PINNLAND EMPIRE: Black Film Canon

Showing posts with label Black Film Canon. Show all posts

Saturday, February 1, 2025

THE INHERITANCE

I’ll be the first to admit that I sometimes feel intimidated to write about certain specific movies that I consider to be great. These occurrences are few and far between (as they should be), but sometimes a film is so good there’s almost nothing to say outside of recommending it to as many people as possible. You can only gush about a movie so much until it starts to sound cringey. In this current age of Letterboxd/film twitter movie comedians, it’s sometimes difficult to tell if someone genuinely loves a movie or if they’re just being hyperbolic to try and get laughs & attention. If a movie is truly great I don’t think there should be any memefication involved. Ephraim Asili’s The Inheritance is one of those movies. For the last 4-1/2 I’ve been singing it’s praises on podcasts and all forms of social media, but I haven’t put down any substantial words (this movie was at the top of my best of 2020 list a few years ago). The story of The Inheritance may sound like it was made for a very niche audience within a subgenre of people, but I honestly believe it can be “appreciated” by anyone. The basic story of a group of pan-Africanists in west Philadelphia that set out to make their own isolated collective/community away from the rest of the world sounds very niche and specific. But this movie tackles/touches on/circles around issues like white supremacy, separatism, gun ownership/gun control, the creation of art, activism, the deconstruction of traditional education, and more (a big part of this film’s identity is connected to the Move bombing that took place in Philadelphia four decades ago). Everyone from disingenuous Fox News-watching “conservatives” to pretentious surface-level twitter liberals that would call the police on the same Black folks they claim to care about can find something important to hold on to in The Inheritance (anyone notice how a lot of today’s so-called MAGA folks and certain sectors of modern-day pro Black folks have a lot more in common than they care to admit?)

Strangely enough, the one audience that might take issue with this movie is the growing cult of Foundational Black Americans that believe in delineation between Black Americans and Africans & Caribbean (I don’t want to get too much in to FBAs but if you’ve ever wanted to go down a very strange internet rabbit hole – look in to them). This movie is truly pan-Africanist and doesn’t promote delineation between Black people.

If you’re just a film enthusiast then you might appreciate all the homages and visual callbacks to folks Ousmane Sembene & Jean Luc Godard...

Stylistically, the film is deeply influenced by Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise (1967). When I first got around to watching the film in grad school, I was floored - Ephraim Asili, Artforum

La Chinoise / The Inheritance

I first encountered Sembène in film school and was struck by his powerful critique of Senegalese society - Ephraim Asili, criterion

Black Girl /
The Inheritance

Asili also namedrops Dreyer & Bresson as sources of inspiration but those are more spiritual rather than visual…

One Big influence was Robert Bresson, who was influenced by the minimal set design of Carl Theodore Dreyer films. I would ask myself ‘what connotes a kitchen, or a living room' and leave the design there – Ephraim Asili, Bomb Magazine

Ordet /
Pickpocket /
The Inheritance

Ivan Dixon's The Spook Who Sat By The Door was another source on inspiration on Ephraim Asili (a Spook poster can be seen in the background of The Inheritance).

I’m using terms & phrases like “appreciate” or “find something to hold on to” rather than “enjoy” because I genuinely don’t think this was made to be “enjoyed” in the traditional sense. This isn’t a traditional movie. A big part of what makes The Inheritance so unique is that it’s almost uncategorizable. On one hand it’s very serious and sometimes traumatic. But other times the movie is incredibly lighthearted, sweet and funny. It also doesn’t really fit in to a specific category or genre. It’s a hybrid scripted narrative/documentary that plays with reality & fiction.

There’s a nice-sized audience of Black film enthusiasts that claim to want something “different” and/or “challenging” that isn’t some remix of Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Well – here it is (hopefully you'll see that this movie can also serve as a gateway to so many different lanes & avenues of cinephilia). The inheritance can be streamed on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Grasshopper films. It isn’t 1999. Folks can’t keep using the excuse that a movie didn’t come to their city or small town. Thanks to streaming (and even file/torrent sharing), independent/”art house” films are now easier than ever to see. Instead of complaining on twitter about how there are too many slave movies, you could do some very basic surface level exploration and find a world of Black cinema that might cater to your needs.

Friday, September 1, 2023

VISUAL REFERENCES & HOMAGES IN JUICE - PART ONE UPDATED

Chinatown /
Juice

I got a little carried away and put together over 40 (possible) visual references for the movie Juice (there are a handful more that didn't make the initial cut which we'll look at in part two).

