vulnerability is a wonderful thing to use.

2110
01:51:00,945 --> 01:51:03,698
It's a wonderful tool
when you're playing a character.

2111
01:51:03,782 --> 01:51:05,742
[sentimental music playing]

2112
01:51:08,244 --> 01:51:09,454
I've missed you too.

2113
01:51:10,121 --> 01:51:12,832
[Williams] But that's me.
I'm that kind of person.

2114
01:51:12,916 --> 01:51:16,169
I mean, I'm not afraid to display

2115
01:51:16,961 --> 01:51:20,173
my, uh... or convey my feelings about,

2116
01:51:21,007 --> 01:51:24,052
uh, something if I... if I feel strongly.

2117
01:51:24,135 --> 01:51:25,345
Play it, Sam.

2118
01:51:25,428 --> 01:51:27,972
<i>♪ We're on the rock 'n' roll choo choo
Headed for Hollywood... ♪</i>

2119
01:51:28,723 --> 01:51:32,060
[Mitchell] <i>The pop-soul group Bloodstone,
whose big hit was "Natural High,"</i>

2120
01:51:32,143 --> 01:51:34,896
<i>were said to have invested
their own money to produce</i>

2121
01:51:34,979 --> 01:51:36,856
<i>the touching and sweetly odd musical</i>

2122
01:51:36,940 --> 01:51:40,568
Train Ride to Hollywood,
<i>a pastiche of 1940s movie clichés,</i>

2123
01:51:40,652 --> 01:51:42,862
<i>and inserted themselves into the mix.</i>

2124
01:51:42,946 --> 01:51:45,198
[playing "Rock 'n' Roll Choo Choo"]

2125
01:51:46,074 --> 01:51:49,786
[Mitchell] <i>Among Richard Pryor's gifts
was pinpoint cultural criticism,</i>

2126
01:51:49,869 --> 01:51:54,457
<i>as he proved with his 1976 comedy album</i>
Bicentennial Nigger

2127
01:51:54,541 --> 01:51:56,751
<i>and his take on</i> Logan's Run,

2128
01:51:56,835 --> 01:52:01,256
<i>a 1976 Lego-colored,
pre-</i>Star Wars <i>sci-fi fantasy.</i>

2129
01:52:01,339 --> 01:52:03,466
[Pryor] I went to see <i>Logan's Run</i>, right?

2130
01:52:03,550 --> 01:52:05,969
They had a movie of the future
called <i>Logan's Run.</i>

2131
01:52:06,052 --> 01:52:07,303
Ain't no niggas in it.

2132
01:52:07,804 --> 01:52:10,598
I said, "Well, white folks
ain't planning for us to be here."

2133
01:52:10,682 --> 01:52:12,684
[crowd laughing, cheering]

2134
01:52:14,519 --> 01:52:18,148
[Pryor] That's why we gotta make movies.
Then we'll be in the picture.

2135
01:52:18,231 --> 01:52:19,399
[crowd cheering]

2136
01:52:19,482 --> 01:52:23,027
People don't ever want to...
And... and please forgive me.

2137
01:52:23,653 --> 01:52:26,573
People never want to offend white folks.

2138
01:52:27,240 --> 01:52:30,827
They want to be able
to keep white folks on their side

2139
01:52:30,910 --> 01:52:34,748
so that they will be allowed
to make these movies.

2140
01:52:34,831 --> 01:52:36,833
[exciting music playing]

2141
01:52:37,375 --> 01:52:38,918
[Mitchell] <i>By 1976,</i>

2142
01:52:39,002 --> 01:52:42,505
<i>after Black films redeemed the ideal
of heroic protagonists,</i>

2143
01:52:42,589 --> 01:52:45,258
<i>mainstream movies once again
saw their worth.</i>

2144
01:52:45,341 --> 01:52:46,801
Smile, you son of a...

2145
01:52:46,885 --> 01:52:50,305
[Mitchell] The Sting <i>and </i>Jaws<i>,
which returned the thrill of victory</i>

2146
01:52:50,388 --> 01:52:53,308
<i>to white male movie stars,
were massive hits.</i>

2147
01:52:53,391 --> 01:52:55,560
<i>In fact, both </i>Jaws<i> and </i>The Sting

2148
01:52:55,643 --> 01:52:58,480
<i>were made by the same producers
that did </i>Willie Dynamite.

2149
01:52:58,563 --> 01:53:03,777
The Sting<i>'s plot could have been lifted
from the novel </i>Trick Baby,<i> also a film.</i>

2150
01:53:03,860 --> 01:53:07,155
<i>And, by 1976's end, Rocky Balboa,</i>

2151
01:53:07,238 --> 01:53:09,508
<i>a hero who could have stepped out
of a Black action movie,</i>

2152
01:53:09,532 --> 01:53:12,869
<i>was pitted against a clumsy
and mocking Muhammad Ali archetype.</i>

2153
01:53:12,952 --> 01:53:14,662
<i>And though Rocky didn't win the fight,</i>

2154
01:53:14,746 --> 01:53:17,999
<i>he got the Best Picture Oscar
and the box office success to go with it.</i>

2155
01:53:18,082 --> 01:53:19,918
He looks like a big flag.

