Film - Afro American filmmakers growing in number and stature

Ebony, August, 1991 by Aldore Collier

The amusing stories of how film-makers Spike Lee and Robert Townsend financed their debut films are now chapters in Hollywood's history book.

On shoestring budgets, the two surprised the entire industry by putting together credible films that made money. Of equal and perhaps greater importance was the phenomenal success of Eddie Murphy, whose Beverly Hills Cop I grossed $234.8 millions domestically and became one of the best-selling movies of all times.

As a consequence, Hollywood, a White-dominated fantasy town that worships the color green, is paying increasing attention to the positive impact the color Black has had on the overall industry. There is also increasing appreciation of the growing power of Black moviegoers, who constitute according to a recent industry study, 25 percent of the moviegoing audience.

The year 1991 will witness an unprecendented number of films by Black filmmakers and movies featuring Black talent. "Hollywood is changing because these films are making money," Spike Lee says, "It's not like they're in love with Black people all of a sudden. They [Black-oriented films] are making money with little investment."

Peter Rainer, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, agrees. "Hollywood sees a chance to make money. The movies are in bad shape. Films like Days of Thunder, which cost $60 million, are not cost effective. If you can make a low-budget film for target audiences you can cut your risk. A lot of these Black films target specific audiences and cost little money."

Rainer says Black stars and moviemakers developed several techniques that have been adopted by he movie "mainstream." One is what he calls "built-in marketing," such as the use of rap artists on soundtracks. "This is an area where Black films are stronger than White. People who don't necessarily want to see films want to see and hear these personalities." An example is the hit film New Jack City, which cost about $15 million to make and so far has earned almost $50 million in the United States alone.

"A movie can make half its money with sound tracks and videos," Rainer says.

Black have changed Hollywood in other, less tangible ways. According to Cheryl Fabio-Bradford, program director for the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in Oakland, Calif., "The whole attitude of dealing with people of color has changed because of Blacks. The attempt in the movie Dances With Wolves to give a true Native-American perspective is a result of the struggles of African-Americans in Hollywood."

Although studios finance many of the films released annually, Black filmmakers, she says, have been forced in many cases to go outside of the industry for support, a move that is being adopted by more and more Black and White moviemakers.

"Black filmmakers started a movement, Fabio-Bradford says. "The norm has never been to go outside of the industry. Now many producers and directors do it."

Fabio-Bradford also believes that the way director Spike Lee has played hardball with the industry has influenced many of his White counterparts. "Directors don't get to control the final way a film is cut," she says. "Spike Lee does! He retained the right to negotiate with studios. That was unheard-of, negotiation-wise. And that has spurred many White filmmakers to similarly stand their ground."

Professor Teshome Gabriel, who teaches cinema at UCLA, makes the same point. "Whenever Blacks break doors in, it's open for everyone," he says.

Gabriel says White audiences are eager to adopt the urban dialect they hear on rap songs and in Black-oriented movies. "Young Whites like to see the films and love to pick up on the slang and wear the clothes they see in the films," he says. "White kids love rap music and rap films are popular. These films are coming from Black artist."

Because of these and other pressures, Hollywood has made small but significant steps in the direction of the multicultural and multicolored American reality. But as Robin Givens pointed out in a widely quoted EBONY article, industry leaders, including, unfortunately, some Black industry leaders, have failed miserably in using the creativity of Black women.

Although Hollywood has traditionally loved the big blockbuster films, such as The Godfather and The Ten Commandments, Gabriel says the industry is suddenly forced to acknowledge the crucial importance of the small film, partly as a result of Black films and Black filmmakers.

"If these films make money," adds L.A. Times critic Rainer, "you'll see twice as many the following year. There has been a large Black moviegoing audience. But Hollywood was too stupid to acknowledge it."

It is soon, expects says, to determine the durability of the changes Blacks have wrought in these and other areas in Hollywood. But it is already clear that Black creativity has forced changes that have benefitted Black, White and Brown moviegoers. And some observers believes the industry's health depends on creative responses to the rainbow explosion symbolized by the Spike Lees and Eddie Murphys of Black America.