Black American Cinema: Images of a Culture Series , January 03, 1988, Side 1
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, we're having a sound problem right now,
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Dara Meyers: so, while our projectionist is working on getting sound to work for the film,
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Dara Meyers: we're going to begin with some introductory remarks.
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Dara Meyers: We'll be about 20 minutes or more, uhm,
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Dara Meyers: and then, hopefully, we'll show the film.
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Dara Meyers: I'd like to welcome you to the Brooklyn Museum,
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Dara Meyers: uhm, for the first film in our series: 'Black American Cinema- Images of a Culture'.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, my name is Dara Meyers, Department of Public Programs and Media.
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Dara Meyers: Uh, this series offers a sampling of films made
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Dara Meyers: by black American directors from 1920s to the present.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, these films were all made outside of Hollywood's system,
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Dara Meyers: uhm, getting funding and distribution any-- any way these directors could.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, we're going to be showing documentaries, feature films, and shorts,
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Dara Meyers: so that you can see a whole-- whole array of different kinds of films that have been made.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, we have screenings on Sundays and Thursdays.
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Dara Meyers: Sunday's screening has a guest speaker, who will introduce the films
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Dara Meyers: - speaker's either a distinguished scholar of black cinema
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Dara Meyers: or the Director on a number of occasions.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, on January 24th, which is a Sunday,
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Dara Meyers: we have a special panel discussion on, uhm,
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Dara Meyers: Black Perspectives on the Projection Image.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, there's a mistake we picked up in the January newsletter of the museum.
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Dara Meyers: It has it listed as January 23rd, which is Saturday.
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Dara Meyers: That is incorrect; it is Sunday, uhm, the 24th, at 2.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, today we are going to be showing Melvin Van Peebles' "Sweet Sweetback's,"
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Dara Meyers: a film made in 1971,
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Dara Meyers: considered the sort of father or model of Blaxploitation films
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Dara Meyers: which followed in the 70s.
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Dara Meyers: Uhm, one note about the film
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Dara Meyers: is that the end of reel one there are some scratches--
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Today's guest-- guest speaker is Clyde Taylor.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Uhm, he is a film critic and historian at Tufts University; an Associate Professor of English.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Before I introduce Clyde, though, uhm, I'd like to introduce Pearl Bowser, who is the film programmer of this series.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Uhm, Miss Bowser is a writer, a lecturer, and a producer.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} She has been extensively involved in documenting the history of Black Cinema,
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{Unknown Speaker 1} in writing, in her collections of film and other memorabilia,
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{Unknown Speaker 1} and photos on Black Cinema, ehm, and in programming films series
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{Unknown Speaker 1} around the country, and I believe also outside the United States.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Uhm, she's president of the Robert Flaherty International Film Seminar,
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{Unknown Speaker 1} which is an annual week long film festival; documentaries and other kinds of films.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Uhm, Miss Bowser programmed-- 1985, the Brooklyn Museum had a series
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{Unknown Speaker 1} called "Films of African Caribbean," which was an enormous success with the Brooklyn public.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} And presently, she is programming a major films series in Boston to schedule for April.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} If anybody's in Boston at that time, for a week, uhm, on films from the English speaking diaspora.
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[[Unknown Speaker 1} Films from Ghana, Nigeria, The Caribbean, and United states.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} And this series will tour the country after, uhm, its premier in Boston.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Miss Bowser is an expert on film work of black, uhm, director pioneer, Oscar Micheaux.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Uhm, his two films: "Body and Soul," and "Mur-- Murder in Harlem"
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{Unknown Speaker 1 will be showing here on February 14th, which is a Sunday, and the following
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Thursday the 18th, Miss Bowser will be here to introduce those films.
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{Unknown Speaker 1} Uhm, it's now my pleasure to introduce Miss Bowser, who's going to introduce Mister Taylor.
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[[cough in audience, followed by applause]].
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Pearl Bowser: Just wanted to, uh, have the opportunity to introduce Clyde Taylor,
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Pearl Bowser: 'cause he's someone who is extremely important to this whole, uh,
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Pearl Bowser: exhibition and audience development for Black Cinema.
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Pearl Bowser: He's been very active over the years, not only writing about Black Cinema,
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Pearl Bowser: but doing exhibitions and, uh, through the, um,
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Pearl Bowser: African Film Society, which he was a founder of, in California.
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]
Pearl Bowser: Uh, there are not very many, uh, black film societies around the country
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Pearl Bowser: that have this, uh, sort of national scope.
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Pearl Bowser: And, uh, the African Film Society, uh, when it started back in the early 70s,
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Pearl Bowser: was not only unique but a very important venue for Black films.
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Pearl Bowser: Black films were made by, um,
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Pearl Bowser: Black filmmakers in this country, but also African films.
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Pearl Bowser: Um, Dr. Taylor has written extensively about Black Cinema over the years,
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Pearl Bowser: and has become a kind of a lynchpin for many filmmakers
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Pearl Bowser: in terms of bringing critical attention to their work.
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Pearl Bowser: Uh, he's attended, uh, seminars and conferences abroad
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Pearl Bowser: where he has also had the opportunity to present,
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Pearl Bowser: um, his -- his writings, his thoughts, his criticisms on Black Cinema.
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Pearl Bowser: Dr. Taylor is also responsible for a-- an important exhibition
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Pearl Bowser: which will take place at the Whitney, in February.
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Pearl Bowser: Uh, the filmmakers essentially are gone.
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Pearl Bowser: There will be a retrospective of his work at the museum
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Pearl Bowser: from February-- Actually he will be making a presentation on February 23,
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Pearl Bowser: but the films in his, uh, from, uh, the the films that St. Clair has made
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Pearl Bowser: will be exhibited at the museum over the course
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Pearl Bowser: of the week, uh, of February 23.
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Pearl Bowser: Uh, without much more, saying much more, I'd like to
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Pearl Bowser: introduce and have, uh, Dr. Taylor come up
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[[Audience clapping]]
Pearl Bowser: [[sounds from audience]] and, uh, talk to us about today's program.
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[[Applause]]
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[SILENCE]
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Clyde Taylor: It's always a pleasure to work in a program that's been organized by Pearl Bowser
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Clyde Taylor: because I know it's going to follow the highest standards of film programming.
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Clyde Taylor: Pearl Bowser is the premier Black Film programmer in the country.
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Clyde Taylor: And we ought to remember, or know, that it was she who, in 1969,
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Clyde Taylor: organized what was essentially the first Black Film festival,
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Clyde Taylor: uh, uh, in the country, period,
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Clyde Taylor: and then was also important because it was one which re-introduced to the public
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Clyde Taylor: those early Black independent films, such as the Joe's films and the rest,
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Clyde Taylor: uh, which have-- most people have forgotten about.
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Clyde Taylor: So, uh, she has been very crucial, uh, developer of the history
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Clyde Taylor: and reality of Black Cinema throughout.
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Clyde Taylor: So I do appreciate working in a program organized by her.
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Clyde Taylor: I wanna talk today about "Sweetback" from the perspective that is new to me,
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Clyde Taylor: but one that's now important to me.
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Clyde Taylor: I wanna talk about "Sweetback" from what I call the "Post-aesthetic" Black perspective.
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Clyde Taylor: Uh, now, "Post-aesthetics," as I observe that concept,
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Clyde Taylor: is the observation that traditional Western aesthetics have lost
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Clyde Taylor: their validity for third-world people, perhaps for women,
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Clyde Taylor: for feminists at least, and for many other sectors of the society, because
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Clyde Taylor: from this vantage point, aesthetics has always been
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Clyde Taylor: the servant of a Western bourgeois culture
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Clyde Taylor: that it is saturated with notions of-- of beauty,
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Clyde Taylor: rooted in Greek and Roman classical ideas, and so forth.
