This documentary isn’t necessarily linear. It veers back and forth, which gives it a conversational tone.
It’s kind of chronological. It’s just that you can’t talk about one thing without going back to talk about something else. It’s not meant to be like a beat sheet of this happened, and then this happened, and then this happens. But you can’t think about that without talking about this. And when you think about that, you’ve gotta bring this into the picture as well. So I call it an essay because I want it to feel essay-like rather than a historical piece. Cuz it is that, but it’s not strictly that. As you know, as you’re writing these pieces, you want to put in what are, in effect, footnotes. And there are lots of these footnotes that happen after the opening section. Once we get to the 1960s through the 1970s, it’s chronological. But what I’m trying to say is that these movies don’t exist in bubbles. They’re connected to the social history that came before them.
The title: “Is That Black Enough For You!?!” – which comes from “Cotton Comes to Harlem.” Why this title from that film?
First of all, because that’s such a deathless line. That was actually Steven’s idea. Cause we had another title that we just weren’t able to use because of music rights stuff. And he goes, here’s the obvious one: Am I Black Enough for You? He cracked the code. But that’s also the question that’s constantly being asked anyway. It’s a sub-textural question. And I think it’s just a way to deal with it without coming out and saying it; it becomes implication rather than declamatory. Which is what I wanted to do. The title is also about that movie. Because that movie does a lot. And not only does that movie do a lot, but it’s such a 180 in tone from what the book was. And so I just thought that it’s important to put that in too.
It’s weird because, and I’m glad you asked that question, there are movies that have such a wide reach in terms of their impact that it’s hard to talk about them without making them seem like they’re more important than they are. Which doesn’t say that “Cotton Comes to Harlem” isn’t important. But it’s entertainment. You watch it, and you see these actors who have been on stage together before, and there’s just so much pleasure they take in working with other Black actors who come from the same background as them. And there’s a thrill in that.
There’s a beat in this film that’s kind of a throwaway, but those costumes: When Judy Pace opens the door, she’s wearing that beautiful piece of chain mail vest. And when Calvin Lockhart throws off that kind of James Brown cape, he’s wearing this double-breasted suit, which has these fabric-covered buttons. So there’s a throwaway moment when that song is being played from the opening credits where it says: costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone, who also did the costumes for “The Godfather.” So there’s a pretty rich vein of ore there. And then we move on. But it’s important.
And again, this whole thing for me is about how so many of these movies that have importance just don’t get their due. Which doesn’t reckon with the fact that “Cotton Comes to Harlem” is scored by the guy who scored “Hair.” And we don’t get into it in the movie, but certainly, there’s a whole section of the movie I wrote that got cut out about the instrumentation. It’s jazz-funk. But it’s also the use of the wah-wah guitar, which we associate with later movies, that comes out of that. It’s also the fanfare that he writes that are kind of stage fanfare that make the movie playful.
There are so many scenes in this movie that should be on that list of classic film scenes that just don’t ever get mentioned. And part of this too, for me, and I realize this is kind of a diatribe, but you dialed into this, so you earned it [laughs] It’s just that so often Black history has to be a “century of.” There was an issue of Entertainment Weekly from a couple of years ago that was about a hundred years of Black movies. It’s just one issue. But it’s a hundred years of Black movies. It doesn’t have to be the sum total of the entire Black experience. There are moments that are revolutionary. The moments have become movements, in fact. This is a movie about what became a movement that wasn’t planned in that way.
A small digression.
A small digression? Oh, that’s sweet of you. [laughs]
Well, not really a small digression, and this may be getting into the weeds a bit, but I noticed that this is the second documentary, Reginald Hudlund’s “Sidney,” being the other this year, that skips over Bill Cosby. Of course, what he did was unforgivable, but was there any thought of including him? Especially considering the creative wake he left on Blaxploitation during the decade?
That’s a good question. I mean, he isn’t mentioned because how do you mention him without starting a whole other discussion, you know? I think he’s an incredibly important figure. You know, I even have Francis Ford Coppola talking about him. Because it was Cosby who had the idea for what became “Heaven Can Wait.” He initially wanted to do it. Which I thought was just a way of saying too that it’s about the impact these films have. So even the films that don’t get made they’re becoming important. And at one point, when I was interviewing Coppola, he said that Cosby is one of the greatest natural actors he’d ever worked with. Now, this was 20 years ago, so people still thought like that. But it’s the issue, too, of what do you and how do you address talent that betrays you? I just didn’t have the bandwidth to get into that conversation. You can’t start to talk about what he did and what he accomplished as an actor and as a talent and how influential he was on other actors without talking about that betrayal. And there’s no other word for it.
Do you foresee this as you only film, or do you have the itch to make another?
