film Q&As

Figure 1. Julie Dash and Charles Burnett at the Pan African Film Festival. 2008 (Photo by Frances- Anne Solomon, 2008).

"I Do Exist": From "Black Insurgent" to Negotiating the Hollywood Divide- A Conversation with Julie Dash

¿ by MICHAEL T. MARTIN CO ' '

^ Abstract: This extended conversation with Julie Dash concerns her work as a filmmaker

£ and projects in development since the release of her masterwork, Daughters of the Dust

i (1992). It examines Dash's film practice and ambivalent relationship to Hollywood, along

^ with her take on black independent filmmaking from the 1950s to the present and its

I prospects during Spike Lee's ascendancy.

Miehiul T Marün is director of the Black Ftbn CenUr/ArcMif imdproßssor of Afücrn Amencan anä.Afhcan Diaspara

Stmäis ai Indiana Unu'frsity, Bloomingím. His edited and cotét^ anlholegies imlutü Redress for Historical Injus-

tices in the United States: Slavcrj-Jini Crow, and Their Legacies (DuJu I'nivmitr B^s, 2007). Cinemas of

tbe Black Diaspora: Diversity; Dependence, and OppositioniiLry (Wayne Sidle IJmvmit« Press, 1995), and

New I^tin Ameriran C^inenia (IVímn Stair Universily Presi 1997). Ht also directed and u>prodiM¿ Ute awará-

umningfiíüim doaonmUny m .Vteatagua, In ihe . ^ s e n c c of Peace (1989). His most recent u.wk is on the films of

G^ fíjtUtconio and Hailt Gerima.

www.cm5tudies.org 49 No. 2 Winter 2010 1

Cinema Journal49 ; No. 2 I Winter 2010

[Julie Dash] consistently intervenes in and redirects Hollywood images of African Ameri- can women, offering aesthetically complex and compelling chajacters and returning to spe- cific historical moments to recover and revalue the nuances of black ivomen's lives and professional contributions. Joanna Hearne, 2007'

A raconteur of extraordinary' discernment and vision, Julie Dash was born and reared in the Queensbridge Projects of Long Island City. New York, alihtiugh lier parents came from South Carolina, where on her father's side of the family the Gullah culture wa.s practiced. In 1968, durinji her senior year in high school,

she attended a film workshop ai the Studio Museum in Harlem, which amused her interest in filnmiaking. in 1974. she earned a BA in film production at the City College of New York., then moved to Los Angeles to find work and learn to writt? screenplays. There she met and worked with Charles Burneti. Billy WfW)dbenT, ajid Haue Gerima. In 1975, she became a producing and writing fellow at the American Film Institute, and in 1986, she completed an NÍFA in motion picture and television production at the University ol California-Los Angeles fUCL,'\).

It was during the UCLA period that Dash's filmmaking and political concerns co- alesced to contest Hollywood's conventions of storytelling, a.s well as its complicit}' in American racism. Dash became p a n oí' a "study'" group of" black student film- makers at UCLA, dubbed the "black insurgents" by Toni Cade Bambara (a.k.a. the "Los Angeles School" or "LA Rebellion"). The group. a.ssert.s Bambara. "engaged in interrogafing conventions of dominant cinema, screening films of socially conscious cinema, and discussing ways to alter previous significations as they relate to Black people."^

T h e intellectual and cultural commitments of the first wave of thi.s group were "inseparable from the political and social struggles and convulsions of the 1960s," contends Ntongela Masilela.^ In contrast to Hollywood, members of the group en- gaged and were inspired by the writings of Third World theorisis, the cultural texts and practices of the Black Arts Movement, and the anticolonial and postrevolutionary films and political tracts of the New Latin American Cinema movement. Tiie group's project was to conceive and practice a film form appropriate to and in correspondence with the historical moment and their cukural and aesthetic concerns. For Masilela, a central preoccupation and organizing theme of the first cohort of what arguably con- stituted a movement—comprising Charles Burnett, Haue Gerima, and Larry Clark among others—was the "relationship of history^ to the structure of the family."^ This

1 Joanna Hearne. "Julie Dasii," in Schirmet Encyclopedis of Film. su. Barry Keith Grant (Detroit, Ml: Schirmer Référ-

ence, 2007), 376.

2 Toni Cade Sambara, "Reading the Signs, Empowering the Eye: Daughters of the Dustanü the Black Cinematic Mowe-

nient." in Black Cinema, ed. Uanthia Diawara (New York; RouUedge. 1993!, 119. According to Ntongela Masilela.

Dash was among the "second wave" m this movement, which included Alrle Sharon Larkin. Bemard Nichols, and

Billy WOodberry. See Ntongela Masilela, "Tbe Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers." m ibid.. 107.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 1 1 1 . Note that Charles Burnett's films, Killer of Sheep 11977). My Brothers Wedding il'SSS). 77» Worse

(1973), Serera/Frtencfe (1969). and m i e / i / f f f a / / i 5 ( 1 9 9 5 ) , were released in a box set by Milestone Filnfis (20071.