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Clyde Taylor: And that it really, in effect, rather than liberates human creativity,
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Clyde Taylor: that it represses human creativity.
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Clyde Taylor: Quote, "Controls it." Controls it and, uh, organizes it in it's own way,
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Clyde Taylor: but to the interest of what it requires."
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Clyde Taylor: So, "Post-aesthetics" then, is, in a sense, at least in one perspective,
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Clyde Taylor: part of a kind of de-colonization project; kind of a middle de-colonization project.
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Clyde Taylor: And, uh, that is an aspect of--
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Clyde Taylor: the mental colonization that Black people and other Americans suffer.
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Clyde Taylor: He said on one occasion, "The biggest obstacle to the Black Revolution in America
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Clyde Taylor: is our conditioned susceptibility to the White man's programming."
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Clyde Taylor: In short, the fact is, that the White man has colonized our minds.
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Clyde Taylor: We've been violated, confused, and drained by this colonization.
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Clyde Taylor: And from this brutal, calculated genocide,
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Clyde Taylor: the most effective, ambitious racism has grown.
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Clyde Taylor: And it is with this starting point in mind,
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Clyde Taylor: and the intention to reverse the process,
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Clyde Taylor: that I went into cinema, in the first effing place."
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Clyde Taylor: I won't say exactly what he said, [[laughter from audience]] because this is Sunday, and so forth. [[chatter]]
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Clyde Taylor: Uh, another quotation that, uh, maybe I don't need to quote the whole thing,
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Clyde Taylor: uh, is generally the same point.
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Clyde Taylor: "I think that any American's mind has a degree of colonization.
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Clyde Taylor: I don't know about others, but this particular film
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Clyde Taylor: is a complete breakaway from a certain way of thinking,
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Clyde Taylor: which leads intellectually into more difficulty for understanding."
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Clyde Taylor: I think, essentially, the same thing;
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Clyde Taylor: he might think of "Sweetback" as a very simple film to understand.
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Clyde Taylor: But, it may also be a difficult film to understand
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Clyde Taylor: because it does, it tries not to follow our normal ways
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Clyde Taylor: of perceiving a film and uh, our normal ways of interpreting.
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[SILENCE]
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Clyde Taylor: So I think that, if I'm-- as I look at the film,
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Clyde Taylor: looking at it for "Post-aesthetic" ideas and perspectives,
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Clyde Taylor: I look at it, at its organization, first of all.
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Clyde Taylor: And its organization seems to me to spring--
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Clyde Taylor: its sources seem to me to spring from black music,
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Clyde Taylor: from black music that's heard from the radio.
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Clyde Taylor: I should pause here and point out to you that one of the things that Van Peebles did
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Clyde Taylor: that many people don't recognize; he wrote five novels in France
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Clyde Taylor: in order to be qualified to become a director.
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Clyde Taylor: But another thing he did - he's a very multi-talented man - was to produce
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Clyde Taylor: two or three record albums; I believe they came out before "Sweetback."
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Clyde Taylor: And these were record albums of a, uh, very peculiar sort.
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Clyde Taylor: Very much in the 1960s mode. They were satirical; they were almost like rap.
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Clyde Taylor: They were a bit of music, a bit of chanting,
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Clyde Taylor: uh, some street poetry, and uh--
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Clyde Taylor: I think you should think of it as a funky film just as you might accept or reject a, a, a, uh, an example of funk music.
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Uh, because it has, it has all of those intonalities.
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It has a kind of a tabloid temperament.
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Uh, it, it, it's news, it's unfinished, it's raw. It's meant to be that way.
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So, again, that's what I'm saying when I say we may not understand the film, even though intellectually there's not that much required to do that.
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Part of, part of the clue of this is the titles.
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Sweet Sweet--[[microphone popping noise]] Maybe we have, uh.
Crowd: Yeah! whoo! [[applause]]
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Clyde Taylor: I hope this makes it easier for us. Uh, that we, uh-- [[crowd laughter]]
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I, uh, have to make the switch from acoustical to electronic. [[before I lose my mind?]]
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Uh, we must think that of 'Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song'.
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You know. I really think you need to, to listen to the soundtrack and
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respond to the piece as you would to a piece of popular music.
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Which is not meant to be there for all times.
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It's kind of like a uh, uh, he's aiming for a hit.
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You know, he's aiming to hit your emotions and he moves on from there.
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He doesn't explain everything. He doesn't work out all the details.
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He doesn't draw a scene to its conclusion. He just gets the emotional note
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and moves from that to another. Very much as a song would do and I think that's rather key.
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Another aspect of the work - another aspect of his breakaway from traditional patterns
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that I think is kind of interesting - is that there's a, a perspective[[?]] of existentialist philosophy of the work.
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According to B[[??]]; I think there is.
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We have to remember that Van Peeples was in exile mostly
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in the late 50s and early 60s in Paris,
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where existentialist philosophy was the mode.
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And also that he may have known Richard Wright at that time
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in Paris, who also indulged in existentialist philosophy.
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By Existentialism, what do we mean? We mean,
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well the classic formula is that 'existence precedes essence'.
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And Existentialism is essentially a,
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a doctrine which, which claimed to point out the lack of meaning
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in so many social institutions and so many essences
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Clyde Taylor: The irreverent view of life that, that Van Peebles developed.
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Clyde Taylor: Uh, I would think that Van Peebles developed a kind of survivalist existentialism.
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Clyde Taylor: Um, not very much different from that of Br'er Rabbit who was one of his models.
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Clyde Taylor: Uh, he says at one point that existence is the game.
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Clyde Taylor: Existence is ten tenths of the game.
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Clyde Taylor: Maybe possession is nine tenths but if it doesn't exist, you can't possess it, right?
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Clyde Taylor: Now, one thing about existentialism.
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Clyde Taylor: One device in existentialist fiction
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Clyde Taylor: that was interesting was the gratuitous act.
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Clyde Taylor: A character would perform an act that seemed to have no explanation
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Clyde Taylor: but simply came out of a, out of, out of his free will.
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Clyde Taylor: Existentialism liberates one, frees one.
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Clyde Taylor: It, it, it provides a kind of a terrible freedom.
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Clyde Taylor: And where this shows up in the film is in, uh,
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Clyde Taylor: ace, I won't tell you the, the point exactly, but, but, the central character,
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Clyde Taylor: uh, collides with the police in a very abrupt way.
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Clyde Taylor: He, he explodes into a kind of violence that, uh,
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Clyde Taylor: seems not to have been predicated on any other actions that take place.
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Clyde Taylor: Uh, there are other, I think he,
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Clyde Taylor: the survivalism that he undergoes in the desert is another reflection of this existentialism.
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Clyde Taylor: But also, the violence in the film should be seen, I think, as a kind of Fanonian violence,uh,[[background noise]]
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Clyde Taylor: uh, from the, from the Martiniquian [[background throat clearing]] philosopher [[background noise]] Frantz Fanon
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Clyde Taylor: who argued that the colonized should rise up in violence against the colonizer
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Clyde Taylor: because this violence would be cleansing. Would be cathartic, would be purifying.
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Clyde Taylor: To get rid, again, of this little colonization. [[background throat clearing]]
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Clyde Taylor: Fanon, however, did make the point that, that was just an initial point, initial breaking point
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Clyde Taylor: and after that, the hard work is suddenly much more systematic and processional. Needed to be worked out.
