Title:
Intersecting aesthetics : literary adaptations and cinematic representations of Blackness
Author:
Regester, Charlene B., 1956- editor.
ISBN:
9781496848840
9781496848857
Physical Description:
x, 277 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
General Note:
Source of cataloging data: WCP
Abstract:
"Intersecting Aesthetics: Literary Adaptations and Cinematic Representations of Blackness illuminates cultural and material trends that shaped Black film adaptations during the twentieth century. Contributors to this collection reveal how Black literary and filmic texts are sites of negotiation between dominant and resistant perspectives. Their work ultimately explores the effects racial perspectives have on film adaptations and how race-inflected cultural norms have influenced studio and independent film depictions. Several chapters analyze how self-censorship and industry censorship affect Black writing and the adaptations of Black stories in early to mid-twentieth-century America. Using archival material, contributors demonstrate the ways commercial obstacles have led Black writers and white-dominated studios to mask Black experiences. Other chapters document instances in which Black writers and directors navigate cultural norms and material realities to realize their visions in literary works, independent films, and studio productions. Through uncovering patterns in Black film adaptations, Intersecting Aesthetics reveals themes, aesthetic strategies, and cultural dynamics that rightfully belong to accounts of film adaptation. The volume considers travelogue and autobiography sources along with the fiction of Black authors H. G. de Lisser, Richard Wright, Ann Petry, Frank Yerby, and Walter Mosley. Contributors examine independent films The Love Wanga (1936) and The Devil's Daughter (1939); Melvin Van Peebles's first feature, The Story of a Three Day Pass (1967); and the Senegalese film Karmen GeiÌ⁸ (2001). They also explore studio-era films In This Our Life (1942), The Foxes of Harrow (1948), Lydia Bailey (1952), The Golden Hawk (1952), and The Saracen Blade (1954) and post-studio films The Learning Tree (1969), Shaft (1971), Lady Sings the Blues (1972), and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Black literary/film adaptations in scholarly and historical context. Cinematic adaptations representing Blackness / Glimmers of hope, dreams deferred, and diminished desires : early African American literary figures and the cinema industry / Colonial anxieties and reclaimed identities. The Devil's wanga : representations of power and the erotics of Black female planters in The Love Wanga (1936) and The Devil's Daughter (1939) / Filmic migrations of the Carmen figure : Karmen Geï and its implications for diasporic Black female decolonization / Hollywood's problematic reconstructions. Imagining the Haitian revolution in Lydia Bailey : Kenneth Roberts's 1947 novel and Darryl F. Zanuck's 1952 film / Refusing to be "Somebody's damn maid" : an examination of space in Billie Holiday's autobiography and biopic Lady Sings the Blues / Black literature's challenge for screen adaptations. Burbanking bigger and Bette the bitch : Native son and In this our life at Warner Bros. / Frank Yerby and the art and discipline of racial sublimation / Black auteurs defying dominant norms. Adapting Black masculinity in Melvin Van Peebles's The story of a three day pass / Black autonomy on screen and off: Gordon Parks's The learning tree (1969) and Shaft (1971) / Devil in a blue dress : aesthetic strategies that illuminate "Invisibility" and continue Black literary traditions / About the contributors -- Index.
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