2156
01:53:20,794 --> 01:53:23,213
[Mitchell] Rocky <i>featured
a Black heavyweight champ</i>

2157
01:53:23,296 --> 01:53:27,467
<i>who was a parody of the all-beef persona
Ali brought to the ring.</i>

2158
01:53:28,051 --> 01:53:31,262
<i>But Ali used humor
as a mind game on his opponents,</i>

2159
01:53:31,346 --> 01:53:33,807
<i>who all tried
to glare him into submission.</i>

2160
01:53:33,890 --> 01:53:34,890
<i>He wasn't a clown.</i>

2161
01:53:34,933 --> 01:53:38,228
<i>In fact, Ali knew he could pretend
to take things lightly</i>

2162
01:53:38,311 --> 01:53:41,064
<i>because his skills
would prove his indomitability,</i>

2163
01:53:41,147 --> 01:53:43,024
<i>including a willingness to take a punch,</i>

2164
01:53:43,107 --> 01:53:46,236
<i>which may have accelerated
his slide into Parkinson's.</i>

2165
01:53:47,821 --> 01:53:51,032
<i>Stallone's savvy had him lift cleverly
from Black culture</i>

2166
01:53:51,115 --> 01:53:53,785
<i>such ideas as pounding beef
in the meat locker</i>

2167
01:53:53,868 --> 01:53:57,622
<i>and running up the museum steps,
which Joe Frazier did first,</i>

2168
01:53:57,705 --> 01:54:00,667
<i>as the book </i>Ghosts of Manila <i>reminds us.</i>

2169
01:54:01,543 --> 01:54:04,128
<i>As Rocky's foe, Apollo Creed,</i>

2170
01:54:04,212 --> 01:54:09,217
<i>Carl Weathers bent himself into a pretzel
to bring himself down to Stallone's size.</i>

2171
01:54:09,300 --> 01:54:12,804
<i>I needed a chiropractor
after watching Weathers fold himself</i>

2172
01:54:12,887 --> 01:54:15,223
<i>to the level of Rocky's fists.</i>

2173
01:54:16,432 --> 01:54:21,521
<i>By 1976, the notion of using the power
of musicals to capture audience attention</i>

2174
01:54:21,604 --> 01:54:24,190
<i>was no longer lost
on mainstream filmmakers.</i>

2175
01:54:24,274 --> 01:54:26,609
["Car Wash" by Rose Royce playing]

2176
01:54:26,693 --> 01:54:31,406
<i>With </i>Car Wash,<i> composer Norman Whitfield
was primed to outdo </i>Shaft<i> and </i>Super Fly,

2177
01:54:31,489 --> 01:54:35,493
<i>with a theme of hard-hitting funk bounce
sutured to a social context.</i>

2178
01:54:36,536 --> 01:54:37,536
<i>And it worked.</i>

2179
01:54:38,037 --> 01:54:40,039
["Something He Can Feel" playing]

2180
01:54:44,752 --> 01:54:47,005
<i>This song, "Something He Can Feel,"</i>

2181
01:54:47,088 --> 01:54:50,550
<i>was Curtis Mayfield's take
on Motown girl-group simmer.</i>

2182
01:54:50,633 --> 01:54:53,177
<i>Mayfield wrote it
for the proto-</i>Dreamgirls,

2183
01:54:53,261 --> 01:54:55,722
<i>Black showbiz melodrama,</i> Sparkle...

2184
01:54:55,805 --> 01:55:01,853
<i>♪ ...I'm too young to let you know
Just where I'm coming from ♪</i>

2185
01:55:01,936 --> 01:55:05,315
<i>...which should have ignited the career
of star Lonette McKee</i>

2186
01:55:05,398 --> 01:55:09,527
<i>and been more than a footnote
for Irene Cara and Philip Michael Thomas.</i>

2187
01:55:10,111 --> 01:55:12,906
Sparkle <i>was
screenwriter Joel Schumacher's follow-up</i>

2188
01:55:12,989 --> 01:55:14,115
<i>to</i> Car Wash,

2189
01:55:14,198 --> 01:55:17,660
<i>and he wrote it to hypnotize audiences
and direct himself.</i>

2190
01:55:18,161 --> 01:55:20,622
<i>It ended up dazzling
the handful who saw it</i>

2191
01:55:20,705 --> 01:55:23,166
<i>but not with Schumacher behind the camera.</i>

2192
01:55:23,249 --> 01:55:24,834
[upbeat music playing]

2193
01:55:24,918 --> 01:55:26,461
<i>Like the potential crowd-pleaser</i>

2194
01:55:26,544 --> 01:55:29,297
The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars
& Motor Kings,

2195
01:55:29,380 --> 01:55:30,924
<i>this story of the Negro Leagues</i>

2196
01:55:31,007 --> 01:55:34,135
<i>also functioned as a metaphor
for the amount of effort</i>

2197
01:55:34,218 --> 01:55:36,346
<i>Blacks had to put
into entertaining audiences.</i>

2198
01:55:36,429 --> 01:55:39,515
<i>The players had to give a show
on the way to the stadium</i>

2199
01:55:39,599 --> 01:55:41,643
<i>and still played nine innings of baseball.</i>

2200
01:55:41,726 --> 01:55:44,354
I loved it. I really wanted to do Bingo

2201
01:55:44,437 --> 01:55:47,273
'cause Bingo was a really fun
kind of character.

2202
01:55:47,357 --> 01:55:49,734
I mean, the man is guaranteeing us $200.

2203
01:55:49,817 --> 01:55:52,820
If you slice that 11 ways,
that comes out to about, uh...

