Dr. Revels asked that I give a kind of update blog on my experience and progress. I must admit that thus far my project has not gone exactly as I had hoped it would. I am a little disappointed in the lack of literature on these films. I have "dug deep" on the library's website, consulting databases and looking into archives for magazines and journals with the hopes that I might find some obscure articles, reviews, or criticisms of these films within the African-American community. But most of my success has come from turning page after page on Google. And the pages are endless. For now I have focused on watching the films, reading what reviews I can, and making use of resources like a Sidney Poitier biography and a few essays written by prominent African-American film scholars and some other interesting, though likely less reliable, commentaries on these films.
As far as my enjoyment goes, I have found that after four films, I am constantly and even subconsciously comparing the depictions of race relations between the films. I am particularly struck by the endings of the first three films I viewed. Sidney Poitier is placed in a position of acceptance and understanding in both of his films. In Defiant Ones, he cradles Joe Jackson and sings a gospel spiritual in an act of self-sacrifice and freedom from prejudice, while in Heat he boards a train with a tacit moment of understanding and acceptance between his character, Tibbs, and the white police chief. These images of acceptance and understanding are powerful, and they move away from the mode of white heroism that we find in Mockingbird; furthermore, I am constantly challenged by this same issue from that film. Is Atticus Finch a sugarcoated advocate for civil rights, or he is a very realistic depiction of what a courageous white Southerner would face in 1932? I am still not sure. I enjoy the way these films challenge me. I have found my reading on the realities of the American South in Black, White, and Southern to be a bit challenging. It is difficult to piece together statistics and descriptions of the transition from rural to urban living with a meaningful application to these films. The book is less about race relations, specifically, and more about the emergence of the Civil Rights era (which is certainly important for race relations). Nonetheless, I think it is a resource that enhances my understanding and insights into these films in a way that I may not fully appreciate until I have viewed them all and reflected, comparing reality to film more precisely. I enjoy writing the blog. I know that my thoughts and "insights" are not particularly entertaining, but I do hope that what I write is something that can be read with ease and modest appreciation.
My two other texts, Framing the South and Hollywood's Image of the South have been modestly helpful. Each book contains excerpts on the films I have watched, but beyond these few pages, the breadth of information is more than my already general subject matter can handle. Tomorrow I will watch White Trash, a film about a jazz musician who finds himself on a rural, desolate, but nonetheless segregated island in the South Carolina low country. An Italian director made it in the 1950s. Until then...
An Italian director of a deep south film---now that should be interesting!
ReplyDeleteI should have mentioned yesterday that maybe looking at biographies of the directors would be helpful too, and might point you in some interesting places.