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Clyde Taylor: I don't think that, uh, Van Peebles successfully gets beyond
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Clyde Taylor: that, [[background noise]] that breaking point.
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Clyde Taylor: Violence is also there, I think,
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Clyde Taylor: as part of a subtext in the film that's interesting to me.
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Clyde Taylor: That I think that it's probably the rage in the film, the rage in the film
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Clyde Taylor: I find this in several independent black film maker's work,
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:12.000
Clyde Taylor: that and some of them told me in interviews.
00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:15.000
Clyde Taylor: I said "Well, where did the intensity come from this film?"
00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:20.000
Clyde Taylor: They said, Well, it came from all the the-- the struggle I had to do to make this film;
00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.000
Clyde Taylor: to get it on the screen.
00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:27.000
Clyde Taylor: And one of the scenes where this shows up, I think, is in the motorcycle scene
00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:32.000
Clyde Taylor: where he indulges in a kind of combat; kind of a sexual combat, as a matter of fact.
00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:39.000
Clyde Taylor: Uhh but-- but it seems to me that that's one moment where his creative need
00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:43.000
Clyde Taylor: is-- is translated into a kind of appropriative metaphor,
00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:47.000
Clyde Taylor: and that-- in that instance, as other instances throughout the film,
00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:51.000
Clyde Taylor: one more experience is this kind of creative rage.
00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:54.000
Clyde Taylor: If you remember Sula, Tony Morrison's novel, Sula.
00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:00.000
Clyde Taylor: Uhh, that work, that character is also explained largely by
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:05.000
Clyde Taylor: a kind of, uh, wild freedom that she expresses,
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.000
Clyde Taylor: in many cases, in a destructive mode because the creative possibilities
00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:14.000
Clyde Taylor: had been denied her as a black woman in the society.
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:20.000
Clyde Taylor: The film is macho, and that's one of the ways that dates-- dates in a lot of ways.
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.000
Clyde Taylor: It wasn't meant to be looked at this way,
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.000
Clyde Taylor: and-- and we will see bell bottom trousers, and we'll we might even laugh at the style, you know what I'm saying.
00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:31.000
Clyde Taylor: But that-- that can't be helped. But the-- it's-- it's very macho,
00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:37.000
Clyde Taylor: very chauvinistic, I think, and-- and that's probably explained by his being autobiographical.
00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:41.000
Clyde Taylor: Uhh, is bout a man; uh, male sexuality.
00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:45.000
Clyde Taylor: [[someone clears throat]] At the time the film came out, it was very controversial,
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.000
Clyde Taylor: uh, within the black community. Many blacks,[[someone coughs]] Lerone Bennet,
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.000
Clyde Taylor: uh, Haki Madhubuti, [[someone blows nose]] who then was Don Lee;
00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:56.000
Clyde Taylor: several attacked the film because, essentially, they thought it was
00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:01.000
Clyde Taylor: a negative portrayal of black people.
00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:04.000
Clyde Taylor: They thought it was, uh,-- they were looking for something much more positive.
00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:09.200
Clyde Taylor: Van Peebles is very clear in aiming this film at the lowest strata's of black--
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:30.000
Clyde Taylor:
Clyde Taylor: --it was bad, and, perhaps, more obscene than it needed to be,
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:36.000
Clyde Taylor: but at the same time, one sect of the Black Panthers - Huey Newton -
00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.000
Clyde Taylor: they liked the film a great deal because they thought
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:46.000
Clyde Taylor: that the film developed the idea of a revolution arising from the lumpenproletariat from-- from
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:49.000
Clyde Taylor: what I guess, what we might [[screeching sound]] today--
00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:56.000
Clyde Taylor: Woah!! [[audience laughter]] call the the homeless people; the the street people.
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:00.000
Clyde Taylor: And, uh, so it-- the film wracked, frankly, many nerves,
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:06.000
Clyde Taylor: and, uh, was very [[inaudible]] inquisitive, and at the same time, very [[promising?]].
00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:09.000
Clyde Taylor: After the film plays, let's look at it. I'm going to ask Pearl Bowser to join me.
00:20:09.000 --> 00:20:12.000
Clyde Taylor: We can all kind of discuss it together. Thank you very much.
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:20.000
[[crowd applause]] [[tape clicks]]
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.000
[[laughter]]
00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:25.000
Clyde Taylor: Comments?
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:31.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Oh, I just wanted to ask, what kind of effects did he use when uh--
00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:35.000
{Unknown Speaker 1]] What kind of effect did he use when
00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:41.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} he saw the screen go-- almost look like a kinda computer graphic?
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:45.000
[[Unknown Speaker 1]] He used that in several scenes.
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:53.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah, yeah. The question is, "What-- um, you just wanna know-- [[Cross Talk]] {Unknown Speaker 1} What kind of effect [[??]]
Pearl Bowser: What the effects-- [[Cross Talk]] {Unknown Speaker 1} What kind of effects was it? Yeah.
00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:55.000
Pearl Bowser: What what the effects, what kind of effects he used? {Unknown Speaker 1} Yes.
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Pearl Bowser: Uhh, can you answer that?
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:02.000
Clyde Taylor: Uhh, well, I saw a lot of superimposition.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:06.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Yeah, but I also saw things that almost looked like they were graphics.
00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:09.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Like he took one, um, several,
00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:17.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} um, frames, and he sort of had it in a, um,
00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:18.000
{Unknown Speaker 1]] orange and um--
Pearl Bowser: Oh, it's called "solarization".
00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:20.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Is that solarization?
Pearl Bowser:
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:25.000
Yeah.
[SILENCE]
Pearl Bowser: Uh, yeah.
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:28.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} How widely was this film distributed when it first came out?
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:35.000
Clyde Taylor: Well, it was very widely distributed, and by, uh, Van Peebles himself.
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:41.000
Clyde Taylor: He, uh, more or less created [[inaudible]] the circuit
00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.000
Clyde Taylor: there was no circuit as he said for Black films.
00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:46.000
Clyde Taylor: There was no Black theaters.
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:49.000
Clyde Taylor: But he "four-walled" Black theaters in several cities.
00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:53.000
Clyde Taylor: By "four-walling", it's meant you hired the theater yourself.
00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:58.000
Clyde Taylor: And he did that in LA first, and it got a good reception there, and he did that in major cities
00:21:58.000 --> 00:22:02.000
Clyde Taylor: around the country. And finally, I think, it got a very wide distribution--
00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:08.000
Clyde Taylor: distribution event for a long time. I believe he made about 3 million dollars, I was told.
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:09.000
[[Cross Talk]]
Pearl Bowser: 14 million. {Unknown Speaker 3} 14.
Clyde Taylor: 14 million.
00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:14.350
Clyde Taylor: Well, he said he didn't collect all the money [[inaudible]]. [[audience chuckling]]
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:26.000
Clyde Taylor: Maybe 14 million; {Unknown Speaker 1} Oof!
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Clyde Taylor: let's put it that way, but he did [[inaudible]].
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:29.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} Yes
00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:34.000
Clyde Taylor: Well, a couple of comments, I , uh, know that we are all aware that in 1971,
00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:38.000
Clyde Taylor: he, uh, along with other black film people,
00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:43.000
Clyde Taylor: suffered a great deal of-- of ignorance around how to develop a film and
00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:50.000
Clyde Taylor: how to really edit it in a way that it would be a lot more continuous, uh, than his [[inaudible]].
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:58.000
Clyde Taylor: And I think, along with black producers that flawed the film, and, uh, you know, and deny me there are some,
00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:05.000
Clyde Taylor: uh, they also were very effective in terms of creating an audience for black films,
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:12.000
Clyde Taylor: and Melvin Van Peeples, along with a couple of other, uh, producers and film, uh, developers
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.000
Clyde Taylor: was instrumental in just bringing that audience.