2204
01:55:52,904 --> 01:55:54,113
Uh...

2205
01:55:54,197 --> 01:55:55,657
Uh, uh...

2206
01:55:55,740 --> 01:55:56,741
A lot of money!

2207
01:55:57,951 --> 01:56:00,078
[Mitchell] <i>Bingo is
all the things Williams is.</i>

2208
01:56:00,161 --> 01:56:02,705
<i>He's physical.
He has an appetite for life.</i>

2209
01:56:02,789 --> 01:56:04,082
Full of crap, you know.

2210
01:56:04,165 --> 01:56:06,084
[laughs]

2211
01:56:09,587 --> 01:56:10,838
[man 1] Who you got, man?

2212
01:56:12,006 --> 01:56:13,549
[man 2] A real foxy lady.

2213
01:56:13,633 --> 01:56:18,346
[Mitchell] <i>The 1977 film </i>Brothers
<i>was a peculiar and rare attempt</i>

2214
01:56:18,429 --> 01:56:20,598
<i>at Black political melodrama.</i>

2215
01:56:20,682 --> 01:56:22,934
<i>With its haunted Taj Mahal score,</i>

2216
01:56:23,017 --> 01:56:27,021
<i>it was a romance of ideals
with Bernie Casey and Vonetta McGee</i>

2217
01:56:27,105 --> 01:56:30,441
<i>as characters based on George Jackson
and Angela Davis.</i>

2218
01:56:30,525 --> 01:56:34,404
<i>But pretty much all this movie did
was gape at their bone structure.</i>

2219
01:56:34,988 --> 01:56:38,449
<i>Before Marvel and DC
dropped faithful movie adaptations</i>

2220
01:56:38,533 --> 01:56:43,496
<i>of their universes on regular schedules,
the well-meaning street superhero story</i>

2221
01:56:43,579 --> 01:56:46,874
Abar: the First Black Superman
<i>hit screens.</i>

2222
01:56:47,375 --> 01:56:50,420
<i>This film celebrates
the Watts Tower on-screen,</i>

2223
01:56:50,503 --> 01:56:52,880
<i>giving it a sense of place
in the Black world.</i>

2224
01:56:52,964 --> 01:56:55,174
- Commence firing!
- [whooshing]

2225
01:56:59,387 --> 01:57:01,889
[Mitchell] <i>And,
in an early version of sampling,</i>

2226
01:57:01,973 --> 01:57:05,852
<i>it used Captain America's origin story
as a serving suggestion.</i>

2227
01:57:05,935 --> 01:57:08,229
As a Black race,
let's get ourselves together,

2228
01:57:08,312 --> 01:57:09,397
in every respect.

2229
01:57:09,480 --> 01:57:12,400
For that, I'll sacrifice anything
short of murder.

2230
01:57:12,483 --> 01:57:17,655
Well, uh, suppose
I could, uh, make you indestructible.

2231
01:57:18,614 --> 01:57:21,534
[Mitchell] <i>The cycle of Black film
was slowly winding down,</i>

2232
01:57:21,617 --> 01:57:24,662
<i>as the sure-bet returns
on Black films of a certain type</i>

2233
01:57:24,746 --> 01:57:27,957
<i>were diminishing at a rate
that seemed exponential.</i>

2234
01:57:28,041 --> 01:57:32,503
<i>So, there was no place
for a peculiar high point of the 1970s,</i>

2235
01:57:32,587 --> 01:57:34,964
<i>a biopic about a real-life boxer,</i>

2236
01:57:35,048 --> 01:57:38,551
<i>with a theme song that initially
provoked unintentional laughs.</i>

2237
01:57:38,634 --> 01:57:42,055
<i>♪ I believe the children are our future ♪</i>

2238
01:57:42,764 --> 01:57:46,059
<i>♪ Teach them well
And let them lead the way ♪</i>

2239
01:57:46,142 --> 01:57:51,022
<i>♪ Show them all the beauty
They possess inside ♪</i>

2240
01:57:51,105 --> 01:57:53,441
[Mitchell] <i>Houston's chart-topping
claiming of this song</i>

2241
01:57:53,524 --> 01:57:57,820
<i>lifted it from ode to self-absorption
to self-empowerment hymn.</i>

2242
01:57:57,904 --> 01:58:01,866
<i>This embrace of "The Greatest Love of All"
was a generational shift.</i>

2243
01:58:02,366 --> 01:58:06,162
<i>Following the lead of actors from 1968
adopting Ali's bravado,</i>

2244
01:58:06,245 --> 01:58:09,499
<i>it signaled the change
in mainstream perception of Ali,</i>

2245
01:58:09,582 --> 01:58:12,126
<i>from showboat
to "The Greatest Love of All."</i>

2246
01:58:12,210 --> 01:58:14,212
[exciting funk music playing]

2247
01:58:14,295 --> 01:58:17,381
<i>Prior to this 1968 through '78 era,</i>

2248
01:58:17,465 --> 01:58:19,717
<i>movie soundtracks
didn't matter to the studios</i>

2249
01:58:19,801 --> 01:58:22,011
<i>because they didn't
consistently sell much,</i>

2250
01:58:22,095 --> 01:58:25,056
<i>and usually came out
months after the movies were released.</i>

2251
01:58:25,139 --> 01:58:27,517
<i>Black '70s film ignored that example.</i>

2252
01:58:28,351 --> 01:58:33,397
<i>The scores weren't just textures
but detonations of thought and sound.</i>