Cinema Journal 49 No. 2 Winter 2010

theme is perhaps best epitomized by Burnett's neoreaüst take on urban ghetto black working-class life in Killer of Sheep (1977) and, I would argue, b>' Michael Roemer's NolMng but a Mart (1964), a seminal study of black family life and race relations in the rural South in the late 1950s to mid-1960s. Dash, a member of tiie gniup's second wave, along with Billy Woodberry [Bless Thár UttU Hearts, 1984), would address this famiha] theme, as well as the southern rural black encounter with modernity, in her most original, experimental, and complex film, Daughters of iJie Dust (1992).

Dash's eariy films reveal the originality of her artistry and the themes that would inform her more mature work. For Diary of an Afriiati Nun fl977), adapted fnim a short story by Alice Walker and shot on Super iJmm, Dash received a Director's Guild of America Award. In 1982, she made Illusions, the stor>- of two African American women—one passing for white—in the Hollywood film industry' during World War 11, for wliich she later received a Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Award. With her criti- cally acclaimed grand opus, Daughters of the Dust—selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry in 2004, and the first feature film by an African Ameri- can woman to have a national theatrical release—Dash is assured membership in the pantheon of African American filmmakers.

Despite the critical success of Daughters of the Dust, Dash continues lo experience resistance in Hollywood to financing her projects. In ihe mid-1990s, she migrated to television, directing projects for CBS [The Rosa Parks Story, starring Angela Bassett, 2002), M T V [Uve Song, 2001), BET Mmies/Encore/Starz3 [Fumiv Wlmänes, 1998), and HBO [Subway Stories, 1996). She also produced shorts about health issues and mu- sic videos, including Tracy Chapman's Give Me One Reason, which was nominated tor an M T V Music Video Award in 1996. In 2004. she completed Brothers of the Borderland, a short film scheduled to run tor tour years at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Mtjscum in Ohio.

This extended interview with Dash occurred on two occasions: during her visit to the Indianapolis Museum of An on October 29, 2006, where Daughters of the Dust was screened as part of the musetmi's "Film with Ardst Talk Program," and at Indiana Llniversity-Bloomingion on October 3^4, 2007, when Dash gave the kcy- nole address, "My Narrative; Experiences of a Filmmaker," and screened her film The Rosa Parks Story as part of a month-long celebration of the university's archives and special collections. The interview is organized in two parts. T h e first concerns Dash's work since Daughter of the Dust, including her current projects in develop- ment; the second, her film practice, the prohibitions of Hollywood and attitudes of executives that constrain black filmmakers' creative impulse and "magic," and her views about Spike Lee and black independent filmmaking from the 1960s to the present.

On the Margins of Hollywood

M M : Reiiewing your Web site, I touk note thai you've worked on productions for CBS. MTV,

BET Movie^/Encore/StarzS, and HBO. Together, tliey substantiate your increasing presence and

prominence in Hollywood. Apart fiom exceptional artistry and professionalism, how do you account

for your success?

Cinema Journal 49 No. 2 Winter 2010

J D : I sec myself working in and outside of" Hollywood. Hollywood is still not quile open to what 1 have to offer. Angela Bassett was one of the executive producers of Tke Rosa Parks Story. She said, "I want Julie Dash to direct this film and to do some rewrit- ing of the script." So it happened. The same thing occurred with Funny Valentines. 1 di- rected il because Alfre Woodard was one of the executive producers. She said, "I want Julie Dash on this." It's people like Bassett and Woodai-d who have helped me because Hollywood is still slow about hiring me to direct and write. They're curious, however, and like lo keep up with me. I can have lunch with anyone and visit with executives, but they have not hired me. Some were put off by Daughters of ifie Dust because they did not understand it, although people in the .\irican American community seem to have an affinity for it. In fact, they [executives] rarely want to talk about Daughters. Once I was at Universal Studios preparing to do Funny Valentines and a producer said, 'Just don'i do Daughters of the Dust." He actually said thai. Another Hollywood executi\'C said, "I've seen your movie—Daughters of the DILÜ. Let's not even talk about it, let's move on from here." You know, it's like having a skeleton in your closet, it's like we won't lalk about thai. It's interesting, and 1 would like someone to tell me what it means.

M M : Given the demands of executives and tiieformtdmc conventions of HoltywoodJare, haneym

Imd to compromise your vision and artislry?

J D : I love making movies. I'm a filmmaker. I've been a filmmaker for a very long time. I know how to come at it from different angles. I will always maintain the integrity of the subject matter whatever I'm doing. I could do a music video, a very intellectual or highbrow porno film if I chose to. In production, I fight very hard to keep historical events and issues accurate. It's important to me because I don't really enjoy films that aren't multi-layered, that don't resonate, or are inaccurate. Of course, you can take dramatic license and stretch things to make them more interesting. AH filmmakers do that. But I will not manipulate certain things that have to do with my culture to please someone else. lVe been asked to do that and I have refused. Perhaps I'm seen as dif- ficult. 1 see it as being true to myself.

What's needed is financing from outside sources. From venture capitalists and private funds. j\& a people, we must finance the films we want to see. These kinds of changes have already begun with Tyler Perry, from people in the music industry, and with actors like V\ll! Smith producing the successful film 77ie Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino, 2006), and now with Danny Glover—cofounder of Louverture Films-—who is producing and directing the film Toussaint (2009).