Are you kidding? I’m still hoping this projects when it comes on Netflix. [laughs] I’m taking this a day at a time. Did you hear me say I was turned down by every publisher in the English-speaking world for this book? [laughs] Had it not been for Steven Soderberg and then David Fincher, well, I wouldn’t have gotten this movie made. So I don’t want to think about if I wanna make another movie. I wanna see this movie, and then we’ll see how it goes. What are your thoughts about the film? I’m curious.
I really liked it. I think it has a good balance between your personal attachment to these films and this era of Black filmmaking, and it being a necessary survey of this era. I’ve, of course, seen a lot of Black films, but even I was writing down a couple of titles and filing them away for later watches. So the film really sparks quite a bit of curiosity on the part of the viewer to search for these films. And with this being on Netflix, it’s really going to make people revisit these movies. So I think the documentary does a fantastic job at striking a match to curiosity.
I think that’s a great way to put it. Because again, for you, who looks at both Black film and then mainstream film, and the way these worlds kind of intersect, and the ways that intersection is so often not addressed…
Mm-hmm.
There’s this perpetual notion that you can boil down what the Black experience was in the 1970s in film terms, and if this is an era that gives you “Space is the Place” and ends up with “Killer of Sheep,” then how can it be dismissed? And how can it be said that everything is equivalent and everything is the same? And for you, I wanna specifically hear your thoughts about attempting to address that kind of issue that does arise: But people will say that while talking out of the other side of their mouth, there’s Black film, and Black film is, in fact, a genre. So it’s a Western, but it’s a Black movie. It’s a mad comedy, but it’s a Black movie. So Black film is still, in the 21st century, a genre.
It’s difficult to balance the two. Right? When you immediately put the label of Black, such as Black film or Black horror, there comes not just a category; there comes a weight or an expectation. And many times, an unfair weight and an unfair expectation that this film should speak to a singular experience or this film must redress every slight or crime that has ever been done upon the Black community, historically. But then, of course, no matter how much we want it not to be there, it’s always there. It’s always in the background. And you can’t eliminate that. So how do you balance that? Why can’t a Black film just be a film? Why can’t Blackness just be a state of existing rather than an immediate political action?
And to that point, why does appending the word “Black” become an automatic sort of dismissal and or a lessening of a regard for it? Because that happens still, too, doesn’t it?
Yes. There are so many movies where I’ll see a white director attempt a kind of film, but then a Black director attempts the same kind of film. With the “Black version,” the response from white critics will be: But we’ve seen this so many times before. And you know, what’s interesting is when a white director does something that’s very tropey? But a white critic will praise it as an homage, whereas a Black film is relying on cliches.
It’s a loss of imagination because, you know, yes, clearly, Black people are incapable of irony. [laughs]
And so, right now, it’s tricky writing about Black films, in terms of balancing the weight of Black existence, with the art while knowing that, in the end, this is a movie. It’s a form of entertainment. How much extra should we put into this form of entertainment? So it’s complicated writing about Black film, as you know.
Yes, right now. But I also think it’s always been that way.
Yes
Because you’re conscious of what you’re saying and what you’re not saying because it’s being judged in that same way too. Well, this is a Black person writing about Black film, and so what are they saying?
In fact, it gets back to that rubric of if you grow up in the south and you’re Black, you eat every part of the pig but the oink. So the discards become a cuisine. And so with heroism having been discarded in the mainstream because it’s that period where movies can’t deal with Vietnam specifically, so they are dealing with it figuratively. But Americans go to movies as the heroes and have Ron O’Neal play “Super Fly,” an Anti-Hero with the same kind of panache that we play a hero with. I think it makes them much more complex. But people are gonna just say: Well, that’s Blaxploitation. Well yeah, it made $30 million on a $150,000 investment. I mean, that alone is a monumental achievement.
What do you hope viewers take from this film?
What we’re talking about. It’s a complicated issue that is so constantly reduced to meaninglessness. It’s Blaxploitation. Well, it may be that, but you know, again, we still live in a time where Black movies are part of a genre of Black movies. Which basically eliminates the possibility that they have a kind of mainstream success that has an impact on people. You think about what New Line was in the 1990s. Or how the Fox Network in the early to late-1990s, after it failed, turned to “Martin” and “In Living Color.” And then that moment’s forgotten. Black success is so often foundational in terms of the way this country succeeds and is so often dismissed.
And in fact, it’s something that Fincher, who Soderbergh brought in, said to me: I know why you haven’t been able to get this movie made. It’s got too many Black people in it. So let’s go do it. It’s great to work with filmmakers who are also so emboldened by what’s missing from film history and who wanted to jump on board with this. I mean, it was because of their support that this is here.
“Is That Black Enough For You?!?” premieres this weekend and screens next week at the New York Film Festival. The film debuts on Netflix Friday, November 11, 2022, and will be in select theaters beginning Friday, October 28, 2022.
