L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema

483 Pages·2015·59.362 MB·English

by  Allyson Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, Jacqueline Najuma Stewart

L.A. Rebellion
Creating a New Black Cinema
EDITED BY
Allyson Nadia Field,
Jan-Christopher Horak,
and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
L.A. Rebellion
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L.A. Rebellion
Creating a New Black Cinema
EDITED BY
Allyson Nadia Field,
Jan-Christopher Horak,
and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most
distinguished university presses in the United States,
enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship
in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation
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and institutions. For more information, visit www
.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2015 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
L.A. Rebellion : creating a new black cinema / edited by
Allyson Nadia Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, and
Jacqueline Najuma Stewart.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-28467-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-520-28468-5 (pbl. : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-520-96043-5 (ebook)
1. African American motion picture producers and
directors—California—Los Angeles—History—20th
century. 2. Independent fi lmmakers—California—Los
Angeles—History—20th century. 3. Independent
fi lms—California—Los Angeles—History—20th
century. 4. Experimental fi lms—California—Los
Angeles—History—20th century. I. Field, Allyson
Nadia, 1976–editor. II. Horak, Jan-Christopher,
editor. III. Stewart, Jacqueline Najuma, 1970–editor.
pn1995.9.n4l24 2015
791.43089′96073—dc23
2015016337
Manufactured in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r 2002)
(Permanence of Paper).
For Elyseo Taylor and Teshome Gabriel
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Contents
Preface: Once upon a Time in the West . . . L.A. Rebellion
Clyde Taylor ix
Acknowledgements xxv
Introduction: Emancipating the Image—The L.A. Rebellion
of Black Filmmakers
Allyson Nadia Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, and
Jacqueline Najuma Stewart 1
PART ONE. CRITICAL ESSAYS 55
1 Threads and Nets: The L.A. Rebellion in Retrospect
and in Motion
Chuck Kleinhans 57
2 Rebellious Unlearning: UCLA Project One Films
(1967–1978)
Allyson Nadia Field 83
3 Tough Enough: Blaxploitation and the L.A. Rebellion
Jan-Christopher Horak 119
4 Anticipations of the Rebellion: Black Music and
Politics in Some Earlier Cinemas
David E. James 156
5 Re/soundings: Music and the Political Goals
of the L.A. Rebellion
Morgan Woolsey 171
6 Struggles for the Sign in the Black Atlantic: Los Angeles
Collective of Black Filmmakers
Michael T. Martin 196
7 Bruising Moments: Aff ect and the L.A. Rebellion
Samantha N. Sheppard 225
8 The L.A. Rebellion Plays Itself
Jacqueline Najuma Stewart 251
9 Encountering the Rebellion: liquid blackness Refl ects on
the Expansive Possibilities of the L.A. Rebellion Films
Alessandra Raengo 291
PART TWO. L.A. REBELLION ORAL HISTORIES 319
10 L.A. Rebellion Oral Histories 321
Filmography 355
Selected Bibliography 403
List of Contributors 427
Index 431
PREFACE
Once upon a Time in the West . . .
L.A. Rebellion
CLYDE TAYLOR
I’m not a fan of the Big Bang theory where, in one version, the universe
explodes from a subatomic particle, much smaller than a pinpoint. But
the image of the Big Bang in reverse does capture me, with Total Every-
thing spinning in a whirlwind back to this one infi nitesimal spark. In
this memory capsule, I want to follow some threads in rewind to cap-
ture partial, personal glimpses of the L.A. Rebellion, hoping to focus
some particulars of the cultural scenes it swam in and also highlight
some threads that its energy small-banged into the cultural fi rmament.
A good place to start is the African Film Society. One day in the mid-
1970s, VèVè Clark, my brilliant friend and colleague in UC Berkeley’s
Black Studies Department, called me (and eighty others, she said) and
said don’t miss the fi lm playing that night at the Pacifi c Film Archive,
UC Berkeley’s articulate cinematheque. The fi lm was Haile Gerima’s
Harvest: 3,000 Years (1976), a world-class masterpiece easily placed
between Chaplin and Kurosawa. I was blown away, as any great fi lm
can do to you. But who made this fi lm? Out of what matrix? An Ethio-
pian? Before I reached the aisle to exit, I was plotting to know more.
Each step down the stadium staircase brought another thought. There
must be an association that promotes such fi lms. At the time, I didn’t
know three African fi lms, but if more existed, I was going to fi nd and
support them. There must be some African fi lm society somewhere. By
the third step, my conclusion was fi xed: if there isn’t, I’m going to start
one.
ix