For this year’s Black History Month, I watched 17 films that starred a black actor and/or was helmed by a black director. While I made a watchlist of about 50 films that spanned the diaspora and several decades, I found myself drawn mostly to pre-1980s films and modern period pieces. I had some loose observations about certain themes that kept popping up.
France as an escape and a prison
I watched a trio of films from African filmmakers this month. Black Girl (1966) directed by Senegalese Ousmane Sembène, Touki Bouki (1973) by Senegalese Djibril Diop Mambéty and Aya of Yop City (2013) by Ivorian Marguerite Abouet. While all three films are radically different in plot and tone, they all hold their colonial past close to their chest.
Most overtly is Black Girl, a simmering anti-colonialist critique about a Senegalese maid who immigrates to France to work for a white Parisian couple. Diouana expects to find relief and escape from poverty in France, but she finds herself working day and night for a couple that belittles her and never lets her out to see the city. She’s demeaned on one turn, fetishized at another and silenced in another and she slowly wastes away in her new home until she finds her only escape is to kill herself.
Touki Bouki, another film from Senegal, has two characters, rob, scheme and grift so that they can afford their passage to escape Africa as well and move to France. In the end, even after all the lies and danger, only Charlie makes it on the boat to France, while Mory is left behind to contend with his fate.
Aya of Yop City takes place in 1970s Cote D’Ivoire and one of the side characters romanticizes France as well, dreaming just like Diouana, Mory and Charlie of living a better life abroad in the imperial core. Bintou attempts to romance a man who lives in Paris so that she can leave with him one day, but in the end he ends up being nothing more than a simple charlatan, poor and stuck in Youpogan just like Bintou and the rest of the characters in the film. In all three films, the pursuit of France is punished in some ways. Whether shown overtly or implied, France as a concept is seen as evil to Africans, only to be engaged with as necessary.
In contrast, Paris Blues (1961) an American film about American expats in Paris has a much more favorable view on France. Eddie, an African American musician, lives in France to escape the overbearing racism he faces in Jim Crow America. Eddie feels more respected amongst the French. In reality, many Africans during that same time period felt othered and discriminated against when they entered the country. It’s an interesting dynamic that portrays the very real migration wave that many African American artists and performers made to France in search of a better life. Even in Passing (2021) which I also re-watched this month, Irene and Brian consider moving abroad themselves to escape racism in 1920s Harlem. Even living in a community as upper middle class black people, they can’t mitigate the effects of anti blackness. Away from America seems to be their only way.
It’s an interesting dichotomy, the American “expat” experience versus the African “immigrant” one. (Notice who gets labeled immigrants and who as expats).
This back and forth struggle I was noticing in my viewing this month is rooted in real history. Black Americans, creatives especially, have been immigrating to France since the 19th century, most notably during the Harlem Renaissance in 1920s and 30s (the same era that Passing takes place). The likes of James Baldwin, Eartha Kitt, Josephine Baker and more found themselves comfortable in Paris in a way they never found in America.
There is a certain Western privilege in being able to escape one imperialist nation to another even when one is fleeing from persecution themselves. I don’t think in the films I watched nor in real life would I admonish Black Americans for seeking refuge, but learning about the other experiences in the Black diaspora would be eye opening for everyone.
Quincy Jones is a legend
I ended up watching three films that were scored by the great Quincy Jones. In The Heat of the Night (1967), The Wiz (1978) and The Color Purple (1985). While I doubt this comes to any surprise to most people familiar with Jones, I was struck by how versatile he is as a composer. Three films, spanning three different decades and three different genres. In the Heat of the Night’s score is centered on a song of the same name, produced by Jones and sung by another black legend, Ray Charles. It’s a simmering jazz tune that suits the dark murder mystery well. In contrast, my favorite of Jones’s contributions to The Wiz soundtrack is the “Emerald City Sequence”. A near seven minute disco smash that combines three songs, it’s the definitive highlight of the film. In The Color Purple, Jones’ takes his jazz on the sentimental route, with a sweet and almost cloying score to tell the multigenerational story of black women living in the early 20th century. Quincy Jones has scored some of the most iconic moments in black film and it’s history can’t be told without him.
An Appreciation for History
I didn’t mind that most of the films I watched this month were set in the past and dealt with the hardships and very real realities of black people. It’s a good reminder that we can never forget our history and it made the moments of black joy I found in these films hit even harder. I cried when Celie and Nettie reunited after decades at the end of The Color Purple, I was charmed by the dance sequences in Passing and I was smitten between Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll’s love affair in Paris Blues
While I do wish I had watched more films from mid-century black directors, there’s so much diversity and genres to be watched out there.