Film

From Social Justice Wiki

Bambara's first film project, was the documentary The Bombing of Osage Avenue in 1986, which is about the 1985 bombing of MOVE, headquarters in Philadelphia. In 1985 MOVE's communal residence was bombed by Philadelphia police. Six adults and five children were killed. Over the years Philadelphia has paid $32 million to a survivor, relatives of two members of MOVE, and residents of Osage Avenue.

It is also interesting to note that three of Bambara's short stories, "Gorilla, My Love," "Medley," and "Witchbird" have been adapted to film.

Some Ideas on Bambara's Activism Through Film:

Bambara's work on the medium of film keeps with the theme of much of herwork as it seeks to exist as a model outside of the traditional, mainstream binary division of the world. In relation to film, this means that Bambara's work, and particularly her criticisms of film, attempt to counter the notion that there are only two types of film: those that uses Hollywood as its foundation, and therefore reinforces the ideologies of mainstream, white America; and those (black) films which inherently function to undermine mainstream ideologies. Bambara insists that filmmaking (like all other aspects of life) can not be reduced to a simple binary and presents the notion that there are at least 3 different schools of Black filmmaking in the US:

firstly those that "produce within the existing protocol of the entertainment industry and may or may not include a critique" Bambara points to Fred Williamson as an example of this type of filmmaker.

Bambara sees Spike Lee as epitomizing the second type of filmmaker, one who uses "enshrined genres and practices" of Hollywood filmmaking to disrupt certain aspects of dominant ideology by giving voice to particular aspects of the Black community (in Lee's case, often young, black males or as Bambara says "the B-boy voice") but whose work in numerous ways fails to critique key oppressive aspects of US society "by not rising above its retrograde mindset re women and homosexuals."

The third type of Black filmmaking, which Bambara considers herself a part of, are films that do not take hollywood as a departure point, but that demonstrate a �deliberate and self conscious� commitment to building a socially responsible cinema, fashioning cinematic equivalents for our socio/political specificity and offering transformation dramas.� It is these films that Bambara saw as offering a viable alternative to �white sight,� or the seeing of one�s own community through the lens of an unsympathetic, destructive outsider.

Even in her response to film, Bambara remains most committed to the smaller details of community life. Bambara's activism does not always take the shape of commonly visible political concerns, but the more subtle aspects of life and self-perception that she feels are greatly informed by mainstream media. In many ways her primary concern is offering an alternative: to �be able to think and behave better than we�ve been taught by the commercial media, which we, addicted, look to for the way we dress, speak, dance, shop, cook, eat, celebrate, couple, rear, think, solve problems, and bury each other.�

The importance Bambara places on vocal members of black communities is largely related to her upbringing in Harlem during the height of activity on "Speakers Corner". Bambara repeatedly expresses the notion that when there are vocal community members, people do not rely on or look to the media for information, but rather to eachother. Her various works are in many ways a response to her great fear: "If we can't hear black people speak we've become captive to the media, and we disacknowledge Blackspeak. Our ears are no longer attuned to any kind of sensible talk."

Various films Bambara reccomends & often discusses in her work include:

Sankofa

W.E.B Du Bois: A biography in Four Voices

The KKK Boutique Ain't Just Rednecks

Films of Ousmane Sembene

Films of Julie Dash, particularly Daughters of the Dust

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