"She gave me a look of empathy, which struck me, mostly because none of the white people exiting the film made any eye contact with me at all.
This is a fragment of what it is to experience a movie that’s viscerally black in a space that isn’t black. It brings up feelings. It brings up questions. Questions like: What is going through the minds of the white folk around me as they watch this movie, as they watch this black pain? Why do I sometimes feel uncomfortable with this scenario? What is it about their gaze on the screen that makes me feel like I’m the one being watched?...
I think when white people make their films, they don’t think about us. And that’s totally fine. Because when Stanley Kubrick made [“2001: A Space Odyssey”], he was just making “2001.” But if some kid in Harlem, in Liberty City, in Watts, watches “2001,” he’s going to be transported in this way that he should be transported.
Now, the problem is some [white] suburban kid, in the middle of nowhere, in Kansas or Iowa, doesn’t get the same opportunity to be transported into my life. Doesn’t get the same opportunity to be transported into Chiron’s life. But when we make these movies, it’s not about giving him these opportunities, it’s not about making it for him, but it’s there. And I have no problem with him coming into the auditorium, sitting down and experiencing it."
FB: "“I think what she was saying [was], this is a film that is so viscerally black that she was shocked that there was a white person there to sit through it in the way that she was. That was what I heard in the question. And because of that, she felt incredibly uncomfortable,” he said. “And so maybe as the film goes out into the world, the experience that she had, more folks are going to have. What does that do? What does that do? You know?”"
No comments:
Post a Comment