2253
01:58:33,481 --> 01:58:38,569
<i>Their boldness transformed movie music
and mainstream music forever.</i>

2254
01:58:38,653 --> 01:58:41,906
<i>Suddenly, movie music
was a commercial consideration.</i>

2255
01:58:41,989 --> 01:58:44,158
<i>Black film soundtracks multiplied,</i>

2256
01:58:44,242 --> 01:58:48,496
<i>composed and performed
by R&B singers, jazz artists,</i>

2257
01:58:48,579 --> 01:58:52,792
<i>classically trained musicians,
who made a fusion of classical and modern.</i>

2258
01:58:52,875 --> 01:58:55,336
<i>Master session drummer Bernard Purdie</i>

2259
01:58:55,419 --> 01:58:58,005
<i>was out to show
the true definition of funk</i>

2260
01:58:58,089 --> 01:59:00,299
<i>in the Black X-rated film </i>Lialeh<i>,</i>

2261
01:59:00,383 --> 01:59:03,970
<i>where he's on camera playing the score
he composed for the movie.</i>

2262
01:59:06,556 --> 01:59:09,142
<i>Eventually, the movies
would have to take notice</i>

2263
01:59:09,225 --> 01:59:13,062
<i>because too many hits were coming out
of these Black movie scores.</i>

2264
01:59:13,146 --> 01:59:15,148
[mellow funk music playing]

2265
01:59:18,359 --> 01:59:20,361
<i>Robert Stigwood was producing a movie</i>

2266
01:59:20,444 --> 01:59:23,281
<i>about the white middle-class
being consumed by disco.</i>

2267
01:59:23,781 --> 01:59:25,533
<i>You know, Black music.</i>

2268
01:59:25,616 --> 01:59:28,286
<i>Because Stigwood also owned
a record label,</i>

2269
01:59:28,369 --> 01:59:31,914
<i>he made sure to use a film soundtrack
featuring his biggest artists,</i>

2270
01:59:31,998 --> 01:59:33,833
<i>the Bee Gees, to sell the movie</i>

2271
01:59:33,916 --> 01:59:38,087
<i>and help his potential audience
get over its fear of a Black planet.</i>

2272
01:59:38,171 --> 01:59:41,382
<i>Soon, soundtracks would come
to dominate the pop charts</i>

2273
01:59:41,465 --> 01:59:44,719
<i>and be expected to
because of the Black film example.</i>

2274
01:59:44,802 --> 01:59:47,930
<i>It's one of the many lasting
and unheralded achievements</i>

2275
01:59:48,014 --> 01:59:49,599
<i>of Black film of this era.</i>

2276
01:59:51,767 --> 01:59:53,247
["Stayin' Alive" by Bee Gees playing]

2277
01:59:53,311 --> 01:59:56,856
<i>In 1977, the most attractive points
of Black film,</i>

2278
01:59:56,939 --> 02:00:01,235
<i>the entrance, the confidence,
the propulsive theme to announce the star,</i>

2279
02:00:01,319 --> 02:00:04,822
<i>like this, finally received its homage
in a mainstream movie.</i>

2280
02:00:05,364 --> 02:00:07,408
<i>♪ Music loud and women warm ♪</i>

2281
02:00:07,491 --> 02:00:09,952
<i>♪ I've been kicked around
Since I was born ♪</i>

2282
02:00:10,036 --> 02:00:12,371
[muffled] <i>♪ And now it's all right
It's okay... ♪</i>

2283
02:00:12,872 --> 02:00:14,874
[Mitchell] <i>Which is to say,
every generation</i>

2284
02:00:14,957 --> 02:00:16,834
<i>gets its own Elvis or Eminem.</i>

2285
02:00:16,918 --> 02:00:19,295
<i>♪ </i>The New York Times<i>' effect on man ♪</i>

2286
02:00:19,378 --> 02:00:23,633
<i>John Travolta was another note
in the decades-long symphony of swagger,</i>

2287
02:00:24,425 --> 02:00:26,552
<i>an off-white take on Black cool,</i>

2288
02:00:27,094 --> 02:00:28,471
<i>the next best thing.</i>

2289
02:00:29,847 --> 02:00:31,933
<i>Travolta, as Tony Manero,</i>

2290
02:00:32,016 --> 02:00:35,269
<i>may not have been the first to use
Black beats of stylization,</i>

2291
02:00:35,353 --> 02:00:38,898
<i>but he embraced it
with a bone-deep flair for expropriation.</i>

2292
02:00:38,981 --> 02:00:40,983
<i>His intensity and intent</i>

2293
02:00:41,067 --> 02:00:44,070
<i>became a truly realized
cultural phenomenon,</i>

2294
02:00:44,612 --> 02:00:45,655
<i>the biggest ever.</i>

2295
02:00:47,490 --> 02:00:51,619
<i>By 1978, Richard Pryor
had appeared in 20 movies.</i>

2296
02:00:51,702 --> 02:00:54,330
<i>With the exception of a handful of turns,</i>

2297
02:00:54,413 --> 02:00:58,125
<i>his live standup, and </i>Wattstax<i>,
none consistently made use of his talent.</i>

2298
02:00:58,209 --> 02:00:59,585
Wanna buy a radio?

