LIQUID BLACKNESS ON THE LA REBELLION (2013)
Introduction | About the Artists | LA Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema Film Series | Research Project | Publications
Introduction
In the late 1960s, after a decade of Civil Rights protest and rising racial tensions, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television welcomed a group of young African and African American film students as part of a diversity enrollment initiative. Determined to respond to the political turmoil and anti-black backlash of their time, as well as defy the limitations of both mainstream Hollywood cinema and the Blaxploitation cycle in representing black life on film, these young filmmakers sought new aesthetic forms that would more adequately respond to the exigencies and specificities of black lives. Attentive students of Third Cinema, of the pioneers of African Cinema, of the more politicized expressions of the French New Wave, as well as of Italian Neorealism, they independently produced highly original films encompassing an array of subjects and genres, from politically-charged portrait pieces to experimental docu-dramas. With pride in their craft and commitment to fashioning and maintaining a distinctive artistic voice, they mentored each other over the years, and created cinema that was innovative and celebratory of the richness of African-American life and culture, eventually giving shape to a school of black independent cinema: the L.A. Rebellion.
In Fall of 2013 helped bring the “L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema Tour” film series—curated by Jacqueline Stewart, Allyson Field, Christopher Horak, and Shannon Kelley for the UCLA Film & Television Archive—to Atlanta, Georgia and it was truly a collaborative event. liquid blackness co-hosted the Atlanta tour with Emory’s Department of Film and Media Studies and the Atlanta Film Festival with support from the Department of Communication at Georgia State University and, as a result of liquid blackness’ outreach program, the film and discussion series also drew the support of several artists’ communities in the Atlanta area.
Still, The Pocketbook (1980) Directed by Billy Woodberry
Still, Your Children Come Back to You (1979) Directed by Allie Sharon Larkin
Still, I&I: An African Allegory (1979) Directed by Ben Caldwell
Still, Bush Mama (1975) Directed by Haile Gerima
Research
The “L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema Tour”was the liquid blackness research group’s first major project and opportunity to explore the collaborative, interdisciplinary, and multifaceted practice that has become integral to the group’s work—specifically, the group’s methodology was inspired by the art itself. Like the LA Rebellion filmmakers and their films, the group sought opportunities for congregation through a series of public conversations and “teach-ins” and experimented with creative forms of expression in the first issue of the liquid blacknessjournal, “liquid blackness on the L.A. Rebellion.” The films screened during the tour chart an artistic lineage that has continued to shape our research projects .
The public liquid blacknessconversations and “teach-ins” with LA Rebellion filmmakers, students, and scholars explored topics like the creative process and the current issues facing Atlanta. The locations for these events were thoughtfully selected and include Atlanta landmarks like Manuel’s Tavern, a historic institution in Atlanta politics and a site on the National Register of Historic Places, and Charis Books & More, Atlanta’s feminist bookstore and community hub that opened in 1974.
During the Tour, the liquid blacknessgroup collectively encountered Larry Clark’s seminal film Passing Through (1977). The film not only became the research object for a year-long study, after learning about the influential role the film played in the work of a younger generation of black filmmakers, it helped us understand the complex visual and sonic linkages that connection the work of the LA Rebellion filmmakers in the 1960s and 70s and the contemporary work of Arthur Jafa, Kahlil Joseph, Bradford Young, and Jenn Nkiru.
Publications
Alessandra Raengo, “Encountering the Rebellion: liquid blackness Reflects on the Expansive Possibilities of the L.A. Rebellion Films,” in L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema, ed. Allyson Nadia-Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, and Jacqueline Stewart (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015)
liquid blackness 1, no.1 “liquid blackness on the LA Rebellion” Contents
This project became the topic of the very first issue of the liquid blackness journal, “liquid blackness on the LA Rebellion” published December 2013. All of the writing in this issue was contributed by current and former Georgia State University students who worked closely with the liquid blackness research project. Their work includes critical and personal accounts of their experience encountering the work of the LA Rebellion.
Alessandra Raengo – The LA Rebellion Comes to Town
Michele Prettyman Beverly – Daughter of the Rebellion
Dorothy Hendricks – The Children of the Revolution: Image of Youth in Killer of Sheep and Brick by Brick
Lauren McLeod Cramer – Black Sister’s Reality: Black Bodies and Space in Emma Mae
Joey Molina – Purification Rituals: Beauty and Abjection in Cycles
Cameron Kunzelman – Playfighting in South Central: On the Everyday in My Brother’s Wedding