In a tribute to Black History Month, the Sag Harbor Cinema is launching a new series of Cinema Minutes devoted to pioneering Black filmmakers and stars. The online series features short clips introduced and contextualized by Giulia D'Agnolo Vallan, the theater's artistic director.
“The 1970s was a defining decade for Black cinema in the U.S.,” said Ms. Vallan. “Films like ‘Cotton Comes to Harlem,’ ‘Shaft,’ ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,’ and ‘Greased Lightning’ were huge crossover successes. The soundtracks and casts of these movies are legendary. Their influence in contemporary black cinema cannot be overstated.”
The series features Richard Roundtree as a tough New York detective in Gordon Parks’s “Shaft” (1971) and Denzel Washington as a corrupt Los Angeles narcotics officer in Antoine Fuqua’s 2001 crime thriller “Training Day.” A Gullah family leaving South Carolina for the north is the subject of “Daughters of the Dust,” Julie Dash’s 1991 drama, while Henry G. Sanders plays a father struggling to make ends meet in Watts in Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep” (1978).
Richard Pryor portrays Wendell Scott in “Greased Lightning” (1977), Michael Schultz’s dramatization of the life of the first African-American NASCAR racing champion. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, admired the revolutionary implications of Melvin Van Peebles’s “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” (1971).
“Cotton Comes to Harlem,” a 1970 action comedy directed by Ossie Davis, features Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques as two Harlem cops, while “Boomerang” stars Eddie Murphy as a womanizing advertising executive in Reginald Hudlin’s 1992 comedy.
“Daughters of the Dust,” while dating from 1991, was included among the 1970s titles because it took Ms. Dash 15 years to get the film made. As for “Boomerang” and “Training Day,” Ms. Vallan decided to offer up Mr. Washington and Mr. Murphy as Valentines in the February series.
The Cinema Minutes were filmed, directed, and edited by Sam Hamilton. They will be posted to the cinema’s website and social channels throughout the month, as well as in the outdoor and indoor digital poster vitrines at the cinema's café.