2299
02:00:59,669 --> 02:01:01,921
My locker's been busted
for six months now, man,

2300
02:01:02,004 --> 02:01:04,257
and the company ain't did shit to fix it.

2301
02:01:04,340 --> 02:01:06,968
Now I have to stick my finger
in some tiny-ass hole.

2302
02:01:07,051 --> 02:01:10,513
I cut my finger, man,
two weeks ago, and it ain't healed yet.

2303
02:01:10,596 --> 02:01:15,309
[Mitchell] <i>In '78, he costarred
in what would be a most demanding role.</i>

2304
02:01:15,393 --> 02:01:19,188
<i>He played a volatile
and miserable autoworker in</i> Blue Collar,

2305
02:01:19,730 --> 02:01:22,984
<i>which would also remain
his own favorite acting work.</i>

2306
02:01:23,693 --> 02:01:26,487
You a redneck, peckerwood motherfucker,
you know that?

2307
02:01:26,570 --> 02:01:29,031
That's it, you're through.
I've had your bullshit.

2308
02:01:29,115 --> 02:01:31,492
I'mma kill a motherfucker!
You understand that?

2309
02:01:31,575 --> 02:01:34,245
[Mitchell] <i>It was a film
whose atmosphere was so combative,</i>

2310
02:01:34,328 --> 02:01:37,498
<i>you could make a great movie
about the </i>making<i> of </i>Blue Collar.

2311
02:01:37,581 --> 02:01:39,333
<i>It would be the following year</i>

2312
02:01:39,417 --> 02:01:42,253
<i>that Pryor would release himself
from fur-lined handcuffs</i>

2313
02:01:42,336 --> 02:01:45,089
<i>in his most complex and remarkable role,</i>

2314
02:01:45,172 --> 02:01:46,007
<i>himself.</i>

2315
02:01:46,090 --> 02:01:49,802
I don't wanna never see
no more police in my life.

2316
02:01:49,885 --> 02:01:51,804
[crowd laughing, cheering]

2317
02:01:51,887 --> 02:01:53,639
At my house. [chuckles]

2318
02:01:54,390 --> 02:01:57,893
[Mitchell] <i>To witness Pryor's startling,
jazz-drummer control</i>

2319
02:01:57,977 --> 02:01:59,687
<i>in the film </i>Live in Concert

2320
02:01:59,770 --> 02:02:03,107
<i>is to see
he was the Tony Williams of comedians.</i>

2321
02:02:03,941 --> 02:02:06,610
<i>It only highlighted
how the studios made movies,</i>

2322
02:02:06,694 --> 02:02:10,156
<i>such as </i>The Wiz,
<i>that squandered his blistering truth.</i>

2323
02:02:10,239 --> 02:02:11,574
Phony!

2324
02:02:12,241 --> 02:02:14,535
[Mitchell] <i>At this point,
it feels like only one thing</i>

2325
02:02:14,618 --> 02:02:16,579
<i>can save Black film from oblivion.</i>

2326
02:02:16,662 --> 02:02:18,748
The Wiz is out! He's not here!

2327
02:02:19,415 --> 02:02:21,417
I'm on my way to find The Wiz.

2328
02:02:22,043 --> 02:02:23,711
He's gonna get me back home.

2329
02:02:24,420 --> 02:02:25,504
Well, that's nice.

2330
02:02:25,588 --> 02:02:29,800
[Mitchell] <i>Was it an all-stops-out musical
from one of the most respected directors,</i>

2331
02:02:29,884 --> 02:02:32,636
<i>with a film debut
of a performer destined to become</i>

2332
02:02:32,720 --> 02:02:35,514
<i>the biggest pop music phenomenon
of the next decade</i>

2333
02:02:35,598 --> 02:02:38,517
<i>and a budget that could possibly equal
what was spent</i>

2334
02:02:38,601 --> 02:02:41,354
<i>to make all the Black films
produced in 1968?</i>

2335
02:02:41,437 --> 02:02:45,274
<i>A good thought in the abstract
but probably not in real life.</i>

2336
02:02:45,358 --> 02:02:47,610
<i>The director was someone whose best work</i>

2337
02:02:47,693 --> 02:02:51,781
<i>was tense, gritty movies,
such as </i>Serpico <i>and </i>Dog Day Afternoon.

2338
02:02:51,864 --> 02:02:54,575
<i>The star's about 20 years too old
for the part,</i>

2339
02:02:54,658 --> 02:02:55,951
<i>and the expressionism</i>

2340
02:02:56,035 --> 02:02:58,537
<i>and gospel-flavor intimacy
of the stage show</i>

2341
02:02:58,621 --> 02:03:01,916
<i>is replaced by hundreds of extras
trying not to bump into each other</i>

2342
02:03:01,999 --> 02:03:06,420
<i>in outfits that still seem to have
shiny price tags hanging off them.</i>

2343
02:03:06,504 --> 02:03:11,092
The Wiz <i>is said to have cost
between 25 and 40 million dollars to make,</i>

2344
02:03:11,175 --> 02:03:13,219
<i>as much as </i>Super Fly <i>grossed.</i>

2345
02:03:13,302 --> 02:03:16,180
<i>It lacked the infectious aplomb
and winning brio</i>

2346
02:03:16,263 --> 02:03:18,224
<i>of the Black movies that </i>did<i> succeed.</i>

2347
02:03:18,307 --> 02:03:21,018
<i>It only made
about a third of its costs back.</i>

