Unmade Black Projects

The following black experience-related film and stage projects proposed by black entertainers were mentioned in the press but so far they have not been made:

1. Spike Lee (director)--A biopic about the 1938 boxing rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling; A film adaptation of Porgy and Bess.

2. Barry Jenkins (director)--A biopic about the choreographer Alvin Ailey.

3. Jon Batiste (musician/composer)--A Broadway musical based on the life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

4. Alicia Keys (singer/pianist)--A biopic about the biracial piano prodigy Philippa Schuyler, whose father was the Harlem Renaissance writer and critic George Schuyler.

5. Jesse L. Martin (actor)--A biopic about the R & B singer Marvin Gaye.

More Harlem Street Art

This wall mural was painted to advertise the 2021 Aretha Franklin biopic, Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, and Marlon Wayans. It was located on 124th Street, near Lenox Avenue.

Biopics Are Not The Gospel

When one watches a movie based on true events, one should keep in mind that the movie is not a documentary and that the filmmakers for dramatic reasons fictionalize and change details about what really happened.

A case in point would be 2020's One Night in Miami, an otherwise well-done, riveting movie directed by the Oscar-winning actress Regina King.

The movie takes place in February 1964 when Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) comes to Miami to vie for the heavyweight championship against his rival Sonny Liston.

Following Ali's victory in the ring, he, the singer Sam Cooke, the firebrand orator Malcolm X, and the football player Jim Brown hole up in a motel room where they share their innermost thoughts, experiences, and aspirations. No one knows for sure what was actually said that night. Kemp Powers, the screenwriter, can only conjecture about what may have occurred, relying on his imagination.

Jim Brown, who recently passed away, was the last surviving participant in that motel gathering and would have known how close Powers came to accurately depicting that night. However, a couple of facts were not accurately presented.

For instance, when Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali are by themselves, Brown expresses to Ali his reluctance to admit to the others that he is giving up his football career to pursue movie acting. What's missing in that scene is Ali telling Brown to relax since he himself appeared in the movie Requiem for a Heavyweight two years prior.

Another scene gets the chronology wrong about when Sam Cooke wrote and recorded "A Change is Gonna Come."  Malcolm goes to the record player and plays Bob Dylan singing "Blowin' in the Wind" and asks Cooke why he hadn't written a song that was as socially and politically relevant. That confrontation, according to the movie, causes Cooke to write "A Change is Gonna Come." Actually, Cooke recorded the song less than a month before the motel gathering in Miami.

Peter Guralnick, Cooke's biographer, in an essay in the companion booklet to the 30-song CD Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend, 1951-1964 (2003), relates that after hearing the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary's hit recording of "Blowin' in the Wind," he told his friend and song publishing partner J.W. Alexander, "Alec, I got to write something. Here's a white boy [Bob Dylan] writing a song like this...." (Guralnick calls "A Change is Gonna Come" Cooke's magnum opus.)

If one were to examine One Night in Miami closely, there are no doubt other inaccuracies. But, hey, that's Hollywood. You can still enjoy the movie. Just don't accept everything you're seeing and hearing as the gospel.

Are STEM Students Free To Launch Rockets?

The movie, October Sky, released in 1999 and based on Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys, is a riveting celebration of American know-how and determination.

It's set in a small West Virginia coal-mining town in 1957 when the Soviet satellite Sputnik is launched spearheading the Soviet/American space race.

Hickam, who later became a space engineer, at the time was a high school student, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, with dreams of designing rocket ships. His father, who works in the mines, vehemently disapproves and wants him instead to follow in his footsteps. But Hickam continues to pursue his dreams.

Young Hickam, along with his school buddies, and with the full  support of his science teacher, enters a student science competition and begins test firing rockets, many of which either fail to launch or blow up without ever leaving the ground. In the end, they achieve a successful launch.

After I watched this movie (which was a few years ago on either a VHS cassette or a DVD), I concluded that the kids today who are in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) programs in high schools would not be able to enjoy the same freedom to experiment with rockets as Hickam was. And  their efforts, because of national security concerns, would be stymied by government interference and/or accusations of terrorist activity.

A Biopic About An 18th-Century Black Violinist In France

As soon as I read in The New Yorker (March 13, 2023) that a biopic called Chevalier, about an 18th-century black violinist and composer, was slated for release in April, I wasted no time going to my bookshelves.

The book I took down is my go-to reference on blacks in the classical music world, the late Raoul Abdul's Blacks in Classical Music, published in 1977 by Dodd, Mead & Company. (Abdul was the music critic at the New York Amsterdam News.)

I turned to the chapter on Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799). He was born on the Caribbean island of Guadalupe to an African mother and the French governor of the island. (The movie synopsis described the father as a plantation owner.)

After reading the chapter, I could see why the director, Stephen Williams, chose this historical figure, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., to make a movie about. Saint-Georges had a larger than life persona during his lifetime. He was a brilliant violinist who, wrote Abdul, "acquired a mastery of that instrument comparable to the best of his day." Saint-Georges also was "an outstanding swordsman, a brilliant conversationalist, and altogether the darling of French society."

Will people out of curiosity see Chevalier in large enough numbers to make it a hit? Who knows? Judging by the comments left on the movie's trailer page, there is a lot of interest in seeing it. And maybe that interest will encourage concert halls around the world to showcase his music.

On Screen, Langston Hughes And His Boyfriend

About fifteen minutes into the biopic, Marshall, there is a remarkable scene that takes place inside Minton's Playhouse, the famous Harlem jazz venue. NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall (Chadwick Boseman) is seated at a table with his former Lincoln University classmate Langston Hughes and Hughes's male companion who is identified in the end credits as "Langston's boyfriend." The body language of Hughes and the boyfriend telegraphs to the audience their gayness.

Jussie Smollett of the TV series, Empire, is convincingly cast as the young Hughes. (Smollett is an openly gay man.)

The only person I can recall unequivocally outing Hughes as a gay man was Faith Berry in her book, Langston Hughes, Before and Beyond Harlem (Lawrence Hill & Co., 1983). Isaac Julien in his film, Looking for Langston, only hinted at Hughes being gay.

If there is a biopic about Langston Hughes in the works, especially about his early years, I hope Smollett gets picked to play the role.

Will There Be a Miles Davis Biopic?

Two years ago, on jazz pianist and disc jockey Ramsey Lewis's syndicated radio show, "The Legends of Jazz," I heard that a biopic of legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis was in the works and that Don Cheadle was slated to portray him. That's good news for Davis fans, however I wonder if the film (if it's ever made) will mention his gay brother who Davis was not happy about, according to Quincy Troupe, Davis's biographer. It's a safe bet that Hollywood will gloss over this part of Davis's life, not wanting to offend any of his fans uncomfortable with the notion of homosexuality.