Souls of Sin.

Review #1968: Souls of Sin.

Cast: 

Savannah Churchill (Regina), Jimmy Wright (Dollar Bill), Billie Allen (Etta), William Greaves (Isaiah "Alabama" Lee), Emery Richardson (Roberts), Powell Lindsay (Bad Boy George), Louise Jackson (Mrs. Sands), and Charley Macrae (Mac) Written and Directed by Powell Lindsay.

Review: 

Admittedly, the obscure stuff makes for a film for curious spotlighting. Souls of Sin is generally considered one of the last "race films" made. These were films made outside of the Hollywood system by African Americans that were targeted for black audiences. I shouldn't say that it is the outright last one with black audiences in mind, because Carib Gold (1956) came out years later with showings that were segregated. It is the discovery of old nitrate films in a warehouse located in Tyler, Texas that we have to thank for the fact that a number of black films exist at all, which is now referred to as the Tyler Black Film Collection in the G. William Jones Film and Video Collection at Southern Methodist University. Powell Lindsay may not have been a well noted name of film, but he was still a noted name in other fields worth mentioning. He was the cofounder of the Harlem Suitcase Theater (with Langston Hughes, who he once felt would come to be recognized as the black Mark Twain) and the Negro Playwrights Company. He directed outside of the system after this film, such as "This Is Our America", done for the Panorama of Progress at the Michigan State Fairgrounds. He did research analysis for the state's legislative service bureau while founding an association of research for history of black people within the state of Michigan. He died in 1987 at the age of 82 from a long bout of cancer. The film was produced by William D. Alexander, who had gone from producing press releases and newsreels about black soldiers and sailors during World War II to forming his own production company. This included musical shorts and a couple of features, such as The Fight Never Ends, which had Joe Louis play himself. He moved to London in 1950 and made documentaries involving de-colonialization that promoted new African states, such as Liberia. Souls of Sin was his penultimate feature as a producer, because he returned to produce The Klansman (1974). I should've expected a movie that lasts barely an hour to have songs, with this including three of them: "The Things You Do To Me" by Savannah Churchill and Henry Glover, along with "Disappointment Blues” and “Lonesome Blues” by William Greaves. 

It's a shame that the movie isn't particularly that good, because it is at least a semi-curiosity given the time it was released. This was the year of Home of the Brave, Lost Boundaries, Pinky, and Intruder in the Dust, films that saw Hollywood try to make a movie with a focus on black characters that did not aim for the typical depiction of black people on screen (which is viewed in a variety of circles today as demeaning). Of course, Pinky and Lost Boundaries each had white actors in the lead roles of black people that could pass for white, so obviously the bar had to be set somewhere. It is basically a series of vignettes that results in only the mildest of interests, never really going far with any sort of story beyond static lines and a few songs. I can't recommend it, but it is at least a time vacuum with a curiosity factor that would make a strange double-header with Carib Gold for seeing a fading brand of aiming for a specific audience with specific tools (read: cheap budgets). Wright is known for both this and being involved in a small role within Orson Welles' 1936 production of "Voodoo Macbeth" and a small role in the 1980 "meta soap opera" Personal Problems. The role here is not much to really say favorably of, mostly because it isn't anything more than one-note lines about, uh, folks trying to make a living in a not-quite noir / drama. Billie Allen was noted for being one of the first black entertainers with a recurring role on network television along with appearing on TV commercials, and this was her film debut (she later became a director for the stage). Greaves had joined the Actors Studio in 1948 and had initially aspired to act before he moved to Canada in order to become a filmmaker. So yes, he gets to sing a bit here for a film that reminds one that there is more to films than being ahead of the camera. Honestly, the fact that the movie is mostly a happy one is the strange part, since it is a movie that doesn't really move particularly far in any direction, aside from a few diverting songs and a mildly entertaining climax. As a whole, this is a low-budget affair through and through that is a notch below stuff that Oscar Micheaux had done two decades prior, but it is a mild curiosity of seeing where films had to go when it came to the idea of aiming for black audiences beyond the small stuff and to see names get their chance in the spotlight.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Speaking of which, next time: Intruder in the Dust.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm.

Review #1634: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm. 

Cast: 
Patricia Ree Gilbert (herself, testing for Alice), Don Fellows (himself, testing for Fredy), Jonathan Gordon (himself, soundman), Bob Rosen (himself, production manager), and William Greaves (himself, director) Directed, Written, and Edited by William Greaves.