2348
02:03:21,102 --> 02:03:22,561
<i>Sure, it may have got bad reviews,</i>

2349
02:03:22,645 --> 02:03:25,398
<i>but so did most of the films
that did extraordinary business.</i>

2350
02:03:25,481 --> 02:03:27,983
<i>The simple fact is </i>The Wiz <i>lost money.</i>

2351
02:03:28,067 --> 02:03:31,612
<i>So much that it gave the movie industry
the reason it had been looking for</i>

2352
02:03:31,695 --> 02:03:34,407
<i>to withdraw from the Black movie business</i>

2353
02:03:34,490 --> 02:03:37,493
<i>and handed movie executives
the chance to say things like,</i>

2354
02:03:37,576 --> 02:03:40,371
<i>"Black people don't wanna see themselves
in movies anymore."</i>

2355
02:03:40,454 --> 02:03:42,498
<i>Or something I actually heard from one,</i>

2356
02:03:42,581 --> 02:03:45,751
<i>"Black people don't see themselves
in historical dramas anyway."</i>

2357
02:03:47,420 --> 02:03:49,046
<i>It was in 1978</i>

2358
02:03:49,130 --> 02:03:52,425
<i>that the white male movie star
reaccepted the mantle of hero</i>

2359
02:03:52,508 --> 02:03:57,012
<i>after rejecting it to embody
the tormented antihero for over a decade,</i>

2360
02:03:57,680 --> 02:04:01,183
<i>the sure and steely-eyed hero archetype...</i>

2361
02:04:01,684 --> 02:04:03,894
[announcer] <i>Burt Reynolds is Hooper.</i>

2362
02:04:03,978 --> 02:04:06,188
<i>And Hooper is a real hero.</i>

2363
02:04:06,272 --> 02:04:08,032
[Mitchell] <i>...and finally
absorbed the lesson</i>

2364
02:04:08,107 --> 02:04:10,609
<i>that these Black films
understood early on.</i>

2365
02:04:10,693 --> 02:04:13,529
<i>The biggest myth that the movies promoted,</i>

2366
02:04:13,612 --> 02:04:16,323
<i>going back to D.W. Griffith
and even before,</i>

2367
02:04:16,407 --> 02:04:18,576
<i>is that we want to be saved.</i>

2368
02:04:19,201 --> 02:04:21,787
<i>But it's often a satisfying lie,</i>

2369
02:04:21,871 --> 02:04:26,000
<i>a chili cheeseburger,
poisonous but so good.</i>

2370
02:04:27,084 --> 02:04:28,084
All right...

2371
02:04:28,127 --> 02:04:32,298
[Mitchell] <i>Warren Beatty ascended
from impotent bank robber to the heavens.</i>

2372
02:04:32,381 --> 02:04:35,926
Heaven Can Wait <i>could be viewed
as the closing of a circle,</i>

2373
02:04:36,010 --> 02:04:38,637
<i>because a '70s remake
of </i>Here Comes Mr. Jordan

2374
02:04:38,721 --> 02:04:41,474
<i>began its life
in the hands of a Black performer</i>

2375
02:04:41,557 --> 02:04:43,184
<i>working with Francis Coppola.</i>

2376
02:04:43,267 --> 02:04:46,479
[Coppola] <i>It was a really funny script
because he's this white guy</i>

2377
02:04:46,562 --> 02:04:49,023
<i>who dies and comes back as Bill Cosby,</i>

2378
02:04:49,106 --> 02:04:51,275
<i>but everyone sees him as white.</i>

2379
02:04:52,067 --> 02:04:54,487
<i>He liked...
I don't know why it was never done.</i>

2380
02:04:54,987 --> 02:04:58,115
[Mitchell] <i>Robert De Niro
employed his movie-star concentration</i>

2381
02:04:58,199 --> 02:05:00,034
<i>to play an old-school avenger.</i>

2382
02:05:00,701 --> 02:05:03,871
<i>Clint Eastwood put down his .44 Magnum
to hang with the apes.</i>

2383
02:05:04,830 --> 02:05:08,250
<i>And the rocket that was launched
from the planet Krypton by DC Comics</i>

2384
02:05:08,334 --> 02:05:09,668
<i>in 1938</i>

2385
02:05:09,752 --> 02:05:12,963
<i>finally deposited its contents
on the movie screen.</i>

2386
02:05:15,758 --> 02:05:18,260
["This Bitter Earth"
by Dinah Washington playing]

2387
02:05:28,229 --> 02:05:32,441
<i>But by 1978, the crowning achievement
of the decade came into focus,</i>

2388
02:05:32,525 --> 02:05:36,195
<i>a work of art that had been playing
since the end of the previous year.</i>

2389
02:05:37,363 --> 02:05:39,615
<i>This film took the director
much of the decade</i>

2390
02:05:39,698 --> 02:05:40,866
<i>to complete and release,</i>

2391
02:05:40,950 --> 02:05:43,786
<i>though, to be fair,
it was a thesis project.</i>

2392
02:05:43,869 --> 02:05:46,872
<i>It used music deftly
to illustrate character and setting</i>

2393
02:05:46,956 --> 02:05:49,583
<i>and showed an alluring command
of the medium</i>

2394
02:05:49,667 --> 02:05:51,835
<i>and would be imitated
into the next century.</i>