New and Unrealized Scripts

M M : Lei's talk about your projects in development. Digital Diva was ori^nally intendedjbr CD-

ROM. I'Vkat's it about and when do you expect to complete it?

J D : I've worked so long on Digital Diva thai it would now have to be a DVD. I went from a screenplay lo graphic novel and to pile hing the screenplay lo every major stu- dio, mini-studio, independent, black-owned, what-havT-you. They declined it.

Digital Diva is about a yoting black woman who is a third-generation computer en- cryption specialist. She's the digital diva. Her grandfather was a mathematical genius

Cinema Journal 49 I No. 2 Winter 2010

who worked for tlie Allies during World War II. And her father, a Carnegie Mellon

Fellow, was a Black Panther. I heard that during World War IJ they had Nigerians working in tlie Black Tower,

which was a secret code-breaking site in Washington., DC. Why would they have Nigerians? Perhaps because the Igbo language is very difficult? I researched and found out that, while they acknowledged having employed chess masters, gypsies, and gamblers to break the codes, they omitted the Nigerians [from the official record]. So, I mixed this all together in the narrative. I put some Nigerians at Oxford—one of whom is ihe grandfather in thr siory—and had Lhem go through the .Man Turing thing at Bletchley Park and then with the yMlies in Washington, DC. Twenty years later, his son, a Black Panther allied with SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] and the Weathermen, is killed because he has become a very dangerous person. His daughter, the digital diva, is opposed to black militancy because she lost the father she never knew.

MM: There are aspects of Digital Diva thai resonate uiih The Spook Who Sat by the Dtwr (Ivan Dvcon, 1973), w/ach was adapted tofilmßom the novel by Sam Greenlee.

J D : Absolutely. .\nd the novel The Man PfTt« Cñed I Am (1967) by John A. Williams. I read it in high school and thought it was really good. Why hasn't the novel been made into a film? Time is running out to make Distal Diva because I have to tell the story within these time locks. 1 have not been able to get it financed.

In 1994, J was asked, "Don't you Uiink it's a little confusing^'" It's been picked up several times as an option by several .sources who always want to make it something other than what it is. You biow, there was one black company that said, "Why don't you make it an AIDS iilm?" Then there was another that said, "Well why don't yoti make it a white film?"

M M : It's not about that

J D : Right! We already have that. What's new? It's not just Julie Dash who has trouble getting films iinanced. It's also Charles Burnett and Neema Barnette and many, many otliers—including white filmmakers with a ditVerent voice. Everyone who works in the industry is working on this narrow channel. The Rosa Parks Story was made after fifty years had passed, and then they didn't want to tell it correcdy. They said. "Add this lo make her more likeable, do this, change that." No, while black filmmakers have progressed, we have a long way lo go. Films are being made but they tend to be comedies.

M M : Negroes in Hollywood?

]D: Negroes in Hollywood. They now watit buddy films. Ï don't know how to say it nicely; it's not about us. It's a ver\̂ difficult situation, bul it appears not to be so because now we're seeing more black romande comedies, which is wonderful. They're very re- laxing, but who's deciding on which films will be made and which will nol? Wliat kinds of films are being made and why? Who is the audience? Are we still just performing for white audiences? Are we being funny, are we dancing, are we singing, or are we now the love interest?

Cinema Journal 49 [ No. 2 | Winter 2010

MM: At what stage of development M The Colored Conjurers.^

J D : Same situation.

M M : / / .sounds like a story thai revisits the theme of passing inyour earlier film Illusions, which I

recall is a semiautobiographicai work based onyour aunt Delphine?

J D : The Colored Conjurers is a period piece. FOT years, I've been told that period pieces don't sell, especially period pieces about African Americans. Recently; there's been nothing but period pieces irom Hollywood. Jt's like approaching die Wiz in The lVÍ4:ard o/" O^ (Victor Fleming, 1939). T h e wizard: "Oh, today we're not doing this, today we're doinf̂ the other. Today the color is green, tomorrow blue'" T h e rules change by the day and sonietime.s by tbe hour. The same companies have told me that they cannot do a period film and, before I hit the door, there's a period film being made. These companies claim the demographics show that they cannot afTord to do films with a female lead. They can't do films about magicians because they can't sell them, then The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006) is released. T h e problem i.-i tliat African American films are only allowed to be "this" or "that," depending upon when they need "this" or "that." There's not much variety. Wiiat'.s un my mind is not what's being produced or financed at the moment. And that's been going on for fifteen years now.