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:22.000
Clyde Taylor: Now, the actual development process, the film development process,
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:27.000
Clyde Taylor: is quite different now with the new, uh, wave of black filmmakers.
00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:34.000
Clyde Taylor: But the techniques, not withstanding, I think the exposure level is what created that audience
00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:39.000
Clyde Taylor: that allowed him to, uh, put that film out to so many distributors.
00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.000
Clyde Taylor: But initially, he really was very limited in terms of houses that
00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:47.000
Clyde Taylor: he could show that film in, along with his other ones.
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:51.000
Clyde Taylor: I would, uh, confirm with you in terms of the technique,
00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:59.000
Clyde Taylor: uh, he had in the same year directed for Columbia Studios, "Watermelon Man,"
00:23:59.000 --> 00:23:60.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} I know.
00:23:60.000 --> 00:24:07.000
Clyde Taylor: and had made a film earlier, uh, in-- in France starting, wait a minute, he, he knew the [[vitality?]]
00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:10.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} Yes, but you used the magic word "Columbia"--
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.000
Clyde Taylor: Yes.
00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:14.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} Uh, Columbia is a corporation who could afford to give him all of these
00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:20.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} assistances and all the animating processes that they had at their disposal, and this was the key difference.
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000
Clyde Taylor: Yes, sorry, that's true, but I'm, I'm suggesting that
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.000
Clyde Taylor: the lack of continuity is partly the result of economics,
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.000
Clyde Taylor: partly a result of a decision, that is to say a combination of the two
00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:40.000
Clyde Taylor: that, uh, seemed to me he wanted to do a film that was very much different from "Watermelon Man",
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000
Clyde Taylor: and, uh, so the continuity comes from, I guess,
00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:50.000
Clyde Taylor: the the theme of-- of middle decolonization, or something of that sort.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:55.100
Clyde Taylor: But, uh, I-- I think that he was very conscious of foregoing the continuities of
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:21.000
Clyde Taylor: Yeah, it was available.
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:30.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Right.
Clyde Taylor: Very much so.
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:29.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} I have questions,
00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} I'd like to know what happened to the director [[after this??]]
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:37.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} and I was wondering if it was made-- I'm not from America, so I don't know the history--
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:45.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} was this made before or after the Watts riots?
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:54.000
Clyde Taylor: It was made after. It was made in '70, 1970, and the Watts riots took place in 1966. {Unknown Speaker 2} Oh.
00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:58.000
Clyde Taylor: And they-- Pearl can help me in the subsequent career.
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Clyde Taylor: He made a film called, "Don't Play Us Cheap" after this, which got no distribution at all.
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.000
{Unknown Speaker 3} No distribution at all?
Clyde Taylor: No, and I've never seen it, and --
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:11.000
{Unknown Speaker 3} What year was that made?
00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:13.000
Clyde Taylor: Uh, I'm not-- About 2 years after.
00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:17.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah. About two, if not three years later. He made
00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:23.000
Pearl Bowser: "Don't Play Us Cheap." But a lot of the money that he made on "Sweet Back",
00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:31.000
Pearl Bowser: he used to promote his records and also for the musicals he put on on Broadway.
00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:35.000
Pearl Bowser: So that his career went from film to theater,
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:44.000
Pearl Bowser: records, and that one film that he made afterwards, "Don't Play Us Cheap,"
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:46.000
Pearl Bowser: was never really released in this country.
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:49.000
Pearl Bowser: I saw it in France.
00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:55.000
Pearl Bowser: and I think Melvin probably deliberately chose not to release that film here.
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Pearl Bowser: Throughout his film career, in terms of his own productions
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:03.000
Pearl Bowser: like "Sweet Back," he did not have access to regular distribution outlets.
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:12.000
Pearl Bowser: Much like the maverick way he in which produced the film, he also distributed and got the film around.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:16.000
Pearl Bowser: He also utilized the network which is very prevalent in the black community.
00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:19.000
Pearl Bowser: We don't really take advantage of and that is by word of mouth.
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:26.000
Pearl Bowser: His film got a lot more publicity than, say, what the newspapers might have said about the film.
00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:35.000
Pearl Bowser: And the notoriety of the film played a long, long distance for Van Peebles
00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:40.000
Pearl Bowser: because the conversations about the film, the talk about the revolutionary elements of the film
00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:45.000
Pearl Bowser: and the controversy of whether or not there was anything revolutionary in the film at all,
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:52.000
Pearl Bowser: plus the fact that during that period, the Black Panther Party came out with an issue of their newspaper
00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:57.000
Pearl Bowser: in which they analyzed the film shot by shot
00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:01.000
Pearl Bowser: to underline or to explain its revolutionary concept.
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:06.000
Pearl Bowser: So that it was a film that was on the lips of a lot of people, many of whom had not seen it,
00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:10.000
Pearl Bowser: but they were talking about the film and the same context that they were talking about
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:15.000
Pearl Bowser: [[background sound]] the revolutionary movement in this country, the the the civil rights struggle and
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.020
Pearl Bowser: also their their reaction to the 70s films which
00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:37.000
Pearl Bowser: and what Van Peebles' film did in those conversations was to provide another kind of a context for those discussions.
00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:41.000
Pearl Bowser: The fact that this film, the hero, uh, survives.
00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:48.000
Pearl Bowser: And, not only does he survive, but he is what he is from beginning to the end,
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:55.000
Pearl Bowser: and becomes a kind of anti-hero. Which was somewhat revolutionary. Certainly, it was never seen in a Hollywood film.
00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:00.000
Pearl Bowser: And none of the black exploitation films allow the hero to survive, or to live,
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.000
Pearl Bowser: no matter how good he was or how bad he was. He always expired by the end of the film.
00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:09.000
Pearl Bowser: So there were many reasons that people talked about the film, even though they had not seen it.
00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:14.000
Pearl Bowser: But it had its impact in a much broader way than just people actually seeing the film in a theater.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:20.000
Pearl Bowser: Uh, his-- At the moment Van Peebles, um, has a seat on the stock exchange.
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:26.000
Pearl Bowser: Um, has done extremely well, uh. And he didn't just get the seat on the stock exchange,
00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:28.000
Pearl Bowser: he was there for a, quite, quite a while.
00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:31.000
Pearl Bowser: Uh, has done extremely well for himself with the records,
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:34.000
Pearl Bowser: uh, with the distributions sale of his own films,
00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:39.000
Pearl Bowser: and he, uh, his work is popular abroad as well.
00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:46.000
Pearl Bowser: I mean, the-- the French are very, very much excited about, by Van Peebles' work. Um--
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:54.000
Clyde Taylor: He directed a TV movie about six years ago. Uh, but I don't remember the name of it.
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:56.000
Pearl Bowser: Gentleman something?
00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:57.000
Clyde Taylor: Yeah, uh. [audience cross talk]
00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:59.000
Pearl Bowser: "Sophisticated Gents."
00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:03.000
Clyde Taylor: "Sophisticated Gents," right. Right. But his, his work is very sporadic.
00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:10.000
Clyde Taylor: Either in, uh, television or films. Yeah?
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:18.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Is there a body of critical reviews of this film by the, uh, establishment,
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:24.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} both the black and white establishment in their publications?
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:29.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} And how it-- was it received by the, uh, black establishment at the time?
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:32.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} If there is a record of it?
