Nothing But A Man – 40th
Anniversary Edition
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B
The debate rages on about if white filmmakers could or
should make films about the black Experience or with mostly or all-black
casts. There was a time that a separate
African-American cinema existed, but that was played out and snuffed out by
circumstances too numerous and ugly to address here. Michael Roemer’s Nothing But A Man (1964) is a
still-impressive and rare film directed and written by white men (co-writer
Robert Young also served as cinematographer and co-producer with Roemer and
Robert Rubin) that may seem second-person in ways more obvious now than then,
but the very exceptional, extraordinary cast are so good, it becomes something
special indeed.
Ivan Dixon is Duff, whose life is not necessarily going
anywhere, but he has some hopes and loves Josie (Abbey Lincoln). However, is the South sickening enough to
get him to go North? He has his father
Will (Julius W. Harris) to deal with, who has never done a thing for him, not
to mention various bigoted whites along the way. The extraordinary cast of mostly unknowns includes also includes
Yaphet Kotto, Moses Gunn, Martin Priest and Esther Rolle.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 black and white image is limited
to some extent due to the format, but this is an impressive use of this kind of
stock that makes the film hold up extraordinarily well. In a time black and white was being
overtaken by various color stocks, this is a key monochrome work. Young is underrated. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has the luxury
of coming from magnetic sound elements, so this has fine sound for its time,
age and especially budget. One of the
first times, if not the first time, radio microphones were ever used for a
feature film, connected to a magnetic sound Nigra-brand recorder. Until digital arrived, this was a great
recording system, still used by independent productions that know better. Points also to the superior use of Motown
hits before they became classics. No,
Motown Records was not happy music sung by black artists so white yuppie
airheads could do feel-good films that no one can remember now. They are classics because of their core
honesty, something they share with this film.
Extras include an excellent booklet inside the DVD case
with text written by Pittsburgh-based freelance writer Jim Davidson, small
interview sequences with Dixon (at about 5 minutes), Julius W. Harris (about 6
minutes), Abbey Lincoln (about 5 minutes) and Roemer/Young (31:33). The Life & Work Of Abbey Lincoln
is a fine featurette (13:20) about Miss Lincoln’s life and Jazz vocal career,
with a nice set of interviews and great comments from the lady herself. Text on the DVD includes separate cast and
filmmaker biographies. I can only disagree
with Roemer about the film not having enough humor. At a time when every film wants to throw in jokes pointlessly,
that is a refreshing aspect of the film he may not have considered.
Getting back to the issue of directors, race and color, of
course African Americans can best tell stories of the Black Experience, yet
filmmaking is never that simple. Steven
Spielberg is still criticized for helming The Color Purple in 1985, but
it is a film that offers his very best and very worst work in one film. The failures come in the quasi-stereotypes
he falls back on as a substitute for being black, showing the limits in general
of him trying to tell real life in Hollywood-speak and images. However, the moments about pain, rejection,
oppression and loneliness are hauntingly dead on, which is why people still
love the film regardless. His
underrated Amistad does run into as many troubles, but that 1995 film
dares to tell about an ugly moment in America’s past atypical of Spielberg.
Spike Lee put himself on the map with She’s Gotta Have
It in 1986, and then after School Daze (1988) really ripped things
wide open with the impressive Do The Right Thing in 1989. The only problem Spike runs into is the
reverse of Spielberg, trying to tell The Black Experience though (as a friend
once noted) the language of the New York Style of filmmaking, a school that
runs contrary to being Black in America.
I give him great credit for trying to rewrite it to some small extent,
but it is a minor set back versus the other directors from the Black New Wave
that did not last long enough; as short in most cases as the new talent
discovered.
That brings us to David Gordon Green’s George
Washington, a 2000 film about poor African American children living in
poverty in the south. It is not a tired
“slave cycle” film or of the epic scope of a Lee or Spielberg film. Like Nothing But A Man, it is a to
the point, for real, film about the human experience and shows the characters
with intelligence and dignity. It
purposely omits any Hip Hop, DJ, R&B or like music forms. The point is to get to the characters,
something most films by most writers and directors fail to do these days, using
music very badly, then as a crutch. It
is an exception in ways that go beyond race, which is why Political Correctness
should NEVER be used as a factor for deciding what films get made. Nothing But A Man is a key American
film and minor classic from white filmmakers who proved five years later with The
Plot Against Harry (reviewed elsewhere on this site) they were masters of
the New York school as well. The art
always triumphs in the end over the political pettiness. See this great film ASAP.
- Nicholas Sheffo