M M : E n e m y of the S u n , another work in development, exemplifies the range of your interests

and appears to have more general appeal and commercial ambitions than T h e C o l o r e d C o n j u r -

ers. This is suggested in the description on jour Heb site: 'A sophisticated and sexy siLipense thñlier

reminiscent of Entrapment (1999), Body Heat (I98IJ, and T h e Thomas Crown Affair (1968, 1999). "

J D : ^\ very well-known producer flew me to New York to talk about doing Enemy of the Sun. His development person, who also had TTie Colored Conjurers screenplay and Digital Diva script, said she didn't know any African Americans like that. I replied, "Well, where arc you from?" She said from the Midwest and that was not her experience with African Americans. I said, "You could go to Atlanta or DC, we come in all colors, all shades, and we do many different things." I hate to say this but "they"—the people in development—^have a very myopic view of who we are and what we are and what wf want to do. If we don't fall into place exacdy where and how tbey imagine us, as in Daughters of Ihe Dust, it's like "What do you mean Gullah, I never heard of Gullab!" I've had people ask me why I didn't do a documentar) about the Gullah before doing Daughters. Why do I have to do a documentary first? Some people insisted that Daughters is a documentary. It's strange. Or they'll say things like, "Was there a script?" No, we just met e\'ery morning at sunrise, and ever>'one knew exactly what to wear and what we were goijig to be performing that day. [I..^ughs] It's unbelievable. Tbey think it all fell together, but if it all falls together and works but is something they don't know about, then they want you to "put that away and let me focus on what I know about you." It's very patronizing, but ver\' interesting. If I were to do a remake of another film, maybe they'd be more interested? You know, just take a white movie and remake it with black characters.

MM: What's Enemy of the Sun about?

Cinema Journal 49 I No. 2 , Winter 2010

J D : It's about two con artists who travel around the US getting very wealthy women to give ihem their money And when they hit Atlanta, one of them decides that they could continue iheir scams legally by becoming entrepreneurs and working within ihe system. T h e other argues, "We've got to stay on tlie run." So, the story addresses the pull and tension between them.

\ L M : The other project in development, T h e R e a d e r . . .

J D : That's a remake of La Lectrice ( 1988) by Miehel Deville and based on the Raymond Jean novel of the same title.

M M : T l i e R e a d e r .fiam,i' more grounded in black life and Ihe challenges and compromises of

an artist. The protagonist, Denise LaMarge, has Uierary interests, along with extraordinary musical

compéleme. She's jugging the evetydtry as well as tfie personal, while stripling to make career ded-

sions thai workfor fier. BetzLven these demands and roles is a complex identity. Tlie close of tfießbn

(Act 3) visualizes a montage of and homage to cultural hyhridit)í What ú it you want to convey in

Ad 3?

J D : That you can be a commercial success and maintain the integrity of your art or, in her case, performance skill, because she is a singer. It's also delving into magi- cal realism because we never hear LaMarge sing, when shf does, because her voice is angelic. It's a remake of the French film but with a lot of my own issues because she has a boyfriend who is a filmmaker and who can't get his films made. He loves to watch Russian movies, but all he can do to eam money is make music videos with dancing gíris. And then you have the foreign business people telling LaMarge and her group that they're not really singing like African Americans, that they need to sing like African Americans.

M M : Aßican Americans?

J D : I experienced this direcdy. It was a foreign distributor who said Daughters of the Dust wasn't an authentic African American film. It wasn't, like, from the hood, which is in- teresting to me, having grown up in the huod. Ironiciilly, those filmm;ikers who make ihe "hood" films haven't necessarily grown up in the hood. It's exotica to them. I hope to be around when history takes a look back at all of this. I think it's time for some black social scientist to step in and ask some pertinent quesdons.

M M : Given these four distinct projects in development, uào is your aiuHence?

J D ; Anyone looking to see a great story! Everyone looking to experience the talent of and new worlds by Airican American actors.

M M : Has your audience changed asyou 've worked increasingly in Hollywood?

J D : I think my audience has increased.

M M : But not changed?

J D : With all of the new films being written and directed by African .American film- makers, including dynamic documentaries like Rize (David LaChapelle, 2005), otir audiences are growing, and the demographics are changing.

Cinema Journal 49 No. 2 I Wrtitef2010

Practice and Thematic Concerns

M M : I umdd Hke to focus now on your practice as a filmmaker. Which do you prefer, narrctíivefiction

or documentary?

J D : I prefer narratives to documentaries because of my mother. She'd come home from work and I'd say, "Would you come downtown? There's going to be a film show- ing that wo made." She'd reply, "Is it a documentary?" And I'd say, '"Yeah." "Oh, fll see it later," she'd reply. So.. I never forgot that. She was tired and wanted to see a movie. [Laughs]

M M : So the choice of fiction over documentaiy was to please your mother?

J D : Yes. You never tbrgct something like that: "I'll see il later. Bring your (ape home." Il was jusi like "Til see it later becau.se I'm not getting up out of this bed to go down the street to see a documentary" She wanted to see a story. She wanted a beginning, a middle, and an end.

M M : What's your method of ruirratíve filmmcüáng?

J D : I try ditierent things. Each film has its own history and personality: T h e narrative depends on the stor): The stor)' tells me how I'm g<}ing to lell it, what it's going to be. When 1 wrote Digital Dina I didn't set out lo do a suspense tliriller, but it became one. When yuu're writing you hone the script and then tweak it to fall within the genre be- cause you know there are certain points—post points—that you want to hit once you find out it's a suspense thriller. Maybe I shouldn't be saying this. Maybe I should say, "I set out to writf . . . " No, for Digital Diva. 1 ¡ust wanted to write a slor)' about ctxies and ciphers, evoking W. E. B. DuBols's "double consciousness" and black people speaking and moving in coded ways. Transfer that, the same aesthetic and sensibility, to math- ematics, and you have something really marvelous going on.