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:37.000
Clyde Taylor: Well, there surely is a record. I would suggest that the Museum of Modern Art there
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:41.000
Clyde Taylor: would probably be a file. And other, and perhaps, at the Schomburg, as well,
00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:46.000
Clyde Taylor: there might be a file of reviews at the time. I've seen several--
00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:47.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} Have you seen nothing, uh?
00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:52.000
Clyde Taylor: I've seen quite a few. There was a very important piece by Lerone Bennett in Ebony magazine.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:57.460
Clyde Taylor: Lerone Bennett. Ebony magazine. Don Lee in black--
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:15.000
Clyde Taylor: Did you, did you hear of "The Color Purple"?
00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:16.000
Audience member 1: Yeah.
Audience member 2: Yeah.
00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:18.000
Clyde Taylor: Well, you would have heard of "Sweetback." the same way.
00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:23.000
Clyde Taylor: Do you see what I mean? It was very widely reviewed. Very widely.
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:27.000
Clyde Taylor: And, and one can dig up those reviews.
00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:28.000
Pearl Bowser: There are a couple of books too--
00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:32.000
Audience member: Well what was the consensus, the, the-- That's what I'm trying to get at. How was it received-
00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:34.000
Clyde Taylor: Oh, yes.
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:36.000
{SPEAKER name="Audience member" 3} In what light?
00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:40.000
Clyde Taylor: Well, we, we touched on that a bit. There was a different sectors
00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:43.000
Clyde Taylor: of the black community approached it differently.
00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:48.000
Clyde Taylor: The, uh-- Lerone Bennett and, and, Don Lee saw it as Black Nationalists,
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:51.000
Clyde Taylor: and they saw it as not being revolutionary
00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:57.000
Clyde Taylor: because Sweetback's own mind had not been cultivated through an
00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:00.000
Clyde Taylor: African-American cultural position.
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:06.000
Clyde Taylor: And at-- He was not upholding the positive values in black culture.
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.000
Clyde Taylor: But the Panthers saw it from a another political perspective,
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:15.000
Clyde Taylor: saying that he was advocating the agitation of the lumpenproletariat; the people who were street people.
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:18.000
Clyde Taylor: And they thought that that's where the revolution was going to come.
00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:22.000
Clyde Taylor: So whoev--, however one perceived the revolution or non-revolution of a society,
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:25.000
Clyde Taylor: that's how the film was read.
00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:32.000
Clyde Taylor: So it was a wide spectrum of responses. Uh, and, and, it nev-- The question was never settled.
00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:35.000
Pearl Bowser: One other major, um, response to the film was that,
00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:42.000
Pearl Bowser: um, Van Peebles had really pulled off a coup. He made a film which he owned totally.
00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:49.000
Pearl Bowser: He, not only did he make the film, um, on the set, unbeknownst to, uh
00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:53.000
Pearl Bowser: Columbia Pictures 'cause it was edited in their studios.
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:56.000
Pearl Bowser: And a lot of it was, was shot in their studios.
00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:01.000
Pearl Bowser: And they allowed him to use the premises because they thought he was making a pornographic movie,
00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:05.000
Pearl Bowser: and there was nothing. He wasn't going to make a great deal of money, and it was no threat.
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:11.000
Pearl Bowser: He also got a line of credit from, um, one of the, um--
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:13.000
Clyde Taylor: Laboratories.
00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:19.000
Pearl Bowser: one of the laboratories. Um, on Columbia, it was, actually Columbia Pictures, um, account.
00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:22.000
And, uh, you know, they didn't think was going to spend a lot of money,
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:26.290
Pearl Bowser: but after they realized how much money he had spent, there was--
00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:38.000
Pearl Bowser: In order for them to recoup what had already been invested in their film, in Van Peebles' film,
00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:43.000
Pearl Bowser: they let him finish it so that, you know, he cou-- they could get back their--
00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Pearl Bowser: realize their money was off of it,
00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:52.000
Pearl Bowser: but Van Peebles's major contribution to Black independent filmmaking
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:55.000
Pearl Bowser: was that he was able to pull off something that, I mean,
00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:01.000
Pearl Bowser: was unknown before that in terms of making a film.
00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:03.000
Pearl Bowser: I think he spent something like $500,000.00
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:10.000
Pearl Bowser: and then in the end not to be able to distribute it in a traditional way.
00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:17.000
Pearl Bowser: But in spite of all the handicaps, in spite of all the system preventing him from getting his film out,
00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:23.000
Pearl Bowser: they even wanted to put a rating out on the film which would limit its kind of exposures,
00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:27.000
Pearl Bowser: he was able to make a minor fortune off of that film
00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:31.000
Pearl Bowser: which he himself owned,
00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:35.000
Clyde Taylor: [[Cross Talk]] [[inaudible]]
Pearl Bowser: and this was like a kind of role model for a lot of independent filmmakers,
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:40.000
Pearl Bowser: to want to really produce a film because he also established the fact that there is
00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:46.000
Pearl Bowser: an audience and there are other ways of getting your work out there and getting it seen in the black community.
00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Clyde Taylor: I'd like to add to that, that Van Peebles' film has been said to be a very important
00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:55.000
Clyde Taylor: influence of Black exploitation films, and it was,
00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:58.000
Clyde Taylor: but it was also as Pearl Bowsers just pointed out,
00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:03.000
Clyde Taylor: a very important influence on subsequent independent Black films.
00:35:03.000 --> 00:35:06.000
Clyde Taylor: He called it, "Operation Guerilla Cinema,"
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:11.000
Clyde Taylor: and independents, some independents, still today they think of that as the way they work,
00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Clyde Taylor: so something like making films off the lands, so to speak, as you go along.
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:20.000
[silence]
00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:25.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} I see there's a lot, there's so much in this film, that you say you might see it as a simple film, but there is so much in there.
00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:28.000
Clyde Taylor: I see [[??]] deepens the [[??]] today; many things in there.
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:34.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} [[?]] with Larry Davis incident that took place in the Bronx in this film.
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:40.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} And I would say, if that film came out today, there would be a wide audience; a whole new audience.
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:43.000
Clyde Taylor: Interesting.
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:48.000
Clyde Taylor: One of the things that most people don't realize,
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:52.000
Clyde Taylor: when he came back to [[??]] to make this film,
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:59.000
Clyde Taylor: he specifically said he was going to make a horror film that the white man would want to see, in spite of its horror.
00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:05.000
Clyde Taylor: He said, if he thinks that Dracula is frightening, or any of these horror type things,
00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Clyde Taylor: I'm going to show them things that is the greatest horror of all.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:10.900
Clyde Taylor: I'm going to show the sexuality of a black man. [[cough]]
00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:27.000
Clyde Taylor: --it was imagination. That's why he made his money.
00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:31.000
Clyde Taylor: He didn't specifically make it from a revolutionary aspect alone.
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:38.000
Clyde Taylor: He says, "You wanna see some power? What is your biggest nightmare? Here it is."
00:36:38.000 --> 00:36:41.000
Clyde Taylor: That's why the people in the South saw it too.
00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:45.000
Clyde Taylor: It wasn't distributed on the level that they could have publicized it for,
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Clyde Taylor: or do these things that would give notoriety. But the money still came in.
00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:52.000
Clyde Taylor: It is possible.
00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:57.000
Pearl Bowser: And, also, one, one side comment, is, uh,
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:03.000
Pearl Bowser: during this whole period when, uh, black audiences were, um, reacting to Hollywood stereotypes,
00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:10.000
Pearl Bowser: Van Peebles, in-- in this film, was exploding a lot of those stereotypes on-- on-- in "Sweetback."
