film Q&As
sharon1997
ValerieSmith.pptxValerie Smith
Reconstituting the Image: The Emergent Black Woman Director
Valerie Smith
Valerie Smith observes that Black women have entered into filmmaking more recently (this article was written in the 1988) as producers and directors.
The “earliest, and easily accessible film by a Black woman” was Madeline Anderson’s I am Somebody (1970). (711) Unfortunately, cutbacks in the grants for arts may have prevented other Black women from continuing and expanding their creative work.
Valerie Smith
Smith states that some Black female independents move away from cinematic realism because it often “manipulates the use of camera and its techniques of editing, lighting, and synchronization in ways that create the illusion that cinema is like life.” (711)
These filmmakers wanted to move away from that practice but Smith explains that independents using cinematic realism can still be transgressive in their work through their subject matter.
Valerie Smith
The work of many Black female independents was in documentary because that genre is usually cheaper. And, more importantly, documentaries “provide an opportunity for inscribing the untold accounts of Black public and private figures in the historical record.” (712)
She mentions several works that were documentary and those that were fictional films. Among the latter are Ayoka Chenzira’s Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyheaded People (1982) and Julie Dash’s Illusions (1982)
