Alison Stewart (2:25)

You know, your work with the Criterion Collection is about making all types of films available to audience, whether it's 4K restorations or to stream on the Criterion Channel. So many of these films wouldn't have been available before. How are things changing when it comes to availability specifically of black films?

Ashley Clark (2:46)

Well, I think that, you know, I'm very privileged and proud to do the work at Criterion, where I have this mandate to amplify and support film that I'm passionate about. And I get to work with the most considerate and passionate people who care about world cinema. And I just think the more of us there are doing this work, and you see it in young cinephiles who use things like letterboxd. And you see that rep theaters, the attendances are kind of sky high with young people who are just so keen and excited to tap into the past and are seeing films like, I don't know, the Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye from the the 90s, or compensation by Zenabu Irene Davis from, from. Also from the late 90s. And they're thinking to themselves, these films resonate so much with me now. Like, where were these films all my life? So it's so exciting to be able to put them out into the world with care and love.

Alison Stewart (3:33)

We are discussing the new book, the World of Black Film, A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films by Ashley Clark, the curatorial director of the Criterion Collection. Ashley has also programmed a special film series at bam, Selections from the World of Black Film. It'll be going from February 27th to through March 3rd. You write, I had to establish some rules for myself, otherwise this project could have swiftly gone off the rails. Let's talk about some of those rules. How did you decide what a black film was?

Ashley Clark (4:06)

Well, I put it to myself quite simply that I wasn't going to try and arbitrate what blackness was generally. But I wanted to decide. I decided in my book that it was filmed about black life. Films that were about black people's lives and experiences as a central part of the film. Whether it was a feature or a documentary film, a fiction film, it had to be about black people, sensually told with compassion and care. So I didn't restrict it only to black filmmakers because that would be cutting out a lot of film history. You know, the first black Hollywood film was 1969. That was a really late date. And that was the Learning Tree, directed by Gordon Parks, the great photographer for Warner Brothers. And he went on to do Shaft. Don't know how that sounds in a British accent. Shaft. But anyway, you know how that. How that went on to almost save MGM from bankruptcy. A classic blaxploitation film. So it really just had to have black humanity and life at the center of the film, whatever the genre or the style or who was behind the camera.

Alison Stewart (5:06)

Oh, I used to dance to the Shaft LP in my living room. It was awesome. I had a whole dance routine. It was good when I was six years old. Let's talk about how you had to pick one film per film, per filmmaker. What were some instances where it was hard to pick one film from a director?

Ashley Clark (5:27)

Well, I think ultimately I wanted it to serve the international theme and thread of the book. So a good example would be do the Right Thing by Spike Lee is kind of the movie that started it all for me. I saw it when I was 14. It blew my mind. It gave me a sense of what film could be beyond just entertainment. And if you, you know, ask me what my favorite film was, it might be that. But for this book, I. I chose Malcolm X because it's reflective of Malcolm X's international spirit. He's an international presence in the book. Some of his best writing is his letters from Ghana. And in the film, there's a cameo from Nelson Mandela. Right. Right towards the end. So it's a genuinely international film. Then there's another film called Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song. Another. Not sure about that. Any English accent, but give it a go. People might think that's the one he must choose from. Elvin Van Peebles. That's the classic, you know, the start of black independent cinema. But I actually chose his film from four years previously called the Story of a Three Day Pass, which he made in France in the French language. And he adapted it from a novel that he'd written in French because like so many American, black American icons from Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker and James Baldwin, he. He'd moved out of America. He'd moved to Europe to seek new opportunities that had been actively denied to him in America. So this kind of French New wave film, Story of a Three Day Pass. When it premiered at the San Francisco film festival in 1967, people were shocked because they thought it was going to be some white French guy. But Chicago's Melvin Van Peeble showed up with his entourage, and people were shocked. And it was a direct line from that to Hollywood. Two years later, you know, deciding that black film filmmakers maybe could make films in Hollywood with Gordon Parks is the Learning Tree.

Alison Stewart (7:14)

The film is in chronic. The. The book, excuse me, is in chronological order. The oldest film on the list is from 1913. It's from the US and it's a silent film. Tell us a little bit more about it.

Ashley Clark (7:26)

Yeah, this is a film called Lime Kiln Club Field Day. Catchy title. And it's. It was assembled from rushes that were discovered in the moma vaults by. By their curators, and it was pieced together and premiered in 2014. I was very for fortunate to be there at the premiere of that. And it stars the great vaudevillian entertainer Bert Williams, who was from the Bahamas and moved to America and who became famous, hugely famous in America. But with one. With one little thing that, you know, you have to point out he was a black actor wearing blackface makeup in line with the traditions of that time. And in this film, he's wearing blackface makeup, perhaps in order to make sure that the other act, the other black actors in the cast didn't have to. So it's this kind of sweet and funny and strange romantic comedy that was never finished with this glaring, ugly thing at the heart of it, which is this blackface makeup. So, like a lot of films in the book, there are elements and aspects of it that are difficult to wrestle with from a contemporary perspective, but they're really important for us to understand history and to understand some of the compromises that black performers have always had to make and also for us to look closely at the idea of authorship. To what extent was Bert Williams actually in control of his public Persona and performance? He was actually a really, really interesting, intelligent and smart guy. So, yeah, that's over 100 years old. And the earliest film in the book, very strange and captivating silent comedy.

Alison Stewart (8:54)

The most recent film in the book is from 2024. It's Blitz from director Steve McQueen. Many will likely know him from 12 Years a Slave, which won Best Picture at the Oscars. Why did you decide to include Blitz?