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:16.000
Pearl Bowser: And it made it; had an enormous impact on, uh, the sort of, educating the audiences
00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:22.000
Pearl Bowser: in terms of realizing the-- the stereotypical way which we were presented on the screen,
00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:27.000
Pearl Bowser: by really slamming [[she hits her palm with her fist]] and overdrawing those characters. I mean,
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:31.000
Pearl Bowser: the character, the pimp, them uhm, the whole male sexuality
00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:36.000
Pearl Bowser: which has a double kind of meaning. You say he wanted to sort of expose the--
00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:41.000
Pearl Bowser: um, that stereotypical image of the super stud.
00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:44.000
Pearl Bowser: Uh, he goes one better, and does more than that.
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:52.000
Pearl Bowser: He also destroys and exposed the myth of it, as well as, using it as a political, um, element,
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:57.000
Pearl Bowser: uh, in our-- in our society of showing that something that,
00:37:57.000 --> 00:38:02.000
Pearl Bowser: not only something that uh, is used in as a myth against us,
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:08.000
Pearl Bowser: but it becomes, in this film, a kind of a weapon. Uh, you had your hand up.
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.000
{Unknown Speaker 1} Well, you sort of touched on the questions that I asked.
00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.000
Pearl Bowser: Ok. Yes?
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:20.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} During that time, Hollywood was in a financial slump, and was in deep debt in this film,
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} and other black producers who were also in debt [[inaudible]] Black directorial films
00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:31.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} [[inaudible]] The African-American community was responsible for pulling Hollywood out of their financial slump.
00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:35.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} I think that should be mentioned. Cohesiveness in the black community,
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:43.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} even though most of the films were presented, often times were not really, uh, positive in terms; many times.
00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:47.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} They didn't ask us in the black community. Not positive.
00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:52.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} Uh, we were helpful in, um, getting Hollywood out of its financial slump.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:56.000
Pearl Bowser: We were more than helpful, we were instrumental!
00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:57.000
{Unknown Speaker 2} Exactly.
Pearl Bowser: Much like the-- [[Cross Talk]] {Unknown Speaker 2} Uhm--
00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:02.000
Pearl Bowser: record industry with, um, you know, with-- with black recording people back in the thir-- 30s,
00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:05.000
Pearl Bowser: uh, we-- we rescued-- [[Cross Talk]] {Unknown Speaker 2} Exactly.
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:07.510
Pearl Bowser: economically, uh, which-- which exposed the pow--
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.000
Clyde Taylor: --it out, long enough to get a few films made,
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:09.000
Clyde Taylor: but the process by which this can become regular is still something that we have to build.
00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:15.000
Unknown speaker: I'd just like to mention that there was-- Melvin did publish a book; a paperback book,
00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.000
Unknown speaker: that came out after the film about the making of the film, and it had the script in it,
00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:24.000
Unknown speaker: so if anyone wanted to know more about that, you can probably find it.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:25.000
Pearl Bowser: Yeah.
00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:28.000
Unknown speaker 1: I don't know where, it's out of print, but it does exist.
00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:34.000
Unknown speaker 1: And in the book, he said that he used the pornographic aspect angle
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:41.000
Unknown speaker 1: to get around having to deal with working through the unions in the industry,
00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:43.000
Unknown speaker 1: because it would make the film too expensive,
00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:50.000
Unknown speaker 1: so that, by selling it as a pornographic film, he was able to use non-union cameramen and technicians and all that,
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:55.000
Unknown speaker 1: but that he really was trying to make a revolutionary film.
00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:01.000
Clyde Taylor: Yes, and he shot the scene in the-- I think he shot the scene in the whorehouse first,
00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:08.000
Clyde Taylor: so that anyone who inquired would think that it was in fact a porno film.
00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:13.000
Pearl Bowser: Um. Yes.
00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Unknown Speaker 2: Your remarks about there not being a follow-up or, um, problems in film producing
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:23.000
Unknown Speaker 2: remind me of a comment that Chester Himes, a novelist,
00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:28.000
Unknown Speaker 2: made in the late Forties when he said he one of the reasons for leaving the United States
00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:33.000
Unknown Speaker 2: was that Americans, white Americans, seemed to have room for only one Black novelist at a time,
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:39.000
Unknown Speaker 2: and it was pretty clear that it wasn't gonna be him. And so, he was going to leave France,
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:41.000
Unknown Speaker 2: and I was trying to think why, why else I was thinking about Himes,
00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Unknown Speaker 2: and then I realized that this film reminds me to a certain extent to--
00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:53.000
Unknown Speaker 2: to "If He Hollers, Let Him Go," to the novel, and the problem with Black,
00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:59.000
Unknown Speaker 2: Black men and white women, and sexuality, and the attempts of um, Black society--
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:02.000
Unknown Speaker 2: in particular, and it's set in Los Angeles, so--
00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:07.000
Unknown Speaker 2: in coming to terms; Whites coming to terms with Black maleness and Black sexuality.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:14.000
Unknown Speaker 2: And I just-- It's interest-- I had not thought of the two of them together until your comments.
00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:15.600
Clyde Taylor: That's interesting, I'm gonna look at that. I--
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:56.000
Clyde Taylor: --a great deal of, uh, literary reference, and other people since him have gone on his work of literary references.
00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:03.000
Unknown Speaker 1: Yeah, the way he made those cops. If you notice, some of them have a New York shield, some have a Chicago shield,
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:06.000
Unknown Speaker 1: some of them have a California shield. Notice the next time around
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:09.000
Unknown Speaker 1: to see the difference in the connotation of what the policemen wore.
00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:14.000
Unknown Speaker 1: [[background noise]] He was not one policeman, he was all of the policemen from the sheriff on down.
00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000
Unknown Speaker 1: He was all White law enforcement officers, the good ones, the bad ones, and the indifferent.
00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:23.000
Unknown Speaker 1: And that’s where you got the confusion if you were looking at it for continuity.
00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:25.000
Unknown Speaker 1: He didn’t mean it for it to be that way.
00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:26.000
Unknown Speaker 2: Right.
00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:29.000
Clyde Taylor: So he using that New Yorker [[??]] of the time at Kennedy Airport.
Unknown Speaker 1: That's right.
00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:31.000
Clyde Taylor: And then right back in Los Angeles.
Unknown Speaker 1: That's right.
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:32.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Yep.
Unknown Speaker 3: Los Angeles.
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:37.000
Unknown Speaker 1: If you notice the scene, he did Los Angeles in one part then he did Frisco in another part and then he did New York.
00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:41.000
[[audience agreement]] {SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 1"} And if you put 'em all together you will see that he's talking about the Black man
00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:47.000
{SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 1"} not specifically in any one place or a white cop in any specific place, all of it.
00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:50.000
Clyde Taylor: Generic.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.000
{SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 4"} One scene that I thought was very interesting was the scene where the African American young man
00:43:54.000 --> 00:44:00.000
{SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 4"} was shining the white man's shoes with the rag, and then he turned around and shined his shoes with the backside.
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:09.000
[[background noise]] {SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 4"} It to me-- I, I really felt-- I really felt that the white man was really the, the ass, ultimat-- ultimately in that scene.
00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:16.000
{SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 4"} It was, it was, I didn't feel any negative, or humiliated or,
00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:23.000
{SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 4"} or, or felt less of being being African American by what the white man-- what the black man was doing.
00:44:23.000 --> 00:44:28.000
[[Cross Talk]]
Unknown Speaker 1: For the money.
Unknown Speaker 4: He was making a statement, a economical, a political, a social statement
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:32.000
{SPEAKER name=Unknown Speaker 4"} And I don't really I don't know which I can stand on, could you?
