- My grandmother told me that movies turned her dreams into something resembling stories but the onscreen crushing of Black Hope was institutional.

When I was a kid kid be a stepping Willie Best, Buckwheat but I still wanted to be them.

One decade answered the question what happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or does it explode?

(Upbeat music) This is the story about a group of artists that changed the culture forever.

- These movies were about us.

- That's a nice change.

[Laughter] - The music.

The style.

- Is that black enough for you?

- The heroes.

- You want the black guy Richard, cause he's gonna help you get out.

- When Billy B. Williams came on every woman in Hollywood hollered up.

- I fell in love with myself.

I said, my goodness gracious.

- You see your role as a positive force or a negative one.

And then we made the film about the way things actually are.

All the artists, since I know them personally are responsible people who are concerned about what is happening in the black community.

- Movies is the stuff for fantasies.

I needed a black cowboy.

- First and foremost I'm an artist.

- You've gotta walk in Like it's yours.

- They were proof that we were here, that we create culture that we have voices and that we will be heard - Am I black enough for you - Elvis Mitchell, welcome to American Black Journal and also welcome back to Detroit.

You're a, you're in the Detroit area native and it's always great to have folks come back and talk about their work.

- Well, thank you for both welcomes.

You know, it's a thrill to be doing this and a thrill to be a Detroit man, so thank you.

- Yeah.

We're gonna, we're gonna talk a little more about Detroit in a bit, but first I do wanna talk about the film festival and your film.

Is that black enough for you?

This is one of my favorite subjects, by the way.

- Yeah?

- Is blacks films, especially of the 1970s.

I grew up during the 1970s and I wasn't allowed to watch some of these movies when I was little, [Laughter] but I saw 'em later and and I got really into 'em because, you know they're fun and, and especially when you were when I was like a young black kid, I, you know these were the first movies I experienced where you had black casts and, and black stories.

And so it kind of frames the whole understanding of that for me.

But, but, but tell me first what inspires you to, to make this movie?

- I, I think it's a similar experience to what you're describing.

- Yeah.

- And also he buttressed that I guess the kinds of things we would see on television, you know, and, and and those images unlike now didn't come with disclaimers or warnings or, or contexts.

It's just Wow.

And you watch watched it thing.

Gee wears a white people must be crazy if they think that's what we're like.

- (Laughter) - And, and because I remember as a kid, you know you watch these old movies you think, so, a white married couple sleep in separate beds.

- That's long.

- Okay.

I don't know any white married people.

So that's Huh, What?

So all these things that were never really explicated but left an impact anyway.

So they had these films of, of the 1970s which created a whole new mythology, I think for not only for just people of color, but for the world.

I mean, one of the points I make in the movie is just how pop culture was shifted by the way music was used in these films and how that created a whole new appetite and new way to market movies that black filmmakers and more importantly black recording artists never got credits for or never got their due you know?

But isn't that always the story of the platinum experience?

- Yes.

- That's not getting our due.

- Yes, it really is.

So I wanna talk about the the sort of cultural challenge that this this era and these films present as you point out, you know there are a lot of things about 'em that are troubling in terms of the way that they portray African American life and and the way television of course was, was doing it that but they do, they do really importantly capture parts of the culture that that, that were that were accurate and, and that that kids like me could kind of relate to.

And just as important, they paved the way for for the black film that comes in the nineties and after.

When, when we really start to come into our own and start to tell our own stories in a way that is really authentic.

I wanna talk about that tension, I guess between being uncomfortable with with some of these films, but also appreciating them.

Well, I think that tension you're talking about was the extent even during that period, because while you had Black Ashton films, you also had Sounder which was the first black first film, have a a nominations for the actor had actors African-Americans that had never happened before that moment.

Yep.

1972 was also a pretty incredible year.

Cause you also have the nomination of Di Diane, Diana Ross.

Lady Sings the Blues.

That's the first time a a black woman is nominated for a best original screenplay.

Suzanne De Passe Lady Sings the Blues.

That still hasn't happened since.

And, and you, the, the Thawing You, you have Claudine which is a project that the late Diane Sin was developing for herself.

And when she got too sick wasn't able to do it she passed the baton on to her dear friend Diane Carroll who got to make that movie and got an Oscar nomination that got a chance to respond to this image of her that existed in this TV show called Julia just five years earlier.

And you put her feet on the ground and show this (inaudible) that she hadn't really had a chance to demonstrate in mass media before.

You've got Sparkle which has given us enduring songs that are still part of the world.

You've got, my gosh, what I think is one of the crowning achievements of American cinema.

And, and that's, you know, Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett.

There are extraordinary fellows that came out of that that that period that make it a much more complex time than it's giving granted for to do.

And that's why I've been very specific about saying even though people seem to miss the points about, is this is not a film about black exploitation, right?

This is a film about the breadth and expanse of films that were being offered.

You've got the movie done by Bill Greer, William Greer, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One without that you've got no Eric Andre you've got no Sasha Baron Cohen.

There's so much experimentation in in four terms being done.

And also you've got movies that I think set the tone for what Black Action films were, but are bigger than that.

You've got Sweet Sweetback, which is something that comments on black imagery that plays with the idea of, of of the way we respond to black imagery.

And, and, and you know, it's interesting too that so many of these films, in addition to being enormously impactful on the African American community were huge popular successes.