There’s nothing left to say about Juice from an storyline standpoint. It’s been dissected up & down in every way possible for the last 30+ years.

Now…what often goes overlooked in these reviews are all the visual influences & cinematic homages. Just because something isn't Pulp Fiction, Ghost Dog, Drive or Baby Driver doesn't mean the movie isn't filled with references.

Juice is synonymous with hip-hop culture and I think that's what causes some folks to miss all the cinematic references & homages outside of the culture.

Ernest Dickerson does borrow from two of the most famous hip-hop films in cinematic history…

Wild Style / Juice

Style Wars /
Juice

Ernest Dickerson is also one of the most important figures in modern Black cinema. Prior to his directorial debut he was Spike Lee’s cinematographer (he also shot Brother From Another Planet and Eddie Murphy Raw). The famous dolly shot that we all know from all of Lee’s films (that Dickerson helped to craft early on) can also be found in Juice:

Mo Better Blues /
Juice

But the cinematic references and visual homages don’t stop there...

Like a lot of filmmakers from Ernest Dickerson’s era, he was influenced by a lot of the classics which you can see throughout Juice.
It should also be noted that a friend of mine worked with Dickerson on a television show a few years ago and he said that all Dickerson did on his downtime was watch movies in his trailer. This makes a lot of sense when you scroll through this post...

Hitchcock was a master visual storyteller. He believed in something that he called 'pure cinema' where the dialogue is almost superfluous. And I do try to tell the story as visually as I possibly can - Ernest Dickerson, dailydead.com

Vertigo /
Juice

Dickerson returns to the Hitchcock suspense more than once in Juice...

Sabateur / Juice

One of the great movies of the 70's. One of the greatest movies ever - Chinatown - Ernest Dickerson, trailers from hell

Chinatown / Juice

It also can't be a coincidence that the final moments from Juice plays out like the final moments of Chinatown. Both films even end with the namedropping the title of the film...

Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown /
You got you the Juice now...

The filmmaker who stuck with me the most and really made me want to become a director was Stanley Kubrick - Ernest Dickerson, Complex

The Shining /
Juice

Full Metal Jacket /
Juice

I think the first film that really got me thinking about directing was Clockwork Orange - Ernest Dickerson, Monsters, Madness & Magic podcast

A Clockwork Orange /
Juice

A Clockwork Orange /
Juice

To be compared with Scorsese is an honor because he’s a hero of mine - Ernest Dickerson, Freshfiction.tv

Taxi Driver /
Juice

Well, we were creating a thriller, so definitely movies like THE FRENCH CONNECTION were an influence - Ernest Dickerson, Flavorwire.com

The French Connection /
Juice

Dickerson even borrows from one of the most famous (and earliest) shots in cinema history…

The Great Train Robbery /
Juice

The biggest influence appears to be a smaller lesser known made-for-tv film from the 40’s about a group of troubled teens that get torn apart after they acquire a gun (sound familiar?)...

Another influence was an unknown film from back in the late 1940s called CITY ACROSS THE RIVER, which was an adaptation of a book called The Amboy Dukes - Ernest Dickerson, Flavor Wire

City Across The River /
Juice

City Across The River / Juice

Juice also pays homage a lot of smaller films in a kind “blink and you’ll miss it” sort of way…

One night we were watching OLIVER TWIST, the 1948 version directed by David Lean. My uncle said, ‘God, the photography is amazing.’ That's when it hit me. Movies are photographs - Ernest Dickerson, Ebony

Oliver Twist /Juice

KILLER OF SHEEP is an excellent film. Yeah, we knew of Charles Burnett's work - Ernest Dickerson, Shadow and Act

Killer Of Sheep / Juice

He [Melvin Van Peebles] was one of our heroes - Ernest Dickerson, Cineaste

Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song /
Juice

The most influence on me was the films of [Orson] Wells, especially THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - Ernest Dickerson, Ebony

The Magnificent Amberson / Juice

Other unexpected sources of inspiration came from folks like Fritz Lang:

Movies like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the look of Metropolis, had an effect on us - Ernest Dickerson, Flavorwire.com

Metropolis /
Juice

The German Expressionism seen in Metropolis also played a major part in the horror elements found in Juice. Outside of Dickerson’s legacy with Juice and his connection to Spike Lee - he’s also a staple in the modern horror genre. In addition to his films like Demon Knight & Bones, Dickerson even worked on Day Of The Dead with George Romero early on in his career.

we were looking at Expressionistic elements - elements from German Expressionist films - Ernest Dickerson, Flavorwire.com