It's Black History Month, so I figured I'd use this comically small platform of mine to do my part and discuss important issues that very much need discussing. Last year I did a Black History Month post on the Top 10 movies that resonate with the month's themes, and this year I'm doing a post that definitely has some overlap but isn't the same: the Top 10 movies by Black directors. Any and all feature films are eligible, meaning that the story doesn't have to be about certain themes (although they still happen to be so, 10 times out of 10 - Black filmmakers have a knack for making fantastic societally critical movies). The point of this list is to specifically highlight the historically overlooked work of African-American filmmakers. I hope you enjoy, and I urge all of us to do all we can to make the world a better place and get rid of the many, many racist aspects of society that are still all too evident in this world of ours.
Here are my honorable mentions: 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002), Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015), Marshall (Reginald Hudlin, 2017), Mo' Better Blues (Spike Lee, 1990), Us (Jordan Peele, 2019).
10. The Butler (Lee Daniels)
"America has always turned a blind eye to what we done to our own. We look out to the world and judge. We hear about the concentration camps, but these camps went on for two hundred years right here in America"
Inspired by - although not exactly based on - a similar true story, Lee Daniels' The Butler tells the story of an African-American White House butler who serves for decades, under the total of eight different presidents. Forest Whitaker plays the main role brilliantly, and the film's setting makes for a unique look at how views and attitudes on race and racism have shifted in the U.S. over the years, as we see the titular butler interacting with presidents from Eisenhower onward and discussing major events and developments with them.
The film is especially gripping for focusing on historical and still relevant divides within the Black community, concerning whether or not protesting against racism is always considered "worth it" when taking the tragic and unfortunate risks into account. It is inspiring to follow the main character's son getting into activism and becoming an anti-Vietnam rebel, but the viewer can also relate to the father's strict stance against his son's activism due to very real fear that it might get him killed by the KKK or the police. In the end, viewers like myself realize that more than anything, the film's lesson isn't "Black people should do this" or "Black people should do that", but more along the lines of "Us white people created this racist mess of a society and that needs to be changed by all of us".
9. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
"I don't want to survive. I want to live"
Many historians have estimated that this Best Picture winner was the first movie, at least of the big-budget mainstream Hollywood drama kind, to portray the sheer brutality of American slavery with complete realism and honesty. It is very messed up that it took so long to make such a film, but better late than never, I suppose. 12 Years a Slave is one of the most gripping, hard-to-watch films I've ever seen, made all the more horrible when considering how accurate it is in depicting what life was like for African-Americans in that time.
Films like this are important as hell, because the media we consume plays a big part in how we see our history, and the romanticizing and whitewashing of that era has had a role in why many Americans still don't understand the era of slavery and the Civil War properly. There should be a rule that if you want to watch Gone With the Wind, you're allowed to watch it and enjoy it as the cinematic masterpiece it is, only if you also watch 12 Years a Slave and comprehend that one takes place in make-believe land and the other in a real historical era.
8. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)
Wait a sec, this can't be right. Damien Chazelle isn't Black! Oh, looks like I was handed the wrong envelope again. Can't believe this keeps happening.
Anyways, for the real #8...
8. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
"At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gonna be. Can't let nobody make that decision for you"
Moonlight is a Best Picture winner about the struggles of a gay Black man growing up in a poor neighborhood. The polarizing film resonated with people who have struggled with both their racial and sexual identities and whose story hadn't been told before, while prompting a ton of bubble-living white guys to go haywire with their "This guy is gay and black?? That's not realistic, Hollywood is really trying too hard" shtick. Must have confused the hell out of writer and director Barry Jenkins, who simply wanted to tell his semi-biographical story.
While the coming-of-age of main character Chiron (played at different ages by Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes) is illuminating, the show is stolen by Mahershala Ali's Oscar-winning supporting performance as complex mentor figure Juan. Moonlight is a gripping and eye-opening film, as it has a lot to say about sexual identity as well as race.
