Holywood In Black

In Spike Lee's satire "Bamboozled," a cynical television producer in need of a hit develops the "New Millennium Minstrel Show" complete with black actors wearing "black face." The catch is that the show indeed becomes a national phenomenon.

Lee's commentary is not subtle. He boldly equates TV shows such as "Martin" or "In Living Color," which feature black actors in sketch comedy, with the racist caricaturing of the minstrel routines of the late 1800s.

Lee's film asks whether black identity is still dictated through certain generally held stereotypes in the media. "Real to Reel: Black Life in Cinema," a four-day symposium on race and representation that begins tonight, looks at this question in an international context.

The event, coordinated by a committee of graduate students and professors, brings together filmmakers and scholars from across the country to participate in panel discussions on a wide range of topics. There will be presentations on Hollywood and the civil rights movement, blacks in Latin American cinema, "mixed race politics" in sci-fi movies and other provocative topics.

"Black people are as diverse as any other racial or ethnic group, but we tend to all get lumped together," said Robin Vander, a graduate student in comparative literature and chairwoman of the committee. "It seems to shock people when they engage across the spectrum."

"We wanted to show how black life manifests itself outside of the United States," said Keith Mitchell, also a comparative literature graduate student and vice chairman of the committee.

Screenings include the rarely seen silent film "Body and Soul" (1924) by Oscar Micheaux, one of the first black directors in America. The film features actor and singer Paul Robeson as both an evil reverend and his good twin brother. A new piano score by local musician Chip Crawford, commissioned for the festival, will accompany the film.

Charlene Regester from the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, one of the country's premier scholars of black cinema and editor of the Oscar Micheaux newsletter, will participate in a round-table discussion on early black cinema.

Jean-Pierre Bekolo, a visiting lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies, will present his acclaimed film "Aristotle's Plot," a satire on Africa's response to Hollywood action films.

Theodore Life will present his documentary "Struggle and Success: The African-American Experience in Japan," and Gloria Rolando will present "Eyes of the Rainbow," a film that focuses on the 1912 massacre of Afro-Cubans.

At the heart of the conference is the desire to show the incredible diversity of the black experience -- something not generally represented in American film.

"We live in a global age and a lot of people don't realize there are blacks in Japan, in Scotland, all across the globe," Life said.

"We're covering history, science fiction, sexuality, queer studies, legal issues, among other important issues," he said. "We wanted to appeal to a wide variety of interests."

While film is entertainment, scholars maintain that it also reveals the fundamental beliefs of a culture. Often, political and social messages are coded, and it takes a critical eye to evaluate the subtext of the ideology, Mitchell said.

"Watching film can be a very passive activity and a lot of times we don't think about what the images we see on screen really represent," said Mildred Mickle, a committee member and graduate student. "And they do represent things that are indicative of movements, thoughts, trends and prejudices in society. We should look at them actively, as participants."

"What we want to do is get people to look beyond the surface of what's going on and recognize the filmmaker's attitude (toward race)," Mitchell said.

"I'm sure there will be some heated discussion over what a particular image means. Even a Disney cartoon is political."

The '90s saw a record number of Hollywood films aimed at black audiences. Yet many perceive these films as formulaic. The recent film "The Brothers," for example, has been dubbed "'Waiting to Exhale' for men," and this will probably be its selling point.

"Black actors and actresses don't have a lot of opportunities, but they want to show their craft," Mitchell said. "That was even the case with Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker.

"This goes back to the debate as to why a film like 'Beloved' was a flop and 'Waiting to Exhale' was such a hit," he said. "It's a vicious circle."

But Mickle suggested that not enough people consider the import of early black cinema. "Even though Micheaux's 'Body and Soul' came out in 1924, some of the same things that were going on in that film are still pervasive today," she said.

"It intrigues me and it also frightens me. I wonder if we aren't going in circles and if we are, how do we get out of it?"

For the conference, Mickle will be presenting a paper on Jim Jarmusch's film "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai," which connects the past with contemporary culture.

"I was intrigued by the film's multicultural approach to the 'gangsta' image," she said. "In conflating the ancient samurai code with the modern-day 'gangsta code,' I think the filmmaker is trying to show that there are things in society that influence you, and you have a choice as to whether or not you will internalize them."

While the main character, played by Forrest Whittaker, is black, the director and the rest of the cast are predominantly white.

"I think the central question of this conference, is what exactly constitutes a 'black' film," Mitchell said. "There won't be any definitive answers, but we want to put that question on the table.

"Is a black film one with a black cast even if the producer and director are white? Can a 'black' film have a mostly white cast? It's a large question," he said.

"I think the conference's panel has really reinforced my view that blackness is non-linear and that there are many points of connectedness," Mickle said. "That's the most provocative thing about this."

All of the committee members -- graduate students Mickle, Vander, Mitchell and Doug Taylor and African and Afro-American studies professors Dr. Regester, Dr. Perry Hall, and Dr. Timothy McMillan -- had an interest in cinema studies before conceiving the symposium. Some of them had been meeting informally to discuss films that they were using in their classes.

"We realized that we had such wonderful discussions amongst ourselves that we wanted to open it up to a broader audience," Vander said. "Then we thought, 'Let's put the idea out there and see if anyone's interested.' The moment we did, people from many different departments supported us."

In fact, paper abstracts began pouring in from places as diverse as Massachusetts, California and even Mexico.

"The response was so overwhelming that we had to expand the festival and run concurrent sessions," Vander said.

"The papers needed to present a new way of looking at black cinema, but they also had to be academically sound," she added. "It wasn't just getting people together to talk about film but to talk about blacks in cinema honestly and intellectually."

Rather than tracing the history of black representation in cinema chronologically, the committee decided to weave together seemingly disparate topics. In this way themes are constantly revisited and re-evaluated.

"The discussions will definitely make significant contributions to the discourse on blacks and blacks in cinema," Vander said.

"I'm really proud of what we've accomplished, and I'm really looking forward to the films."

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.