Ashley Clark (9:08)

I think Blitz is an underrated film. It's a World War II epic. It didn't have the widest theatrical release, which I think was a shame because it's a film that deserves to be seen and heard in the theater. But ultimately I picked it because it's a personal film for me. There are aspects of the film. It's told through the eyes of a. Of a mixed race boy who has a black Caribbean father and a white mother. That's. That's my background. And like, there's thousands of war films, World War II films, but very few look at the conflict through the perspective of that kind of character and look at issues of race and class in that kind of sensitive and thoughtful way. And I thought it was a. Was a very moving film. And it seemed like a nice personal grace note. You know, the book is not overly autobiographical. I thread myself in there occasionally for that kind of subjective aspect, and I thought it would be nice to kind of land it with a slightly personal grace note. And I Also like the film and wanted to use this space to advocate for it.

Alison Stewart (10:04)

You also included Black Panther. Now, of course, books go to print early. If you had the opportunity to include Sinners for Ryan Coogler, would you have included Sinners rather than Black Panther?

Ashley Clark (10:19)

I would have made a mention of Sinners somewhere in the book, and I like Sinners very much. But ultimately, Black Panther was always going to be the Coogler film because of its African Afro, futuristic style and theme and content. And it has expansively diasporic. Diasporic casting that the actors. The black actors in this film come from all over the world. And I think there was a myriad ways that I was able to connect Black Panther to other films in the book. And that's something I was so keen to do, to take you by the hand and make all of these connections. So there's an obvious connection with the sun, the great free jazz musician Sun Ra, and his. His wild film Space is the Place, which is made in Oakland, which is where Ryan Coogler's from. And, you know, there's a scene in. Shot in Oakland, contemporary scene in Black Panther, and that's where Sun Rod lands his spacecraft in Space is the Place. So it seemed like a really nice connection.

Alison Stewart (11:12)

And it was really cool when in Black Panther, when his aircraft takes off and you look at the bottom of it and it's this gorgeous mask. Yeah, it's amazing.

Ashley Clark (11:22)

Absolutely. And that thing of the. The artifacts, you know, the scene with Michael B. Jordan in the British. The British Museum, that connects to so many themes and films in the book, from Timbuktu to Black Girl to, you know, Dahomey by Matti Diop, a recent film about African art and sculpture and restitution and all of these kind of complicated ideas. And Black Panther's right in the heart of all of that.

Alison Stewart (11:46)

Well, let's get some of the films that you'll be screening at BAM as part of your. Your book launch. Black girl from 1966. Tell us a little bit about this film.

Ashley Clark (11:57)

So Black Girl is a film that, even though it's short, it's only an hour long, but it's widely regarded as the first feature film made in Sub Saharan Africa by a black filmmaker. And it's made by Usman Semben, who's a Senegalese filmmaker who only came to filmmaking in his 40s after a long, winding life of labor activism and novel, being a novel writer and traveling. And he decided that filmmaking was actually the easiest and most direct way to speak to his compatriots. In a language that they could all understand. And this is the story of a young Senegalese woman who leaves Dakar to join up with a bourgeois white French family to essentially become their maid. And they treat her with everything ranging from indifference to outright hostility. And it leads to her downfall, really. And it's. It's a bracing and very sad film, but it's also beautiful and beautifully made and thoughtful and ultimately, I think, quite a hopeful film. And it's been a foundational film for a lot of filmmakers, and it's been referenced widely, including quite recently, the film Nanny by Nikita Jusu, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance a few years ago, and which. Which, like Black Girl, is part of the Criterion Collection.

Alison Stewart (13:13)

One movie that's really fun that you're screening is Set it off from 1996, directed by F. Gary Gray and starring Jada Pinkett, Vivica Fox, and Queen Latifah. Let's listen to a clip where they went for the robbery A little too early, y'.

Ashley Clark (13:32)

All.

State Farm Representative (13:32)

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Ashley Clark (13:42)

Whoa, Whoa.

Alison Stewart (13:46)

I love Latifinette.

State Farm Representative (13:47)

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Alison Stewart (14:06)

Okay. Come on. Queen Latifah isn't doing. You're not hearing her, but she's doing some serious acting in that clip.

Ashley Clark (14:16)

Part of me is like, do you really want to hear from me, or can we just let the clip go? It's so absorbing. It's an amazing film. Yeah. All female heist thriller from 1996, right in the heart of this amazing decade for black cinema in America, where studios inspired by the success of Spike Lee and early on in the decade, John Singleton were green lighting these films that really centered black experience and were. They were done at a high level of budget and craft and Set it off is right in the middle of that. And I think it's a slightly underrated film, which drives me crazy. And I think more people should see it. And I think it's a great film to see on the big screen. It's a lot of fun, really, like old school by a filmmaker who just loves movies, and it's just a great, talented genre filmmaker. And as you say, the cast, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, just beautiful stuff.

Alison Stewart (15:03)

Okay. You get to pick one more film to shout out during the film festival. We got about a minute.

Ashley Clark (15:08)

I would wolf I'm going to shout out Sarah Maldoros Sambizanga from 1972, which is I believe the first or one of the first films to be made by a woman in Africa. And it's a very powerful, ferocious, but also extremely beautiful and well made anti colonial drama about the freedom fight for Angolan people. And it's told through a feminist lens and it's about a woman's kind of political awakening. And it's just an incredible film. The kind of film that I think people will see and think why did I not know about this earlier? Also part of the Criterion Collection, but I would advocate for seeing it on the big screen this weekend.

Alison Stewart (15:49)

The book is called the World of Black Film. It also has a special film series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Selections from the World of Black film from February 27th through March 3rd. My My guest has been Ashley Clark. Thank you so much for being with us.

Ashley Clark (16:06)

Real pleasure. Thank you so much.

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