M M : Do your films refiect a partindar aesthetic style or sensibility that distinguishes them from other

black filmmakers, particularly other black uwnen filmmakers?

J D : I think so. I think that it's closer to Euzhan Palcy's work than anyone else's.

MM: Palcy 's early and most original work—Sugar Cane Alley (Rue cases nègres, 1983)?

J D : Yeah, that one. When you're directing, it's all about choices—a thousand choices. Every day you have what cürectors call the "fottr hundred questions" posed to you by different departments that you have to answer. You also hiwe lo pian ahead how you're going to address those questions when they come up. Otherwise, you just go "hmmm" and easily acquiesce to a Eurocentric point of view. You have what we call the "locus of creativity'" people artnmd. questioning you: "Why did you pul the ramera here?" or "Well, the camera's silting right over there, so why don't you move it over there?" And you sa)', "No, I'm not going to move the camera over there." [Laughs]

The thing lo do is be prepared for it. I always return to the black aesthetic. That's how 1 sort out and resolve my pn>bleins—from a black aesthetic and from a woman's aesthetic point of view.

Cinema Journal 49 i No. 2 Winter 2010

M M : ïbu're not makiitg decisions by committee.

J D : Exactly, although it can easily become thai. A lot of directors work with the actors and not the technicians. My fault is tbat I work more with the technicians than the ac- tors, although I give the actors hisror>' sheets, summations of their character, etc. But there is so much to be done with the technicians, especially if you haven't made the de- cisions in preproduction, for example, of what color the cup is going to be. Otherwise, it becomes everyone else's decision—a niishma.sh of whatever that could be wrong or inappropriate. The director has lo make these decisions.

M M : Among the unten who discuss your work, .several register butßui remark upon the people who

have influenced your mode qf stotytetlmg I'm going to invoke their names and askyou—in a sentence

or two—to explain why or how they influenced you. First, Randy Abbott (a.kcu Omar Mubarak}?

J D : My first film teacher. Through him my first questions about filmmaking were uttered.

M M : Larr^> Clark?

J D : There are two Larry Glarks. There's the white filmmaker Larry Glark and the black one from U G I A .

MM: Vie latter.

J D : Among the reasons I went to UGLA was to work with Larry Clarit, Haile Gerima, and Gharics Burnett. I did my firsl film test witli Larr\' Glark in the se:\'enties.

M M : Haik Gerima?

J D : 1 met him at the \JK Film School. I never worked on any of his films, but I went to a lot of his screenings during the early UGLA days.

M M : Alara Kurosawa?

J D : That's when I realized that you make films fixim within you.

M M : Vittorio De Sica and the Italian neorealists?

J D : Their films reminded me of H a r k m .

M M : Charles Burnett?

J D : He reminds me of the neorealists.

M M : St Clmr Bourne, whomyau liave acknowledged became a model"for you?

J D : I worked for him through work study when 1 was at Ghamba Productions in New York. It was the first summer of my first year in college. I became his slave. He only once took me out on the sel. I had to stay in the office and go to the store. [Laughs]

M M : Paid your dues.

J D : Yes, I did. But I aJso was able to meet the Ghamba brothers: Gharles Hopson, Stan Wakeman, and Stan Lathan, whom Kathleen GoIHns was editing ihr. And, earlier at

Cinema Journal49 , No. 2 Winter 2010

the Studio Museum of Harlem, I met African American female filmmakers who had come before me. I saw Madeline /\nderson's documentaries and Jessie Maple's first feature film {WiU, 1981).^ They were unable to distribute them broadly

M M : Wasn't Stan Latíian with Black J o u r n a l at the time?

JD: Yes. and he was one of the "Chamba brothers." They were working directors.

M M : Making documentams?

J D : Yes.

M M : Has Kathleen Collins mßuencedyam filmmaking?

J D : Kathleen Collins had her editing suite and was editing something for St. Clair Bourne. She would let me come in and watch her edil. She was so eificienl and with a baby in one hand. We became friends and she taught me about editing.

M M : Wliat about the blmk women uniten that influenced you? You said, fifken years ago in an

intemiew unih Houston Baker, that Toni Cade Bamhara irifluencedyour approach to narratii^e.^ Has

'Toni Morrison influenced your approach ta storytelling?

J D : Her writing, whether in Song of Sohmati (1977), Tar Baby (1981), TJie Bluest Eye (1970), or even .ßiÄ?iW( 1987), is so visual that I would talk back to the pages and visual- ize the movie. You sit there crving, pat j-otir eyes with the towel, and pick up the book again. I mean, it's very interactive when reading Toni Morrison because you're en- gaged/ I sometimes reread her novels, especially the Song of Solomon, through the audio book. Someone said to me. "Oh. that could ne\er be made into a film because it's so complex." So I listened to her voice as she read it and was able to visualize the story:

M M : ¡n an interview with Felicia R. Lee in the N e w York T i m e s nearly a decade ago, you .said

thai "I'm tired of seeing films about ourselves as victinu... reacting to external forces.. .. I hate the

urban testosterone films. "^ Would you elaborate on this genre?

