Ten Films You Should See If You Love Black People
2008-04-03
By Jacquie Jones
I am one of the few people in the black world, it seems, who actually does not think Spike Lee’s debut film, She’s Gotta Have It, is essential viewing in this category. It is not as over-hyped as Melvin Van People’s Sweet Sweetback’s Badasss Song, but, let’s say, it’s got issues, in my opinion, that are not explained away by the youth of the filmmaker. That notwithstanding, I’m a big Spike Lee fan and could recommend a few titles for those of you who are too young to have been forced by your black nationalist friends to see these movies when they first appeared – Malcolm X and Four Little Girls, especially – but start with Do the Right Thing. In it, you will get a taste of Spike’s brilliant palate and his unmistakable love of black people, his virtuosity really. (For an even more in-depth look at this film and its moment, also see St. Claire Bourne’s “Making Do the Right Thing.”)
Flag Wars
Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras
During the making of this film, the two directors – one black and one not – lived in a community in Columbus, Ohio as it underwent the radical transformation known as “gentrification,” and it shows. This is not a film of easy answers. Flag Wars instead forces us to consider what it means to really get a sweet real estate deal. Yet, as black homeowners fight to hold onto their homes as white gay “pioneers” circle around them, we also learn that no one is innocent here. If you are currently or have ever lived in a community that is in the path of gentrification, you need to see this film.
When this film debuted on public television in 1986, it was, depending on your perspective, either the highest or the lowest moment for PBS –before or since. An experimental, layered meditation on the identity of black gay men at precisely the moment that it was beginning to dawn on the world what a serious thing the AIDS pandemic was going to be, it forever drove supporters of black independent visions in public media into two camps – those that truly believe in the ideals of a free and unfettered forum for creative self-expression and those who don’t. Poetic, loving and powerful, it is very simply a masterpiece. If you are straight, you will wish someone would make a film like this about your experience! At least I know I do.