7. Selma (Ava DuVernay)
"Who murdered Jimmie Lee Jackson? Every white lawman who abuses the law to terrorize. Every white politician who feeds on prejudice and hatred. Every white preacher who preaches the Bible and stays silent before his white congregation"
On one hand, Selma is a depressing film to watch. When watching the scenes of police officers using excessive force on Black peaceful protesters, one can't help but question why so little has changed in over 50 years. Yes, progress has been made, but as long as innocent lives keep constantly being in danger, it's clear that there's still a long way to go.
But still, Selma manages to be an overall triumphant viewing experience. The message of Martin Luther King Jr., played here by David Oyelowo, comes across with astonishing strength. For anyone with a passion for activism and civil rights, it is immensely powerful to follow this true-to-facts account of King, fellow activists like John Lewis, and thousands of people inspired by them, protesting for change and equality in a time of severe racial injustice.
6. Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
"Wakanda will no longer watch from the shadows. We can not. We must not. We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separate us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers"
It's not every day that a superhero flick wins three Academy Awards. But I'm glad that Ludwig Göransson's epic score, Ruth E. Carter's brilliant costume department and Hannah Beachler & Jay Hart's production design got the recognition they deserved, for their part in creating the immensely vibrant world of Wakanda. In this beautifully created land, we follow what seems to be a Shakespearean tragedy in the context of Marvel, as two brothers from other mothers, with the same goals in mind but different methods due to their very different upbringings, are faced with leading their sides in a dramatic and violent clash.
Michael B. Jordan proves to be the Michael Jordan of people who share a name with Michael Jordan, as he provides a gripping performance as Erik Killmonger, one of Marvel's best villains. And, of course, the main hero T'Challa / Black Panther is brought to life by the one and only Chadwick Boseman, a truly inspiring figure both on and off the screen, who was taken from us too soon. While Boseman made a career out of playing iconic figures from Thurgood Marshall and Jackie Robinson to James Brown, his most lasting cinematic legacy will likely be the role of T'Challa, and the tremendously empowering effect that the role, the film around it and the feeling of representation that came with it caused for so many people of color around the world.
5. Malcolm X (Spike Lee)
"We didn't see any democracy in the cotton fields of Georgia - wasn't no democracy down there. We didn't see any democracy. We didn't see any democracy on the streets of Harlem or on the streets of Brooklyn or on the streets of Detroit or Chicago. Ain't no democracy down there"
Many walk into Malcolm X while having mixed views on the controversial civil rights leader. Most likely, once the film is over and the credits start to roll, they'll still have mixed views, but with a lot more context to back these views up. Spike Lee always was one for nuances, so this biopic of a real-life antihero doesn't make the mistake of painting Malcolm X as overly good or overly bad: it showcases his greatest moments and words of wisdom, while also not shying away from his shortcomings and questionable stances. It's an illuminating, 3-hour-22-minute look at one hell of a complex person, and the ways in which his culture shaped him and he shaped his culture.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that Denzel Washington provides one of the very greatest acting performances in cinematic history in this film - it says something that the Oscar for Best Leading Actor that year went to the absolutely brilliant Al Pacino performance in Scent of a Woman, yet I still 100 per cent believe that Washington was robbed. Between his powerful performance and Lee's one-of-a-kind directing, Malcolm X is one of the deepest, most layered biopics out there, and simply one of the best.
4. Get Out (Jordan Peele)
"How you find me?"
"I'm TS-motherfuckin'-A. We handle shit"
I've discussed Jordan Peele's magnificent debut film many times in my blog, and each time I make the same point because I simply find it so fascinating. The point in question is that Get Out is a combination of three elements that you would never imagine to work together until you see it for yourself. The elements in question are creepy and well-built horror, entertaining comedy, and razor-sharp societal criticism.