J D : I'm getting myself into trouble here. Actually, I suggested that in ///M.nV/n.i [ 1982)— how we're portrayed in films to entertain other people (Figure 2). Less so now because of Spike Lee. But Spike is one person. You want me to elaborate on the testosterone films? Because they've changed; it's romantic comedies now.

M M : What's a testosterone mome?

J D : T h e young "urban male" films made in the 1990s. I can look at these films and say, "well done, bravo,'" but I'm nol a guy. I grew up in the Queensbridge Projects and cotild watch the same thing by looking out die window. 1 did not grow up in a middle- class environment, so I don't see poverty; drag abuse, \iolence, and i.gnorance as being exotic or something worth imitating. I did not sit up al night worrying about Dracula

5 See the Jessie Maple Collection at the Slack Film Center/Archive, Indiana Universily-Bloomington.

6 Houston Baker Jr, "Not Without My Daughters" Transition57 (1992); 1 5 1 .

7 Fof mofe on Dash's thoughts abod! Morrison, see ibid., 151-152.

8 Felicia R. Lee, "Where a Filmmaker's Im^ination To(A Root," New Vort ïïmes, December 3 , 1 9 9 7 .

10

CinemaJoumal49 No.2 I Winter2010

Figure 2. Lonette McKee in Illusions (Julie Dash, 1982).

either, becau.se growing up I knew vampires would not pass 12th Street in Quecnsbridge. To me, a horror movie is watching a stor>' about lam- üies suffering from drugs, poverty, etc. Perhaps that's why I want to sec a lot more when I attend a moue theater or purchase a D\T).

M M : What kind of films doyou want to

see about Aßican Americans?

J D : I want there to be more of ev- ery type of film you can imagine. I want to be able to see us in Middle Earth. We don't get to go beyond certain boundaries. We liave to stay in this country and do this, that, and the other. Maybe we can run around in war a bit, but we're largely por- trayed working that plow, walking the street.-i selling dnigs, or being vic- tims of drugs. I want to fly to the moon. Where's our Lord of the Rings (Peter Jack.son, 2001-2003) trilogy? Where's our JVornia (Andrew Adamson, 2005, 2008)? As a child, we grow up knowing that we can't go there, and if we do, we'll get shot. We can't imagine ourselves running with antelope. We have to be practical. We only get to be young until we're old, and often we're old as very young people- Where's our magic? We're not allowed this magic, this space to explore. How do you grow up to be a lull human being? I didn't have that space wben I was growing up. 1 knew that you couldn't be this, you couldn't be that. So, many of us don't even try. And the result can be disastrous. Today there's more of us to see in mo\ies, but it's largely tbe girlfriend with the turkey neck.

M M : Have your views about Hollywood clianged since lite interview unth Lee?

J D : What did I say then? [Laughs]

M M : ïbu said it was a bad scene.

J D : Let me say this: It's now an even more complex scene than ever before. With the success of Tyler Perry, F. Gar\' Gray, Gina Prince-BKihwood, Will Smith, Tim Story, Mara Brock /Vkil, and Shonda Rhime.s, one wonders why it is still so difficult to con- vince the powers that be that we do, in fact, have an audience. It's a constant fight. You will have to fight for your ground and how you see the wodd, for not only your own mind's eye, but also for your children and their children. We need to be dedicated, witb a concerted and focused effort to demand more balanced images of ourselves out there. People say things have changed. They bave changed, but in many ways they have not.

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Cinema Journal 49 I No. 2 i Winter 2010

M M ; What waiyour e.^erimce transiäoningßom filmmaker to novelist to producer and now to all of

the above? Are there differences and similarities between literary and visual modes of narration?

J D : I think it's easier to be a filmmaker than a novelist. IVc been a filmmaker longer than a novelist. Last summer, I was working on a no\-cl, and I can't express myself through words like I can through images., thnnigh pictures, I'm n(.)t as Huid.

M M : In W h y We M a k e Movies,_>ioii were queried about Forrest Whitaker's direction of Waiting

to E x h a l e (1995). You replied, "I think he did afinejob¡ but it would hme made a big d^rence had

a woman directed it.. .""^ h there a woman's sensibility to filmmaking that is differentfiom a man's?

J D : I think it would have made a difference in the directing and there is a difference of sensibilities between men and women. It's in the tiny specifics. I know it sort of Hows from the top down. You need a strong woman in the producing, writing, directing, as well as editing areas to retain the tiny specifics and integrity of the film. The director now supervises the editing because it's easy to cut something out. A director can shoot something and it'll never make it into the finished film because someone else says, "What is that? We don't need that." It's always "we." or my favorite line . . . , "it goes oH' story, it's off stor)'." But men and women think differently. They want to see diHer- ent things. If you have an all-male team working on a woman's film it will be missing some things. Like music, if it's the beat, the beat is just off, but that doesn't mean tbat men cannot direct women's movies and that women cannot direct men's movies. I'm saying, if it's going to be an all-male team—producer, director, writer, and editor—you better bring in some women to say, "Hey! You missed a beat here."