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:37.000
Clyde Taylor: In a way, I disagree. I think that there are people that really got to see as a suggestion
00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:42.000
Clyde Taylor: of the kind of the mental, of the mentality that had to be broken--
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:44.000
Audience member 4: I see. [[coughing in background]]
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.410
Clyde Taylor: You see? Because remember when the the narration of the
00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:03.000
Clyde Taylor: He say you can get by as long as you Thomas for the man,
00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:07.000
Clyde Taylor: but it's not long after that you have this shoe shining scene.
00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:14.000
Clyde Taylor: But, but he's determined, this character, this principle is not to Tom anymore,
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:16.000
Clyde Taylor: even though you may be successful at it, you know what I'm saying?
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:20.000
Clyde Taylor: So that you had this scene where he goes to the woman as a--
00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:25.000
Clyde Taylor: He asks her to take the handcuffs off. And she says, "Beg!" And he says, "No!"
00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:33.000
Clyde Taylor: See. I mean, I mean he really after a, a non-conciliatory posture in that set.
00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:37.000
Unknown Speaker 1: That may be true, but the person that was shining shoes was not obsequious in any way.
00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:43.000
He maintains his dignity through that complete scene. So I-- I-- I don't--
00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:47.000
[[Cross Talk]]
Clyde Taylor: Well maybe you think he did. I don't, I don't think he did-- [Cross talk]
Unknown Speaker 4: I-- I-- [[inaudible]] [[Cross Talk]]
Clyde Taylor and Unknown Speaker 2: [[Cross Talk]] [[comments inaudible]]
00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:51.000
Clyde Taylor: If he were related to me, I'd kick him in the butt.
00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Unknown Speaker 1: What was that?
00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:56.000
Clyde Taylor: [[Laughs]] I said, "If he were related to me, I'd kick him in his butt. [[audience murmuring]]
00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:57.000
Unknown Speaker 1: Oh yeah, It's a whole big, yeah exactly.
Clyde Taylor: Yeah, but--
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:05.000
[[Cross Talk]]
Clyde Taylor: [[inaudible]]
Clyde Taylor: I understand that, -- [[Cross talk]]
Unknown Speaker 1: I suppose you should say [[inaudible]] --
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:11.000
Clyde Taylor: but he's placing that there to contrast it to a later position in the movie-- that he feels that-- [[Cross Talk]]
Unknown Speaker 2: [[ Why the contrast? [[?]] ]]
00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Clyde Taylor: --now contains. You no longer have to do that. He's, he understands why people had to do that.
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:19.000
Clyde Taylor: But he's also saying, "Listen, we don't have to do that anymore." [[talking from someone in background]]
00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:22.000
Clyde Taylor: And I say it too. You don't have to do that anymore.
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:24.000
Unknown Speaker: Right.
00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.000
Pearl Bowser: We'll take two more questions. Uh, the gentleman there.
00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:33.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Well, just to [[??]] close it up, but I agree with the people up here. It seems to me a very definite double message,
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:36.000
Unknown Speaker 3: much in the way that in Hollywood, where you had all the Black maids,
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:41.000
Unknown Speaker 3: there was something always sort of sassy and revolutionary about them.
00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:48.000
Unknown Speaker 3: They always had the goods on the white lady they were working for, and this way, this man turns his ass and decides, "Hey!"
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:57.000
Unknown Speaker 3: That to me is like that, that is a statement in itself. Even though he is only comic, he's still saying, "You know, kiss my ass."
00:46:57.000 --> 00:47:59.000
[[Laughter and talking from audience]]
Unknown Speaker 3: No. [[inaudible]]
00:47:59.000 --> 00:47:02.350
Clyde Taylor: Is there a more direct question? [[Cross Talk]]
Unknown Speaker 3: [[inaudible]] [[Laughter and talking from audience]] ]
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:17.000
Clyde Taylor: "Let me entertain you, you understand. This is what I think you like."
00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:23.000
Clyde Taylor: "So I'm gonna shine your shoes with my ass." He wasn't saying "Kiss my ass" [[Several persons' remarks not understandable]]
Clyde Taylor: He's saying,
00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:27.000
Clyde Taylor: to the Black population to survive, you got to entertain the white population.
00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:30.000
Clyde Taylor: This is how we survive. It's how we get our money.
00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:35.000
Clyde Taylor: He did it for economic reasons, he didn't have to. [[?]] didn't say, "Hey why don't you shine my shoes with your ass?"
00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:37.000
[[Audience remarks heard]]
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:43.000
Clyde Taylor: He did it because [[isn't?]] this the way to get any change this white man can throw my way--
00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:46.000
Unknown Speaker 1: That's the point! He was getting a dollar more tip; a two dollar more tip.
00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:59.000
Unknown Speaker 1: And he was saying, "This is what you really want to do is put your foot up my ass. Pay for it!" [[Others making remarks]]
00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:05.000
Pearl Bowser: You're probably both right. [[Audience laughs, claps]]
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:07.000
Clyde Taylor: Nah, that's, that's true. It is a very complex read, and-- and
00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:12.000
Clyde Taylor: part of the complexity is that when the-- when Sweetback
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:17.000
Clyde Taylor: engages in combat with Sadie, in a way, he is doing the same thing. [[sound of rustling papers]]
00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:23.000
Clyde Taylor: He's trying to survive by entertaining in another medium.
00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:29.000
Clyde Taylor: So it is valid. It is valid. Maybe I oversimplified.
00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:33.000
[[Audience chatter]]
Pearl Bowser: We taking one or two last questions.
00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Unknown Speaker 2: Would you say at any point in the movie that the protagonist Sweet
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:37.000
Unknown Speaker 2: developed revolutionary thoughts,
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:42.000
Unknown Speaker 2: or was he just a fugitive on the run?
00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:49.000
Clyde Taylor: I thought that there was a slow evolution throughout the film
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:52.000
Clyde Taylor: of his seeing the importance of cooperation.
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:54.000
Clyde Taylor: He gets in a lot of help [[inaudible]] [[someone coughing]].
00:48:54.000 --> 00:49:00.000
Clyde Taylor: And in the narration of what's in his mind towards the end,
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:06.000
Clyde Taylor: he's saying, "We've got to get it all together in terms of cooperating with each other."
00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:15.000
Clyde Taylor: But I think that, that drift did not go as far as some of the people who read the film.
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:20.000
Clyde Taylor: Some of the people, who criticized the film from a Marxist point of view, felt that it was too individualistic,
00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.000
Clyde Taylor: even at the very end, but there is some evolution. Do you remember at the very beginning?
00:49:24.000 --> 00:49:27.000
Clyde Taylor: Mu Mu says, "Where are we going?" He says, "What do you mean "we""?"
00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:29.000
[[crowd affirms]]
00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:30.670
Clyde Taylor: But then later he says, "Take care." [[crowd affirms]]
00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:55.000
]
Unknown Speaker 1: Back there again.
Unknown Speaker 2: I found it fascinating too. I think that it's very interesting that the actor
00:49:55.000 --> 00:50:01.000
Unknown Speaker 2: who plays the white man is not a particularly attractive looking character.
00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:06.000
Unknown Speaker 2: And I think that had this actor been portrayed by a, shall we say,
00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:12.000
Unknown Speaker 2: a Burt Reynolds or Clint Eastwood type, the scene would have taken on a different connotation.
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:15.000
Unknown Speaker 2: [[hard to hear]] So I'm just going to throw that thought out.