One is bound to get cynical that at least one of these three building blocks would be muddled by a film trying to juggle all three: either the horror isn't all that scary and genuine at the expense of all the comedy and politics, or then the comedy would feel forced and out of place at the expense of the horror and the politics, or at the very least the politics would feel preachy and simplistic at the expense of the horror and the comedy. But none of this happens, leading to a unique film that truly creeps you out, makes you laugh, and takes some brilliant nuanced jabs at the racism in our society. It's not every day that a horror film wins the Oscar for Best Screenwriting, but in this case, the historic win was beyond well-deserved.
3. BlacKKKlansman (Spike Lee)
"America first. America first. America first. America first"
Fun fact: the quote above isn't from a scene that takes place in a Donald Trump rally, but rather from a historic account of a Ku Klux Klan meeting in the 1970's. Yes, I know, I also have trouble keeping those two apart.
When writing this blog, I considered using the Viitanen method and only including one film for each director, so that my list wouldn't be filled to the brim with Spike Lee and it would be a celebration of as many different Black directors as possible. However, in the end I decided to allow multiple films by the same director - there still was room to discuss the works of several different filmmakers on this list, and if you're really such an incredible director that more than one of your films makes such a top 10, your body of work deserves to be celebrated. Not to take away from the multitude of other fantastic Black filmmakers out there, I figured that Spike Lee is such a legend among Black filmmakers that including a few of his films was the right thing to do (pun intended) - kind of how a list of the 10 greatest classical compositions might have two different Bach works, and that doesn't discredit all the other classical composers. It just means that Bach was a f**king wizard. And so is Spike Lee.
Anyways, BlacKKKlansman is the true story of a Black detective who infiltrates the KKK in the 70's, so needless to say, it's an amazing piece of cinema.
2. 13th (Ava DuVernay)
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities, we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did"
In case you're wondering, that quote is by John Ehrlichman, a former high-ranking advisor of the Nixon administration. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. With brilliant directing by Ava DuVernay, this Netflix documentary takes the viewer down the rabbit hole of just how deeply racism runs in the veins of American society. 13th takes in-depth historical looks from slavery and the confederacy, Jim Crowe and segregation, and Nixon's war on drugs (read: "war on Black people") all the way to modern instances of police brutality and the gaping flaws in our justice system.
Clear lines are drawn connecting the horrifying acts from our past to the forms of injustice we face today, raising questions like "Why didn't they teach about this in our fairytale history class?" and causing realizations like "Oh, that's why Republicans want to censor American history and replace it with their own bedtime story". If institutional racism is a concept you find difficult to understand, watching this factual and eye-opening documentary is one of the most efficient ways to begin or further your learning process.
1. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)
"Yo! Hold up! Time out! TIME OUT! Y'all take a chill! Ya need to cool that shit out! And that's the double truth, Ruth!"
There's something inherently funny about the fact that Spike Lee has made films about Blackface, the KKK, the Vietnam War and Malcolm X, yet his single most powerful film, one that arguably says more about race in a more genius and nuanced way than any other of his joints, is the comedy about a very hot day in a Brooklyn neighborhood.
As we follow the events of this day, on a colorful and multi-cultural street, we are simultaneously exposed to the beauty and richness of multiculturalism, and the gripping effect that racism and racial tensions have on society. As the day gets hotter and hotter, making things unbearable for the many fantastic characters of the film, the tensions between the street's Italian-American, Latin American, African-American and Asian-American communities start to simmer in an unfortunate and heartbreaking way.
While Do The Right Thing has an abundance of funny and delightful moments, it is at heart a scathing criticism of humanity's tendency to let race divide us. The crowded Brooklyn street the film takes place on is in many ways a microcosm of the whole world, and the questions raised by the film's ending are questions we all should consider. Do The Right Thing is one of the best films ever made, and extremely appropriate viewing for Black History Month or any other time of year.
Thank you for reading! Next week's post will be another one on Black History Month, this time looking at 10 relevant television episodes concerning Black history.
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