MM; What wouldyou have changed hadyou dinxted Waiting to Exhale.'

JD: I'm gonna stay out of it.

M M : Regarding the Rosa Parks Story, j ' o u said that you were ^'determined to get a more womanist

vision, a female version of what was going on because it was a very male-centered script.'"^^ WhaCs

a ''momanist vision"?

J D : T h e script I was handed was more about Raymond Parks and his point of \'icw than Rosa Parks. It wa.s not about her. And I think that's why Angela [Bassett] wanted me to massage the script by Paris Qualles—the writer of record. Together, we made the appropriate changes.

M M ; îbu were also especially aitieal of how the meaning of independent film has been appropriated

and co-opted by Hollywood. Regarding companies like Miramax, you said that it's "not independent.

It's not a filmmaker's vision. TJiey're not signature films."^^ H'fiat doyou mean by "signature fibns,"

and are they differentßom auteur films?

J D : A signature film is like an auteur film. It implies the director has control over everything. However, filmmaking is a collaboration, unless the fiUn is some kind of surveillance with one camera.

9 George Alexander, Why We Make Movies (New York: Harlem Moon/Broadway Books, 20031, 236,

10 Ibid.. 2 4 1 ,

11 Ibid., 236.

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Cinema Journal 49 | No. 2 | Winter 2010

MM: li time a Julie Dash stature?

J D : I hope so. I'm working toward one. I think each project develops organically, even if you're handed a script as with the Rosa Paás Story You sit with it and walk the site. You do your own research, which I did and discovered wonderful things like putting additional period buses in the ftim, changing locations to enhance the drama, and sometimes narrowing the foeus of the story beats.

M M : If isaiv any one of your films, is there something about it that would identißiyou as the author?

for example, I think Euzhan Paky's S u g a r C a n e Alley is /ler most original film. Once she migrated

to Hollywood, her unique .-¡tfle was less discernible and apparent, in my vim:

J D : She has made other films that they have not distributed in the US, including a musical. There's a film about a little g r̂l who sees a ghost or is a ghost of a little girl. They did not release it here because tiie>- said. "Il'll confuse people with subtitles." /Vnothcr factor is when you have four hundred questions and lui people with the legal right to tweak a film after >ou ha\e completed it. They own the film and have a right to tweak it, so they say.

M M : You hai>e asserted on seoeralocassions that you "want to see authenlidty'-^''^ What do you metm

by "autiienticity"?

J D : By that, I mean you can feel that it comes out of the filmmaker, out of the commu- nity, out of the issues, out of the events, out of history: You don't want somethingjust grafted onio a film. You don'l put a hat on a person without feeling a namraJ sense that it's right, it means that you know that something is fkming and moving right and that ihe history is there and recognizable to you. When you know that the parallel streams of information, symbolism, and metaphor coming together are nol silly or stupid. We kiTow, we feel the natural rhythm of the stoiy situation, or event. U's a glorious feeling, Unfortunately, I feel it more with foreign films than I do with those made in the US.

M M : Can a filmmaker retain a critical and independent stance in Hollywood ^en the pressures

we've talked aboul?

J D : Beyond the overused arçument about '"commerce vs. art," I think the main goal we have to keep in focus is that we can have both. E\'eryone else does. Why do we have to remain especially limited in our thinking and doing? It's not jusl about putting black folks in front and behind of the camera. If you hire people who tell the same stories ihe same ways that other folks do, then what's the point? I see that happening a lot. They are fulfilling quotas. ¡\xià it's like, "Well we have to do it this way because this is the way we've always done it."

M M : Let's reidsit the interviewj-ou had with Houston Baker in 1992. I want to read a statement

that you made because J think that it it as reUvant today as it was fifteen years ago. Regardingyour

narrative approach to D a u g h t e r s of t h e D u s t , you rejected ''the male western narrative for Üie nar-

rative mode based on oral tradition as exemplified fry the Aßican credo. "'^ Since D a u g h t e r s , have

you changedyour view about this mode of narrahon?

12 Ibid.. 242.

13 Baker, "Nol Without My Cöughiers," 1 5 1 .

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Cinema Journal 49 No. 2 Winter 2010

J D : I think there was some confusion there, and my statement was misrepresented. 1 was saying then, that before Daughters qf lhe Dust, I was not using the Western male narrative based upon the "tall tale of the once upon a time'" and the linearity of Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3. Now, in some of my other films, Vm working within the Western narrative because it is easily grasped by audiences. Bui you can insert other things in there to make the audience consider and feel ihat there's something more that you're tr)ing to tell.

Black Filmmaking: Making Progress?

M M : }t>u haue noted ¡hat dtaing tke 1U6O.\ and 70s, black filmmaking on the East Coa.it was largely

deiioted to docu/nentary. while on the llht Coast, to narrative film. Apart Jrom the dominance of

Hollyuiood, its commercial concerns, production practices, and narrative consentions, were there other

factors that account for this difference?

J D : 1 think the West Goast got lucky, first with Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song ÍMelvin Van Peebles, 197!) and then with Sluift (Gordon Parks, 1971). "Hey we've got a good thing going, let's make some blaxploitation films." They really took off.