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:21.000
[SILENCE]
00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:27.000
Unknown Speaker 2: [The southern type with a big belly and four eyes like me. [[inaudible]] Not particularly --
00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:36.000
[SILENCE]
00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:45.000
[[Tape begins]]
Unknown Speaker 3: --directed films in Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s,
Unknown Speaker 3: and Black men directed independent or non-studio feature films
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.000
Unknown Speaker 3: as early as the second decade of this century.
00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:55.000
Unknown Speaker 3: But black women entered the ranks of independent directors and producers much more recently.
00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:06.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Madeline Anderson's 1970 documentary "I Am Somebody", a film about a strike of hospital workers of Charleston, South Carolina
00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:11.000
Unknown Speaker 3: is the earliest easily available film by a black woman.
00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:15.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Only during the late 1970s and early 80s,
00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:21.000
Unknown Speaker 3: did black women emerge as filmmakers in anything approaching significant numbers.
00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:25.000
Unknown Speaker 3: And as the film critic Amy Taubin has written,
00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:31.000
Unknown Speaker 3: that first wave of films by Black women may already have ended.
00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:34.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Cut backs and support for the arts, during Reagan years,
00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:40.000
Unknown Speaker 3: may well have been responsible for the decline in the numbers of films and videos
00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.000
Unknown Speaker 3: by Black women made since 1982.
00:51:44.000 --> 00:51:50.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Black women, as filmmakers and video artists, are thus a recent phenomenon.
00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Seeking new ways of telling the stories of Black women that Hollywood
00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:01.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and the independents alike have ignored or caricatured through stereotypes.
00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:06.000
Michelle Parkerson and Julie Dash are both young filmmakers
00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:09.000
Unknown Speaker 3: who trained during late 70s and early 80s.
00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:13.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Parkerson studied film at Temple University
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:17.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and has made two earlier award-winning documentaries.
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:20.000
Unknown Speaker 3: The 1980 film ,"But Then She's Betty Carter,"
00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:25.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and the 1984, "Gotta Make This Journey: Sweet Honey in The Rock".
00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:30.000
Unknown Speaker 3: "Stormé: The Lady of the Jewel Box", Parkerson's third project
00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:33.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and an excerpt from a work in progress,
00:52:33.000 --> 00:52:38.000
Unknown Speaker 3: is the documentary about Stormé DeLarverie, DeLarvarie,
00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:42.000
Unknown Speaker 3: a black lesbian, who was the Emcee and male impersonator
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Unknown Speaker 3: of the Jewel Box Review, America's first integrated female impersonation show.
00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:53.000
Unknown Speaker 3: During the 50s and 60s, the Review played to mainstream
00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:57.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Black and White audiences alike on the Black theater circuit,
00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Unknown Speaker 3: despite the broader segregated social climate.
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:04.000
Unknown Speaker 3: In the course of its almost 40 year history,
00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:08.000
Unknown Speaker 3: the Review rose to international popularity.
00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:14.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Julie Dash, whose work is tended to be more experimental than Michelle Parkerson's,
00:53:14.000 --> 00:53:17.000
Unknown Speaker 3: was trained at UCLA.
00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:23.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Her earlier films include the 1977 student film "Diary of an African Nun"
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:28.000
Unknown Speaker 3: a meditative piece based on a short story by Alice Walker,
00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:31.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and the 1978 choreo-poem "Four Women,"
00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:36.000
Unknown Speaker 3: which is set to Nina Simone's ballad of the same name.
00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:40.000
Unknown Speaker 3: "Illusions" is a fiction film set in 1942 Hollywood,
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:46.000
Unknown Speaker 3: that takes as its subject, a Black woman studio executive, who passes for white.
00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:51.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Mignon Dupree, the studio executive who passes for white,
00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:56.000
Unknown Speaker 3: does so in order to gain a kind of
00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:01.000
Unknown Speaker 3: professional and creative autonomy; independence over her work.
00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:08.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Torn between her personal need to identify with her race
00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:12.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and her desire for creative control and authority,
00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:17.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Mignon Dupree symbolizes the conflicts that shape the experience of
00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:22.000
Unknown Speaker 3: the woman of color in the workplace.
00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:25.000
Unknown Speaker 3: "Illusions" suggest that Mignon's deception is only one
00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:30.000
Unknown Speaker 3: among many that characterize the world in which the film takes place.
00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:36.000
Unknown Speaker 3: In her new book about early Black women writers, "Reconstructing Womanhood",
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:41.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Hazel V. Carby has written that the figure of the mulatto in Black literature,
00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:47.000
Unknown Speaker 3: for our purposes here, the figure of the Black character light enough to pass,
00:54:47.000 --> 00:54:52.000
Unknown Speaker 3: should be understood as a narrative device of mediation.
00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:58.000
Unknown Speaker 3: The passing character, she argues, became a frequently used literary convention
00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:05.000
Unknown Speaker 3: for enabling Black characters to explore and express what was socially forbidden.
00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:09.000
Unknown Speaker 3: The character who could pass, Hazel Carby writes,
00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:15.000
Unknown Speaker 3: embodied the relationship between White privilege and Black lack of privilege.
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:20.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Carby's formulation seems, to me, to provide an interesting perspective
00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:24.000
Unknown Speaker 3: from which to view these two films.
00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:30.000
Unknown Speaker 3: For each may be said to be about a Black woman who passes in order to succeed
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Unknown Speaker 3: in an entertainment industry, which would ordinarily be hostile to her
00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:39.000
Unknown Speaker 3: because of her race and gender identity.
00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:45.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Because she passes for white, Mignon Dupree is free to pursue options otherwise denied her.
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:51.000
Unknown Speaker 3: By the same token, as the Black woman in a white ma-- white woman's body,
00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:55.000
Unknown Speaker 3: she symbolizes the difference between the possibilities available to Blacks
00:55:55.000 --> 00:55:58.000
Unknown Speaker 3: and those available to Whites.
00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:02.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Because she passes as male rather than White,
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:08.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Storme's relationship to her otherness raises a different set of issues.
00:56:08.000 --> 00:56:14.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Cross dressing has historically provided the opportunity for men and women alike
00:56:14.000 --> 00:56:20.000
Unknown Speaker 3: to experiment with options denied them by socially constructed gender roles.
00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:25.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Like Mignon then, Storme acquires certain freedoms by passing.
00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:30.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Not only can she support herself and achieve some measure of professional autonomy
00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:35.000
Unknown Speaker 3: by presenting herself as other, in her case, as male,
00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:40.000
Unknown Speaker 3: but she and the Review play to integrated audiences during a time when the violence of segregation
00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:43.000
Unknown Speaker 3: tends to separate the races.
00:56:43.000 --> 00:56:50.000
Unknown Speaker 3: But while Mignon has to conceal the disjunction between who she is and who she appears to be,
00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:56.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Storme works in an area of the industry that celebrates that very difference.
00:56:56.000 --> 00:57:00.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Locating in that side of difference the possibility of creative expression.
00:57:00.000 --> 00:57:05.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Indeed, Storme may be said to get points for being doubly different.
00:57:05.000 --> 00:57:11.000
Unknown Speaker 3: For not only does she she appears as a man, but she appears as a man in a company of men dressed as women.
00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:17.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Storme's career may thus be said to represent a fetishization of sexual difference,
00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:21.000
Unknown Speaker 3: while Mignon's rests upon the concealment of racial difference.
00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:25.000
Unknown Speaker 3: Let me stop here so that my comments don't intrude too much
00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:28.000
Unknown Speaker 3: upon your feelings experienced by giving away too much of the movies.
00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:37.728
Unknown Speaker 3: I expect we'll have time for questions, and answers, and discussion rather at the end.
