Category: Media Studies

Sankofa (Movie): Summary, Analysis

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Summary: 

While on a photo shoot in the site of a former slave castle, a self-absorbed African American model is magically transported back to a Jamaican plantation where she experiences the realities of slavery first-hand. Having experienced a slave revolt and joining a maroon colony, she returns to her present-day life with a deepened connection to her past, and a renewed sense of racial solidarity. 

Analysis:

Sankofa (1993), like its Ethiopian-born filmmaker Haile Gerima, is important both in African and African American cinema history. One of the few internationally known Anglophone African filmmakers,1 Gerima was a member of the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers (also known as the L.A. Rebellion Film Movement) along with Charles Burnett, Larry Clark, Julie Dash, and others.2 The movement, which emerged from UCLA in the 1960s–1980s, is characterised by the filmmakers’ loosely shared set of . . . Read More

Silences of the Palace – Summary – Analysis

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Summary: 

Alia is the illegitimate daughter of Khedija, a servant in an old Ottoman royal palace, Tunis. Her presumed father is Prince Sidi Ali, one of the last beys (Turkish governors), now a puppet of French colonial rule during the mid-1950s, when the movement for independence is growing violent. Khedija is beautiful, she works in the kitchens and serves as waitress, but she is also a singer and dancer, entertaining the bey, his brother and their families. Sidi Ali’s wife, La J’neina, ‘was betrayed by her womb’ and they remain childless; the bey cannot openly acknowledge Alia as his daughter, though he deeply loves both her and her mother. The narrative unfolds in flashbacks from the day of Sidi Ali’s death. Alia is now a young woman, a ‘failed singer’ like her mother, living with Lotfi, a teacher and former political agitator. She is to endure yet another abortion the following day, and is profoundly unhappy. She returns to her . . . Read More

La Roue (The Wheel): Film Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

A railroad operator, Sisif, saves a young child, Norma, from the wreckage of a train crash. He raises the orphan girl alongside his biological son, Elie. The children grow up believing that they are related by blood. Both Sisif and Elie fall in love with Norma. Sisif reveals his feelings for Norma and the secret of her provenance to Monsieur de Hersan, a wealthy company engineer. Hersan blackmails Sisif in exchange for Norma’s hand in marriage. Norma marries Hersan and Sisif tries to kill himself. After an accident that leaves him partially blind, Sisif moves from Nice to Mont Blanc where he operates the funicular railway. Hersan and Elie fight for Norma and both men die. Norma moves in with Sisif and he dies peacefully at home. 

Analysis:

The mythology of Abel Gance’s epic film, La Roue (The Wheel), includes a short declaration from Jean Cocteau: ‘There is cinema before and after La . . . Read More

Rome, Open City (1945) – Summary – Analysis

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Summary: 

In Nazi-occupied Rome, the Gestapo is hunting the ringleaders of the local Resistance movement, Manfredi and Francesco. The pursued men are hidden and assisted by the local people, including the local priest Don Pietro and Francesco’s fiancée, Pina, while the diabolical Major Bergmann tracks them down from the comfort of his office. Francesco is captured and driven away, and Pina killed by German troops in the ensuing chaos, only for partisans to liberate Francesco once again. Eventually, Don Pietro and Manfredi are betrayed, arrested and questioned by Bergmann. Manfredi is tortured to death by the Gestapo, but does not betray his comrades. In the final scene, Don Pietro is executed as a band of child partisans (including Pina’s son, Marcello) look on, ready to continue the struggle. 

Analysis: 

Roma città aperta/Rome, Open City occupies such a canonical position in film history . . . Read More

She’s Gotta Have It (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary:

Nola Darling is a young black woman living in Brooklyn. She is sexually involved with three men: the caring but overly protective Jamie, the affluent but arrogant Greer, and the fun but immature Mars. Each man wants to date her exclusively, but Nola resists deciding on a single partner, wanting to maintain her independence. The impatience – and insecurity – of her three suitors pressurizes her into making a choice, but she soon begins to question whether she has picked the right man, or if she even needs a man at all. 

