Black Directors in Hollywood
Hollywood film directors are some of the world's most powerful storytellers, shaping the fantasies and aspirations of people around the globe. Since the 1960s, African Americans have increasingly joined their ranks, bringing fresh insights to movie characterizations, plots, and themes and depicting areas of African American culture that were previously absent from mainstream films. Today, black directors are making films in all popular genres, while inventing new ones to speak directly from and to the black experience.
This book offers a first comprehensive look at the work of black directors in Hollywood, from pioneers such as Gordon Parks, Melvin Van Peebles, and Ossie Davis to current talents including Spike Lee, John Singleton, Kasi Lemmons, and Carl Franklin. Discussing 67 individuals and over 135 films, Melvin Donalson thoroughly explores how black directors' storytelling skills and film techniques have widened both the thematic focus and visual style of American cinema. Assessing the meanings and messages in their films, he convincingly demonstrates that black directors are balancing Hollywood's demand for box office success with artistic achievement and responsibility to ethnic, cultural, and gender issues.
Donalson’s pioneering text . . . will become an indispensable resource for general students, undergraduate and graduate students, and the general reader. It will be a major contribution to American and African American film studies and popular culture.
Melvin Donalson is Associate Professor of English at Pasadena City College and Adjunct Professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles. He is also a filmmaker, whose work has been shown at nine film festivals and broadcast on Showtime Network's Black Filmmakers Showcase.
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1
- The Pathmakers: Gordon Parks, Melvin Van Peebles
- Chapter 2
- The Visionary Actors: Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier
- Chapter 3
- Black Urban Action Films and Mainstream Images: Gordon Parks Jr., Ivan Dixon, Fred Williamson, Hugh A. Robertson, Ron O'Neal, Gilbert Moses, Raymond St. Jacques
- Chapter 4
- Black Sensibilities and Mainstream Images: Berry Gordy Jr., Stan Lathan, Jamaa Fanaka
- Chapter 5
- Michael Schultz: The Crossover King
- Chapter 6
- Spike Lee: The Independent Auteur
- Chapter 7
- Keeping It Real (Reel): Black Dramatic Visions: Charles Burnett, John Singleton, Matty Rich, Mario Van Peebles, Ernest Dickerson, Albert and Allen Hughes, Doug McHenry, David Clark Johnson, Preston A. Whitmore II, Tim Reid, Robert Patton-Spruill, Darin Scott, Hype Williams
- Chapter 8
- And Still They Rise: Black Women Directors: Euzhan Palcy, Julie Dash, Leslie Harris, Darnell Martin, Kasi Lemmons, Millicent Shelton, Troy Beyer, Cheryl Dunye, Maya Angelou
- Chapter 9
- Not without Laughter: Directors of Comedy and Romance: Oz Scott, Topper Carew, Richard Pryor, Prince, Robert Townsend, Eddie Murphy, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Wendell B. Harris Jr., Reginald Hudlin, Martin Lawrence, Theodore Witcher, George Tillman, Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Christopher Scott Cherot
- Chapter 10
- Off the Hook: Comedy and Romance with a Hip-Hop Flavor: Reginald Hudlin, James Bond III, George Jackson/Doug McHenry, Rusty Cundieff, F. Gary Gray, Paris Barclay, Lionel C. Martin, Ice Cube
- Chapter 11
- Redefining Crossover Films: Kevin Hooks, Bill Duke, Carl Franklin, Thomas Carter, Forest Whitaker, F. Gary Gray, Antoine Fuqua
- Filmography
- Notes
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