And they don't get their due for that either.

- Connect the dots between that era and this era and and, and the errors in between.

What are we to make of what comes out of the black films of the seventies that, that you know, we enjoy, we enjoy today.

You know, I can't help but watch Michelle Yeoh win for Everything Everywhere, all at once and think about the action film she did in the nineties and think, you know without the example of Pam Greer does that exist certainly five years after Coffee there's Charlie's Angels on television, which then then becomes a huge movie and, and that changed the culture.

There are so many of these moments that in these films I think were set seismic, seismic impact on on the way the world worked.

And I think the world of hip hop doesn't exist without the example of what Curtis Mayfield was doing.

When you hear Chuck D talk about Public Enemy being, you know, like black CNN while Curtis Mayfield was doing that and influenced Marvin Gaye, who then probably influenced a bunch of other people so we could go on that was a problem with making this documentary is that it could have been 10 hours long and just trying to call stuff.

But also it's, it's, it's one of the fun things for me and I I hope you got this from the, from the two is seeing in a lot of these cases the thrill that black actors got from working with other black actors because they had been so isolated.

And I think we're about old enough to remember that when you saw a black and white person on TV in a movie that was adult entertainment.

So what, because they're talking it's adult entertaining.

That's huh.

- (Laughter) - What?

Yeah, it was a really, a huge and terrifying thing.

So the way the laws have come down I think is that, we don't look as scans at the idea of of of a white person and a person of color being on screen.

In fact, it's on the CNN every morning now, just everywhere else.

So, so those things have changed too.

But the way I think I what I think they've changed movies is that there's always been an entrepreneurial aspect to black cinema.

Yeah.

And we look at Melvin Van Peebles to Spike Lee, to Robert Townsend.

These have been people and, and and filmmakers who changed the independent film movement who are still, their practices are still being employed today to get movies back.

You know, I was just interviewing Robert Townsend last year.

I called him up because I knew it was the 35th anniversary of Hollywood Shuffle which the movie he made with his credit cards.

I just thought, well gee, I wanna hurry and get to this before somebody else does.

And I just thought, nobody's gonna do this.

- No one's thinking about it Right?

- Yeah.

No, no, no, no.

They'll do something.

Oh, you know, the 20 anniversary of the OC Yeah.

But they, but they won't deal with this.

And, and you know they're filmmakers who are still using credit card to get films made and he changed the narrative.

And also because, and this goes back to, you know being along the All Stars and the Negro Leagues the fact that the Negro Leagues they had to build an audience, bring that audience literally with them to the stadium, sell snacks that audience like if the audience to engage with the team.

So in addition to everything else they had to play nine innings of baseball.

- Yeah.

- So for, for Oscar re show or Melvin Van Peebles or, or even Ava de Verne you gotta find the money for the movie.

You gotta make the movie.

You have to market the movie.

I mean, that's a rarity.

- Yeah.

- And this still exists.

You, you asked me to connect the dots that that through line that A to B is still an issue for filmmakers of color.

- Yeah.

So I do wanna talk a little about Detroit.

Of course you're coming here for the, the airing of is that black enough for you?

And it's a, it's a return home.

You were born in, in Highland Park, you went to Wayne State and you have a new role at Wayne State.

I I love that.

I love that that idea of returning home to, to pursue your craft.

Talk about that, that narrative.

- Well that's been a great too, cause you know I've been lucky enough to teach you a few places I've taught at Harvard.

I've taught the American Film Institute here in Los Angeles.

I've taught the (inaudible) film program.

I've spoken universities around the world.

So, you know, it's, it's pretty awe-inspiring.

You know, it knocks me off my feet to be invited back to my alma mater to be able to tell people how important it was for me to, to be here when when I was in school, I was, I had managed and was a projectionist back when we used to have such things at a movie theater in downtown Detroit and - Wow - And, and so in the early eighties I was doing that and putting myself through a school.

And so just to get a chance to talk to the student body of Wayne about the way that place the way growing up in Detroit formed me.

I don't want people to think that.

In fact, I'm so much a Detroiter that wherever I go around the world my watch is always set on Eastern Standard time.

That's, I was just in Rotterdam for the Rotterdam Film Festival and people is your watch broken?

No, that's Eastern Standard Time.

Where you from?

I'm from Detroit.

Was that on Central Time?

No, it's not on central time.

So yes, that's, but anyway, that's, that's how foundational Detroit is to me and my sensibilities.

So I'm, I'm beyond honored to be asked to come back and, and and teach a course there.

And I hope yeah, there's more of that in my future.

- Yeah, no, we do too.

It's, it's really special.

Alright Elvis Mitchell.

Looking forward - Before you go I wanna say - Yeah - How much the tradition of Black Journal has meant to me.

- Oh - Growing up in Detroit.

I just wanna say what the reason I fought to make time for this, and I'm glad you're able to be flexible in your schedule too.

And, and you know, the same way I do how important this show is and that it's still this standard is built.

So being kept aloft and a light is really important.

And I hope for generations of, of of people of color to come.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

We're, we're working on it.

We're working hard at preserving what what they've built here for us.

Great to talk with you and we look forward to you being at the film festival.

- Thank you so much.

I'm looking forward to it too.

Thanks again for your time.