Analysis:

As the cultural landscape of American independent cinema becomes increasingly obscured by the perception of the sector as an industrially necessary stepping stone, discussion surrounding Spike Lee’s directorial debut, She’s Gotta Have It, has centred less on the black sexual politics which caused such a stir in 1986 and more on Lee’s entrepreneurial production . . . Read More

Killer of Sheep: Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

An angry black man shouts at his son for failing to get into a fight to protect his younger brother; the boy’s mother contemptuously slaps him. Years later, the boy, Stan, lives with his wife and children in Watts, a black Los Angeles neighbourhood. He works in an abattoir. He cannot sleep, and is unable to respond to his wife’s sexual desires. Life unfolds slowly, a day at a time. Children play in vacant lots, on rooftops, in derelict buildings and railroad sidings. Two men try to get Stan to join them in committing a crime. The white woman who runs the liquor store hits on him. He scrapes together the money to buy a car engine, but the engine gets broken. He tries to take his family out into the country to a racetrack, but the car gets a puncture and there is no spare tire. Back home, it looks like it might rain. Stan is finally able to – wants to – return his wife’s attentions. He still works in an . . . Read More

Hustle & Flow (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary:

DJay is a Memphis pimp and small-time drug dealer who operates out of his car and resides in low-rent housing with erratic air conditioning, sharing his space with his hookers Nola, Shug and Lex. Frustrated with his life, DJay decides to reinvent himself as a rapper with the assistance of former school classmate Key, who is now a recording engineer. Despite lacking experience and money, they set up a makeshift studio in DJay’s home with the aim of cutting a demo that will sufficiently impress hometown rap star Skinny Black and lead to a recording contract.

Analysis: 

An independent film with obvious crossover potential, Craig Brewer’s Hustle & Flow was bought by MTV Films at the Sundance Film Festival for a record $9 million and later released through Paramount Classics. Produced by the studio-affiliated African-American filmmaker John Singleton, who parlayed his breakthrough success with . . . Read More

The Cool World (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

Duke, a young African-American, struggles to survive and make a name for himself in the slums of Harlem. The film opens with a close-up of a bearded, black Muslim on the street preaching hate against whites and the cruel world we live in. We then get a tour from Duke’s high school teacher, the only male Caucasian in the film, guiding his class through Fifth Avenue to the public library. The rest of the movie plays out in the ghetto, depicted with montages of real locations and real people around the city. Duke’s main motivation is to obtain a ‘piece’ (a gun), and thus become president of the ‘Royal Pythons’, the local gang that he belongs to. Once he has the weapon, Duke can wage war on their rival gang, the ‘Wolves.’ There is also a love story, which follows Duke’s seduction of the gang’s official prostitute, Luanne. He takes her to Coney Island to see the ocean, which she had no idea was just a few subway stops . . . Read More

Coffee (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

Coffy embarks on a spree of bloody vengeance against drug dealers, dirty cops, and corrupt politicians after her family become casualties of organized crime. Her older sister is a prostitute, her brother a coke addict and her younger sister, LuBelle, is brain-damaged as a result of contaminated drugs. The film begins with Coffy meting out her own brand of street justice with a sawn-off shotgun and a syringe to two drug dealers responsible for supplying LuBelle. At first Coffy is conflicted by her actions but when her childhood friend, and one good cop, Carter Brown, are violently attacked when Brown takes a stand against police corruption, by refusing to go on the take like his partner, McHenry, she is transformed into a vengeful femme fatale, wreaking a path of destruction and mayhem as she seeks justice for those close to her, and the black community as a whole. Disguising herself as a high-call Jamaican call girl (appropriately named . . . Read More

Bone (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary:

Bill is a successful car salesman, famous from his television advertisements. He and his wife Bernadette are an affluent couple living in Beverly Hills. One day, they find a rat in their swimming pool; suddenly a big, black man, Bone, appears in their garden, disposes of the rat and then, despite being completely unarmed, invades their home, demanding money. There is no money in the house – indeed, Bill and Bernadette are deep in debt, living on credit – but Bone discovers that Bill has hidden $5,000 in a secret account. Bone sends Bill to withdraw the money while he holds Bernadette hostage, and threatens to rape and murder her if he is late returning. Bill begins to wonder whether or not this might be a way to get rid of his wife and, while he has run-ins with two kooky women, Bone fails to rape Bernadette. She counsels him about his problems, and makes love to him. Together, they set out to kill Bill for the insurance . . . Read More