M M : And why the documentary on the East Coast?

J D : Because East Goast filmmakers were more interested in authenticity, the truth, answering que.stioas, and exposing situations. Of course, the budgets for documenta- ries were smaller than for narrative features. You don't need a large crew; )'ou can do it faster and more efficiently. I came out of that East Goa^t filmmaking tradition and \\ ound up on the West Goast trying to apply that same aesthetic to narrative films.

M M : Have the dynamics and procaces qf filmmaking now changed ihe trajectory qf the West Coast

narrative, East Coast doairnentary?

J D : Yes, there are many narrative films being made on the East Goast, even in the Midwest, including here in Indiana. The playing field is now leveled by digital technology.

M M : ïi>u haue (userted that during ¡he nineties the climate for black filmmakers it'ct more difßadt

and competitive- You said, "'ílé don't even .see ourselves right now ai a movement, i don'i think t/iese

filmmakers are thinking in terms qf history and progression. '"'"' Is the climate ßr black filmmaking

any better today?

J D : During the nineties it was very competitive, I now realize that the competitive climate for black filmmaking was created by Hollywood determined to make "testos- terone films." Hollywood made sure that when they took pictures of these homeboy films from the hood that they didn't include women. 1 remember .someone said, "Well, they didn't know where you were." I was with Mario Van Peebles in Germany at- tending a film festival. My entertainment lawyer also represented the Hudlin brothers and Mario, so how could he say they couldn't find me? Til never forget that tbey got

14 Ibid.. 159,

Cinema Journal 49 , No, 2 i Winter 2010

a black woman and cultural critic—Karin Grisby-Bates—to say that these were the [male] filmmakers making it and that my movie [Daughters] was a television movie. She wrtjte tliat in the JVew York Times, and people repeated that it wasn't theatrical. I said, "No, it's not a television movie." It was American Playhouse that coprodticed my him, along with Straight Out of Brooklyn (Matty Rich, 1991) and Stand and Deliver (Ramón Menéndez. 1988). But Daughters became a "tele\'ision movie'* because it suited their purposes. At Sundance, we were all interviewed, bui all the interviews were skewed to- ward the black male filmmakers while the female filmmakers were tossed aside. I now understand that it was a concerted effort to promote black male filmmakers, while they ignored c\'er)-one else, as if we didn't exist. We do, and I am still arotmd.

M M : Are black filmmakers as self-serving and opportunistic today asyou, seemingly, have .suggested

that many were in the nineties?

J D : What was going on back then was frightening. I recall an incident at the Sundance Film Festival when the director Matty Rich said, "He\; Julie. 1 was wanting to meet you." I replied, "Hey, Matty, how you doing?'" A publicist immediately cut in and said, "You two don't talk." I was, like, when did this happen?

^Wl: And now?

J D : It's not like that now, but it's certainly not like the way it was in the eighties when everyone would meet at the film festivals. It was the only time we got to .see ever>'one, and it was great. I think we've learned that the competitiveness of the nineties didn't help anyone; no one got to make any more movies. Since the eighties, the only one who's been consistent is Spike Lee.

M M : You said to Houston Baker t/mt in She's G o t t a H a v e It (1986), Spike Ue "brought life back

into the black indefiendentfilm movement. "^^ Now. ivith Spike Lee ensconced in Hollywood—except

for occasional departures., like his recent take on the Katrina debacle—is the US black independmtfilm

movement overshadowed by his prominence in Hollywood?

J D : No. And we need more filmmakers like Spike Lee. He just keeps exploring and stretching the envelope. People don't understand how much battering he took. He just keeps coming back, putting blinders on and doing what he's going to do. I low that he takes chances. If we had ten more Spikes, we'd be in good shape. And some female Spikes, too. T h e documentary on Katrina [ÍI-TWTI the ÏM'ees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, 2006] had you weeping. I understand that he's going to do a dramatic film on Katrina. Then he had the thriller bank mbbery movie {Inside Man. 2006), although it didn'i feel at all like Spike. I won't let anybody talk badly about him. He look a chance with Slie Hate Me (2004). It was five different movies in one and had a little Spikeness in it. O K , it was French.

M M : Is there another Spike Lee out there to revitalizf the black independent film rnovemenl?

J D : I know there are many Spikes who have that drive and sense of wit.

15 Ibid., 161.

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Cinema Journal 49 | No. 2 _ Winter 2010

MM: Doyou have anyone in mind?

JD: Shola Lynch, Sylvain White, Darnell Martin, and Antoine Fuqua.

M M : Let's corulude here with jour current project. IVhat's it about?

JD: There's a Nancy Wilson song: "Now Vm a woman." Everything i.s music. You carry tbat around and one day you say, "Hey, I'm going to do a film about 'first I was a child, now I'm a lady."" [Laughs] It's a runiantic trilogy. The main character—a woman^is a perfumer and her life has been influenced and informed by three distinct fragrances.

MM: Thankyou, Julie Dash.

JT): And thank you too. Hf

I am indebted to Ihe mottjrmous C i n e m a J n u r n a l readersßr Iheir aitictit commmls on an emher draji

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