2395
02:05:51,919 --> 02:05:55,256
<i>♪ Within me cries ♪</i>

2396
02:05:57,591 --> 02:06:03,013
<i>♪ I'm sure someone may answer my call ♪</i>

2397
02:06:03,514 --> 02:06:05,099
<i>♪ And this bitter earth ♪</i>

2398
02:06:06,267 --> 02:06:08,435
<i>♪ Ooh ♪</i>

2399
02:06:08,519 --> 02:06:09,562
<i>♪ May not... ♪</i>

2400
02:06:10,980 --> 02:06:13,691
[Mitchell] <i>Burnett borrowed
Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth"</i>

2401
02:06:13,774 --> 02:06:15,276
<i>for its delicate heartache.</i>

2402
02:06:15,359 --> 02:06:19,071
<i>And Martin Scorsese paid tribute
to the scene in both image and music.</i>

2403
02:06:19,154 --> 02:06:20,573
[song continues]

2404
02:06:20,656 --> 02:06:22,157
[song fades]

2405
02:06:22,241 --> 02:06:24,743
- [child] I'll catch you!
- Can't get me, Janice!

2406
02:06:24,827 --> 02:06:28,330
These people I grew up with,
I really admired them, you know,

2407
02:06:28,414 --> 02:06:30,249
the fathers who, you know...

2408
02:06:30,332 --> 02:06:32,501
Unlike Hollywood films, that they...

2409
02:06:32,585 --> 02:06:36,380
Everyone's a prostitute
or doing something or leaving the family,

2410
02:06:36,463 --> 02:06:38,757
and a mother to take care,
a single parent,

2411
02:06:38,841 --> 02:06:42,720
these parents and fathers
were working hard, you know,

2412
02:06:42,803 --> 02:06:44,054
and I tried to be like 'em.

2413
02:06:44,138 --> 02:06:45,681
And I grew up in a community

2414
02:06:45,764 --> 02:06:50,185
that I really respected the people
and liked 'em because I saw who they were,

2415
02:06:50,269 --> 02:06:53,939
and those are the kinds of people
I didn't see represented in stories.

2416
02:06:54,857 --> 02:06:58,736
'Cause they were working-class people.
Watts was a really interesting place.

2417
02:07:00,613 --> 02:07:02,197
When I first went to UCLA,

2418
02:07:02,281 --> 02:07:06,160
they had this end-of-the-quarter screening
called Royce Hall Screenings.

2419
02:07:06,243 --> 02:07:08,996
And they showed all the best films
that were shown at...

2420
02:07:09,079 --> 02:07:11,290
in the film department that year.

2421
02:07:11,790 --> 02:07:15,628
And I was taking a class with...
The teacher was Basil Wright.

2422
02:07:15,711 --> 02:07:19,256
He was a documentary filmmaker
who did<i> Song of Ceylon,</i> things like that.

2423
02:07:19,340 --> 02:07:21,258
I was so lucky to get in his class.

2424
02:07:21,342 --> 02:07:24,345
And I remember going to the screenings
at Royce Hall,

2425
02:07:24,428 --> 02:07:27,431
and I couldn't understand a word
of what was going on.

2426
02:07:27,514 --> 02:07:28,682
I... I didn't identify...

2427
02:07:28,766 --> 02:07:32,102
I mean, it was a time when
the flower children was a big thing.

2428
02:07:32,186 --> 02:07:33,562
You know, nudity, you know,

2429
02:07:33,646 --> 02:07:36,065
going up to... going up to Topanga Canyon,

2430
02:07:36,148 --> 02:07:39,902
you know, and the guys are getting weed
and all this kind of stuff

2431
02:07:39,985 --> 02:07:41,779
and just finding themselves,

2432
02:07:41,862 --> 02:07:44,156
rediscovering themselves
and their sexuality.

2433
02:07:44,740 --> 02:07:47,868
And, I mean, those weren't the issues
in my community.

2434
02:07:47,951 --> 02:07:49,953
[pleasant orchestral music playing]

2435
02:07:57,670 --> 02:08:00,798
[Mitchell] Killer of Sheep
<i>demonstrated the potential of the medium</i>

2436
02:08:00,881 --> 02:08:03,717
<i>by a poet finding beauty
in his own neighborhood.</i>

2437
02:08:03,801 --> 02:08:07,012
<i>And, of course,
he was ignored by the mainstream press.</i>

2438
02:08:07,096 --> 02:08:09,056
<i>There was no takeaway from it,</i>

2439
02:08:09,139 --> 02:08:12,726
<i>even as filmmakers
made entire careers out of copying it.</i>

2440
02:08:12,810 --> 02:08:15,312
<i>And Black film was left to wither and die.</i>

2441
02:08:15,813 --> 02:08:16,897
<i>But it refused to.</i>

2442
02:08:17,481 --> 02:08:21,360
<i>In every decade since 1978,
there's been a rise and fall</i>

2443
02:08:21,443 --> 02:08:24,279
<i>for gifted Black filmmakers
who won't give up.</i>

2444
02:08:24,363 --> 02:08:26,949
<i>Is the lesson that those
who cannot remember the past</i>

2445
02:08:27,032 --> 02:08:29,076
<i>are condemned to keep remaking</i> Shaft?

