Watch: I am Not Your Negro or Meek's Cutoff

As in previous weeks, you may choose from two screening options this week that examine ideology and race & representation in cinema. You are only required to view ONE of the films below, but of course you may watch both if you wish. 

 

VideoWatch: I Am Not Your Negro (2016) Links to an external site.(1hr 30min)

Still of James Baldwin from I Am Not Your Negro Links to an external site.from the New York Times  Links to an external site.

 

For your first screening option this week, you may watch the 2016 Oscar-nominated film I am Not your Negro. This documentary, directed by Raoul Peck and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, adapts James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript called Remember this House. Peck uses archival and contemporary footage to connect Baldwin's experience living during the Civil Rights Movement with the current Black Lives Matter movement. Since this film largely takes on the rhetorical voice of an essay film, this may also be an influence for those that are working on a video essay for their final project. Here is the official description of the film from Kanopy: 

 

"In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends--Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript.

Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin's original words and flood of rich archival material. I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for." 

 

ReviewWhile watching...

While watching, consider these questions: 

  • How does Peck directly connect the Civil rights Movement with the Black Lives Matter Movement through the juxtaposition between voice and imagery? 
  • How does Peck creatively use archival and contemporary footage to visualize Baldwin's thoughts? 
  • How does this film utilize the synthesis of voices between filmmaker (Peck), author (Baldwin) and narrator (Samuel L. Jackson)? 
  • How does I am Not your Negro challenge black representation in film and/or popular culture? 
  • Consider the film's editing. How does Peck use theories of montage to juxtapose images? 

 

AnnouncementsContent Warning 

I Am Not Your Negro is a powerful and poignant film that should be essential viewing for white Americans in particular, but the film investigates topics that may be traumatic and overwhelming for some. As an alternative, you may view Meek's Cutoff instead. 

You can view the film at the link above or here. Links to an external site.

 

VideoWatch:Meek's Cutoff (2011) Links to an external site. (1hr 43 minutes)

As a way to further explore the concept of ideology and genre, you have the option to watch the 2011 film Meek’s Cutoff, directed by Kelly Reichardt.

Still from Meek's Cutoff (2011) from film-grab. Links to an external site.

 

The film is a stark and poetic drama set in 1845, during the earliest days of the treacherous Oregon Trail. A wagon train of three families has hired mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a shortcut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, they face the scourges of hunger, thirst, and their own lack of faith in each others' instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as their natural born enemy.

The film is seen as a revisionist western, which is a sub-genre of the western that explores, investigates and sometimes subverts the conventions of the classic western.

 

ReviewWhile Watching...

While watching, consider these guiding questions: 

  • How does Meek’s Cutoff use the revisionist western sub-genre to subvert and/or follow conventional western genre elements? Consider how unique framing, camera movement, mise-en-scene, editing and sound design elements could answer this question.
  • The film utilizes a unique aspect ratio throughout. How might it relate to the film’s meaning?
  • How does Meek’s Cutoff challenge stereotypical representations of women and Native Americans in westerns?
  • What western archetypes do the characters in the film represent? For example, what western character might Stephen Meek embody?
  • How does voice and language become a central organizing narrative element of the film?
  • Identify some moments in the film where the surrounding landscape is portrayed in comparison or in contrast to other westerns. How does this relate to the film’s theme?

You can view the film at the link above or here. Links to an external site.

 

Continue on to complete a diversity in film criticism assignment, for this week's discussion --->