2024 the best black films review

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A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK OF THE YEAR • BOOKLISTS' EDITOR'S CHOICE • ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“At once a film book, a history book, and a civil rights book.… Without a doubt, not only the very best film book [but] also one of the best books of the year in any genre. An absolutely essential read.” —Shondaland

This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies—from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther—using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown.

Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation—which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster—Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes.
 
He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X, to the O. J. Simpson trial, to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves—including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind, Porgy and Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the seventies, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others.
 
An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America.

From the Publisher

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08TH5VGYZ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf (October 19, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 19, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 47678 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 606 pages
Reviewer: Hannah M Smith
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Superb
Review: Incredibly well-researched and thorough as a history while being entertaining and easy to read too. Anyone with any level of knowledge on the subject will be able to pick this book up and enjoy it. The writing style makes it a page-turner and the material itself is organized very well, especially considering the breadth. Highly recommend to history lovers, film buffs, and anyone looking for a comprehensive work on Black cinema.

Reviewer: Derrick
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Smooth and informative
Review: Smooth, fast paced writing. Integrates politics of the day with the movies.

Reviewer: Case Quarter
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Blacks at the Movies
Review: wil haygood shows the history of blacks in cinema and black cinema inseparable from a history of racial injustice and sexual misconduct from the casting couch to the exclusion of black actresses from serious roles to miscegenation. the narrative is not without success stories and paradoxical progress of blacks winning cinematic awards while in the streets protestors are gathered in solidarity against the killing of george floyd.from the perseverance of oscar michaux to the numbers of blacks behind and in front of the camera during the filming of the highly popular Black Panther, haygood is informative and intriguing, his accounts filled with the delectable revelation of rumor and journalistic expose.he almost plots his pieces, of how d w griffin’s Birth of a Nation came to be shown in the wilson white house, the making of the phenomenon of Porgy and Bess, from stage musical to opera to film, how a door for otto preminger opened black cinematic talent didn’t lead far. why can’t the black leading man kiss the blonde leading lady? an ironic question, when in real life, during the filming of The World, the Flesh and the Devil, a project of harry belafonte’s harbel productions, belafonte’s studio, not listed in the credits, the black leading man played by harry belafonte is so psychologically tortured by a system of race that keeps him in his place as a black man during the 1950s that he cannot even speak his desire for inger stevens, the leading lady anguishly begging for intimacy, let alone kiss her, in scenes painful and ludicrous to watch, while, in real life, stevens was secretly married to a black man, the actor isaac jones, an actor who had his own bad luck. haygood tells how george c scott turned down his oscar for Patton possibly because of the treatment of the industry’s neglect of james edwards, the actor who played the role of patton’s ‘personal valet’. edwards role in Home of the Brave, reported by haygood, and he was not alone, was worthy of an oscar nomination.when the biography of the other oscar, michaux, is considered, the successes he achieved on a different scale in making and distributing his own movies, though lacking wide distribution and financial return, is no less an american emersonian story than of edison or ford.this is a must have personal library addition for serious film buffs.

Reviewer: Vista Hater
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A truly great book!!!
Review: I've never read a book on the history of film that does such an amazing job of weaving in the larger sociopolitical aspects of history. Haygood contextualizes everything in way that is fascinating and easy to understand, revealing the complexity of the film industry and its relationship with race.

Reviewer: Kayo
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very informative
Review: I found this book 📗 interesting a good read to learn about the struggle for Black Americans in entertainment. It's shameful that it goes on till this day. A waste of so much talent. The world 🌎 missed out - so many lights extinguished. The reader will see the racial politics that denied so many. Yet some great entertainers where able to break through in spite of. I hoped the book 📗 would have dug deeper in the history and write 📝 more about the early times of Black cinema 🎦 starting in 1903. I was hoping for more details. This is a quick read and a good start to read. However, there are books 📚 that go in more detail. Don't get me wrong this is a good educational book 📗. Good job

Reviewer: Kenneth R. Clarke
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Black History in Historical Context
Review: Due to structural racism, at times reading Black History is so stressful and tough to read. This book illustrates structural racism in entertainment and how some of my hero’s overcame and persevered to create music, movies and stage performances that will be with me forever.

Reviewer: redwallpro
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: great book!!
Review: An absolute must read. It's just so complete with history and truth.

Reviewer: P.A. Lawrence
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Superb.
Review: Absolutely incredible. Enlightening but fair.Thank you so very much. What an experience. I'll certainly recommend it to everyone I know

Reviewer: Daniel Cunningham
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read about the film industry. Will Haygood's analysis of how current events affect what we see on the big screen is insightful. I'll never be able to look at Birth of a Nation nor Gone With the Wind through the same eyes again. Through my local library, I have rediscovered the blaxpoitation films of the 70s. They are so much fun. I just wished it had some of Oscar Micheaux's movies.