L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema / Edition 1

by Allyson Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, Jacqueline Najuma Stewart

Overview

L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema is the first book dedicated to the films and filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion, a group of African, Caribbean, and African American independent film and video artists that formed at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1970s and 1980s. The group—including Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Billy Woodberry, Jamaa Fanaka, and Zeinabu irene Davis—shared a desire to create alternatives to the dominant modes of narrative, style, and practice in American cinema, works that reflected the full complexity of Black experiences. This landmark collection of essays and oral histories examines the creative output of the L.A. Rebellion, contextualizing the group's film practices and offering sustained analyses of the wide range of works, with particular attention to newly discovered films and lesser-known filmmakers. Based on extensive archival work and preservation, this collection includes a complete filmography of the movement, over 100 illustrations (most of which are previously unpublished), and a bibliography of primary and secondary materials. This is an indispensible sourcebook for scholars and enthusiasts, establishing the key role played by the L.A. Rebellion within the histories of cinema, Black visual culture, and postwar art in Los Angeles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520284685
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/13/2015
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	488
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Allyson Nadia Field is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She also serves on the faculty of the Moving Image Archive Studies program and the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. She is author of Uplift Cinema: The Emergence of African American Film and the Possibility of Black Modernity.

Jan-Christopher Horak is Director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. In addition to his long career in film archiving and curating, he is a professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His most recent book is Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design.

Jacqueline Najuma Stewart is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago and author of Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity. She directs the South Side Home Movie Project and serves on the National Film Preservation Board. She is currently completing a book on the career of the African American actor, writer, and director Spencer Williams.

Table of Contents

Preface: Once upon a Time in the West … L.A. Rebellion Clyde Taylor ix

Acknowledgements xxv

Introduction: Emancipating the Image-The L.A. Rebellion of Black Filmmakers Allyson Nadia Field Jan-Christopher Horak Jacqueline Najuma Stewart 1

Part 1 Critical Essays 55

1 Threads and Nets: The L.A. Rebellion in Retrospect and in Motion Chuck Kleinbans 57

2 Rebellious Unlearning: UCLA Project One Films (1967-1978) Allyson Nadia Field 83

3 Tough Enough: Blaxploitation and the L.A. Rebellion Jan-Christopher Horak 119

4 Anticipations of the Rebellion: Black Music and Politics in Some Earlier Cinemas David E. James 156

5 Re/soundings: Music and the Political Goals of the L.A. Rebellion Morgan Woolsey 171

6 Struggles for the Sign in the Black Atlantic: Los Angeles Collective of Black Filmmakers Michael T. Martin 196

7 Bruising Moments: Affect and the L.A. Rebellion Samantha N. Sheppard 225

8 The L.A. Rebellion Plays Itself Jacqueline Najuma Stewart 251

9 Encountering the Rebellion: liquid blackness Reflects on the Expansive Possibilities of the L.A. Rebellion Films Alessandra Raengo 291

Part 2 L.A. Rebellion Oral Histories 319

10 L.A. Rebellion Oral Histories 321

Filmography 355

Selected Bibliography 403

List of Contributors 427

Index 431

Editorial Reviews

"L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema is a groundbreaking and highly readable compendium focused on the kaleidoscopic network of filmmakers based at UCLA between the 1960s and the 1990s. The collection opens up previously obscured historical pathways that deepen our knowledge of black American cinema, and should inspire further research and scholarship."

Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards

"L.A. Rebellion is a valuable resource especially for interdisciplinary scholars in film history and ethnic studies. . . . [It] also provides a series of oral histories with some of the filmmakers, as well as a comprehensive filmography. Thankfully, many of the titles are now available for the first time in decades, allowing audiences an opportunity to encounter this exceptional moment in film history for themselves."

Journal of American Ethnic History