A Century of Black Cinema (2003)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Century of Black Cinema is a documentary film which premiered in 2003.

 

Here is some basic information about it:

 

** Director: Ted Newsom

** Writers: Michael Harrigan and Dennis Hunt

** Narrator: Kim Delgado

** Run time: 120 minutes

 

This film is a combination of two elements:

 

# 1. Short clips from movies released in the 20th century in which African Americans play a minor or major role. There are so many movies, I cannot mention all of them.

 

# 2. Statements from actors and other people who worked in the movie business during the 20th century. There are so many names, I cannot mention all of them.

 

The statements can be divided into two categories:

 

The first category =

Archive footage (recorded many years ago)

The second category =

An interview that was done for this film

 

What do reviewers say about this film?

 

On IMDb it has a rating of 63 per cent, which corresponds to 3.2 stars on Amazon.

 

On Amazon there are at the moment 10 ratings of this product, 6 with reviews.

 

The average rating is 4.6 stars which corresponds to a rating of 92 percent.

 

If you ask me, the former rating is quite appropriate, while the latter rating is too high.

 

Why?

 

Because this film has two significant flaws.

 

Let me explain:

 

(A) Several clips have poor quality; poor quality of the sound or poor quality of the images or both.

 

This is unfortunate. If the quality of a certain movie is too low, I think the director should have dropped this movie from his list.

 

(B) It seems the director of this film wanted to have as many clips as possible, no matter what the quality of the movie is. This means there are clips from movies that are better than average, from movies that are average and from movies that are below average.

 

This is unfortunate. Instead of choosing as many movies as possible, the director should have chosen movies of high quality and movies which mark an important milestone in the history of black cinema.

 

The product we have here is too long and, since it covers almost every movie in which an African-American appears, no single movie stands out as important.

 

I have to remove two stars because of these flaws. This is why I think this film deserves a rating of three stars (60 percent).

 

PS. For more information, see the following items:

 

Black Hollywood: Blaxploitation and

Advancing an Independent Black Cinema

(85 minutes)

(1984)

 

Small Steps, Big Strides:

The Black Experience in Hollywood

(56 minutes)

(1998)

 

*****