Review: 
“I think probably the central reason why I got involved in film production in general and documentary production in particular was that I had the very good fortune of studying African history. That wasn’t something most Black Americans were familiar with back in the 1950s and 1960s"

It's easy to make something worth seeing for oneself, but it is another thing to make something curious enough for others to follow with - so why not a film without an easy category to list it under? William Graves certainly merits a discussion over his body of work, as he is considered a pioneer of African American filmmaking with his focus on documentary filming. The Harlem native originally started his studies in college with science and engineering (at City College of New York), but he dropped out in order to pursue the theatre. He moved his focus from dancing to acting, participating in study at the Actors Studio (studying other folks such as Lee Strasberg) along with songwriting. Frustrated with the derivative roles offered through stage and film (which included supporting roles like Lost Boundaries from 1949), he shifted his attention to studying behind the camera (doing so with Hans Richter at CCNY's Film Institute), such as work with Louis de Rochemont. In 1952, he decided to move to Canada to study with the National Film Board of Canada, where he went from assistant editing to making his own films through his course of eleven years. An interest in history in Africa (such as professor William Leo Hansberry) helped push him on the way to doing documentaries (as helped by John Grierson's book on the subject, since he not only coined the phrase but also helped create the NFB) that would teach about topics not generally told in education. He would spend several years in Canada doing films that are generally considered part of the first cinéma-vérité documentaries, and by the time he moved back in 1963 to America he was ready to take on independent work in filming. Greaves would work for a variety of places for freelance work that ranged from the United Nations to National Educational Television (the predecessor to PBS), where he would win an Emmy for his work on Black Journal in 1969. Over the span of a half century, Greaves would cover a variety of subjects with his filmmaking, such as the Harlem Renaissance, a feature documentary involving the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier 1971 fight, and the life of icons such as Ida B. Wells and Ralph Bunche. Greaves would also find time to teach film and acting alongside doing workshops and public speaking about indie film experiences before his death at the age of 87 in 2014.

One might wonder exactly what the title means with how long it is, and there might be a clue with a similar word that exists with Symbiotaxiplasm - That word refers to action of interconnectedness; Greaves was inspired by an Arthur Bentley essay on the subject for his own film, for which he described as events that happen in someone's life that impact upon someone within consciousness or the environment. Besides, this was the era of daring to do something different with the drama within experimentation, as noted in films such as Medium Cool (1969) in blending fact and fiction. His passion for acting and documentary is what led him to do this film, one that would be shot in the style of cinema verite that can be thought of as experimental or avant-garde. The release year is dubious, since it was shot in 1968 in Central Park in New York City, comprised of footage shot in the park, footage shot involving the film crew talking about Greaves and their doubts and footage in between that captures reality through coherence/incoherence with editing. In other words: there were three film crews brought in to do the film, with one shooting actors (brought in from Greaves' days at the Actors Studio), the second to document the first crew, and the third crew to film anything that relates to the overarching theme of the documentary of sexuality (which can include anything from someone on a horse to an eccentric homeless man), all while Greaves interacts in the film as the director to end all directors, doing on one side the act of maneuvering the film with the film while on the other hand including footage that doubts whether he knows what he is doing at all (credit to Rosen and Gordon for expressing their doubt so clearly). When the film was finally completed in 1971, it did not receive attention for financing a theatrical release from distributors, and an attempt to get the film screened at the Cannes Film Festival proved fruitless. Nevertheless, Greaves did find time to tour the film around, and a showing at the Sundance Film Festival caught the eye of Steve Buscemi in 1993, who wanted to help with financing and producing one of his films - believe it or not, this was intended as the first of numerous Symbiopsychotaxiplasm films. After a decade of limbo and finding another admirer with Steven Soderbergh, a sequel would indeed be commissioned, with Greaves returning to do so while each would have its own release in theaters in the fall of 2005 (this film is referred to with the secondary title of Take One, while the sequel is called Take 2 1/2 and the DVD release is just known as Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes). 

Could you imagine there being five of these films? How about the fact that over 70 hours of footage was distilled into 75 minutes? It's the easiest case to ever use the word meta-textual when it comes to this film, particularly with its instance of repeating one sequence for the actors (for which there are more than just one pairing) to do again and again, which can even include three cameras filming. It may be the most accomplished piece of reality-infused media, because at least when one sees a reality television show (or a documentary detailing life), one at least knows there is just one camera shooting all the action, complete with a Miles Davis music score that goes exactly with what is needed in composition for a film of experiments. That scene with the eccentric (named Victor) near the end fully encapsulates the spontaneity that encompasses this film, where anything could happen without seeming out of touch or a gimmick. It may be unpolished and might seem a bit on the fleeting side, but for anyone who yearns to see something about filmmaking besides just a movie about making movies, one can't go wrong about a movie about making a movie about making a movie that captures that line between what is real and what is just on the surface, what with numerous actors being shown playing the roles within the fictional film (with one singing the dialogue and the other in Audrey Henningham as the last shot of the film while teasing the follow-up film). Greaves hoped he would have the power of a hurricane with his arrival into filmmaking but ended up describing himself as a raindrop hoping for further directors of a similar mind, and he is correct in one sense, in that he ended up being a one of a kind director that made a worthwhile one of a kind movie to seek out. It might not be the perfect film for all tastes of patience, but it certainly achieves enough to blur the lines of fact and fiction. You just have to see it for yourself to wonder why it eventually found a home as an experimental gem, and it is a blessing that a website exists in tribute to the director that includes plenty of material involving the life of Greaves, and it is also nice to see this have an easier route to be viewed than it was at the time of its completion that dares to have its own revolution within the media of film that still goes on today.

You just never know what could come next with the range of genres or history. Next Time for Black History Month: Cotton Comes to Harlem.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.