2446
02:08:29,576 --> 02:08:32,663
<i>There's much talk of the pride
that came out of the period, but again,</i>

2447
02:08:32,746 --> 02:08:37,626
<i>I think of something my grandmother said,
"You don't want pride. It's a trap."</i>

2448
02:08:37,710 --> 02:08:40,671
<i>"That means you want someone
to see your chest swelled up."</i>

2449
02:08:40,754 --> 02:08:42,214
<i>"It's a selfish thing."</i>

2450
02:08:42,297 --> 02:08:46,009
<i>"Instead, take pleasure in what you do.
That belongs to you."</i>

2451
02:08:46,552 --> 02:08:49,221
<i>"It's something you want others
to share in with you."</i>

2452
02:08:49,722 --> 02:08:51,515
<i>It's what I got from those films.</i>

2453
02:08:51,598 --> 02:08:53,976
<i>The pleasure those talents took
in making the movies,</i>

2454
02:08:54,059 --> 02:08:57,020
<i>they passed on to me and to others,</i>

2455
02:08:57,104 --> 02:08:58,313
<i>and it's a living thing.</i>

2456
02:08:58,397 --> 02:09:01,775
["It's So Hard to Say Goodbye
to Yesterday" by Boyz II Men playing]

2457
02:09:03,861 --> 02:09:07,197
<i>♪ It's so hard ♪</i>

2458
02:09:07,281 --> 02:09:14,246
<i>♪ To say goodbye to yesterday ♪</i>

2459
02:09:17,124 --> 02:09:18,459
[song ends]

2460
02:09:18,542 --> 02:09:19,960
[shoes scrape on ground]

2461
02:09:20,043 --> 02:09:22,296
[sniffles, breathes deeply]

2462
02:09:25,841 --> 02:09:27,760
For the dudes who ain't here, huh?

2463
02:09:28,385 --> 02:09:33,766
In addition to being a repository of hope,
they were empirical proof

2464
02:09:34,308 --> 02:09:36,685
that we were here, that we exist,

2465
02:09:37,186 --> 02:09:38,771
that we create culture,

2466
02:09:39,271 --> 02:09:41,732
that our community is a viable community,

2467
02:09:41,815 --> 02:09:43,358
is an important community,

2468
02:09:43,859 --> 02:09:47,196
that we have voices,
and that we will be heard.

2469
02:09:47,279 --> 02:09:49,031
- [popping]
- [men cheering]

2470
02:09:49,114 --> 02:09:50,449
[Mitchell] <i>A final note,</i>

2471
02:09:50,532 --> 02:09:53,494
<i>one person symbolized
all the ups and downs of the period.</i>

2472
02:09:53,577 --> 02:09:56,789
<i>Going from number one
at the box office to irrelevance</i>

2473
02:09:56,872 --> 02:09:59,333
<i>to being one of the last left standing.</i>

2474
02:09:59,416 --> 02:10:00,834
<i>Sidney Poitier,</i>

2475
02:10:00,918 --> 02:10:04,046
<i>who shifted his trajectory
but didn't slow a step.</i>

2476
02:10:04,546 --> 02:10:08,133
<i>He trusted his compact
with Black audiences would remain intact.</i>

2477
02:10:08,217 --> 02:10:09,384
- [shot booms]
- [yelps]

2478
02:10:10,260 --> 02:10:14,973
[Mitchell] <i>From 1968 through '78,
he directed and starred in five films...</i>

2479
02:10:15,057 --> 02:10:16,975
I put my faith in the good book.

2480
02:10:17,059 --> 02:10:21,188
<i>...all of which centered on characters
pretending to be something they're not.</i>

2481
02:10:21,271 --> 02:10:24,149
Damn, man, we trusted you!
I mean, why us?!

2482
02:10:25,442 --> 02:10:26,777
Why not you, brother?

2483
02:10:26,860 --> 02:10:28,987
[Mitchell] <i>I once asked him about this</i>

2484
02:10:29,071 --> 02:10:31,323
<i>one of the handful of times
I spoke to him,</i>

2485
02:10:31,406 --> 02:10:33,992
<i>all ending with him
turning me down for an interview.</i>

2486
02:10:34,076 --> 02:10:36,203
<i>When I mentioned
that his five directing efforts</i>

2487
02:10:36,286 --> 02:10:38,372
<i>were all about imposture...</i>

2488
02:10:38,455 --> 02:10:39,373
Open your eyes.

2489
02:10:39,456 --> 02:10:41,166
<i>...he laughed and said,</i>

2490
02:10:41,250 --> 02:10:45,045
<i>"Young man, I already have a therapist.
I don't need another one."</i>

2491
02:10:45,546 --> 02:10:49,967
You are capable of great feats
of strength and courage.

2492
02:10:50,634 --> 02:10:53,303
Strength and courage.

2493
02:10:53,387 --> 02:10:59,268
You can beat any fighter in the world.
You will win the championship.

2494
02:10:59,351 --> 02:11:00,477
[gasps]

2495
02:11:01,395 --> 02:11:03,522
- I will?
- Yes!

2496
02:11:05,274 --> 02:11:08,652
[Mitchell] <i>But being Black in America
is often about remembering</i>

2497
02:11:08,735 --> 02:11:11,989
<i>that what you think you are
isn't what other people see</i>

2498
02:11:12,072 --> 02:11:15,576
<i>and figuring out the distance
between those two perceptions.</i>

2499
02:11:16,159 --> 02:11:19,079
<i>I think it's something
my grandmother would have agreed with.</i>

2500
02:11:19,955 --> 02:11:21,957
[pleasant music playing]