Film Blackness
Michael Boyce Gillespie
Video
Please note that this video is available in German.
Michael Boyce Gillespie, Film Blackness, American Cinema and the idea of Black Film, Duke University Press, 2016.
As context to the exhibition Recover by Kevin Jerome Everson, the book Film Blackness, American Cinema and the idea of Black Film is introduced. For the author Michael Boyce Gillespie, the book represents the first project in a series that seeks to examine the visual culture of black people and forms of expression with a scientific view. The focus is on questions of representation and what it can mean to be black. What kind of perspectives are taken in film works to these issues? And what conclusions can be drawn about American society? The video contribution will focus primarily on Michael Boyce Gillespie’s perspective on Black Film, while also providing a historical introduction to Black Cinema.
Michael Boyce Gillespie is a professor at City College in New York and author of Film Blackness. American Cinema and the idea of Black Film, published by Duke University Press in 2016. His research and writing focus on “Black Visual Culture,” film theory, the histography of the visual, music, and contemporary art. His writing has also been published in Flash Art and Film Quarterly, among others.