Steadily Expanding Black Presence In American Film example essay topic

The thread of African American history is spun from two sources: the struggle to define a place in the wider American life and the effort to maintain an authentic black presence in the larger American culture. This duality has meaning in the realm of filmmaking because the tools of cinema, film and cameras, cost more than the paper and pencil tools of writers. It is the cost of doing business that affects, indeed, threatens the black presence on the screen. The costly collaborative nature of filmmaking has blurred the definition of a 'black' movie. Is it black if it is merely angled toward blacks, or must it be made by blacks, or both?

Spike Lee has established himself as one of Hollywood's most important and influential filmmakers in the past decade. In the critically acclaimed box office hit Do The Right Thing (1989) Spike Lee, combined drama and humor to expose the absurdity, complexity and potential tragedy of racism during the hottest day of a racially tense year in New York City, the film's ensemble cast, including Lee himself, Danny Aiello, Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, brilliantly plays out the edgy negotiations and dramas of a racially and culturally diverse working-class in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Do The Right Thing confirmed Lee as one of the finest film makers to emerge from the decade, while its box office success helped stir up a new wave of 1990's African- American cinema. Do the Right Thing (1989) is arguably Spike Lee's best feature film, and one of the most popular and celebrated examples of African America's ongoing 'new black film wave'.

Contrary to Hollywood's markedly cautious treatment of 'race' and its confinement to the South and the past, Do the Right Thing offers a portrayal of black urban life. From hip-hop fashions, Afro-centric colors and rap music, to police brutality, gentrification, non-white immigration, de-industrialization and joblessness, Do the Right Thing depicts it all, from a contemporary, African American point of view. Do the Right Thing epitomizes Spike Lee's powerful impact on the representation of race and difference in America, the progress of black film-making and the rise of multicultural voices in the media. Lee's especially timely understanding of black film-making as a complex act, mixing the skills of art, politics and business in order to fashion a creative practice that confronts institutional discrimination and power relations head on. As black filmmakers became more prolific, black actors in Hollywood - Danny Glover, Halle Berry, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett, among others-got steady, rather than sporadic work. By the late 1990's, the steadily expanding black presence in American film seemed to assure a solid future for the new black cinema.