Juke: Passages from the Films of Spencer Willams

Juke: Passages from the Films of Spencer Williams is a 2015 documentary film[1][2] by film essayist Thom Andersen featuring selected excerpts from the films of African American director Spencer Williams Jr.[3]

Summary

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The film is a plotless thirty-minute montage reconsidering Spencer's religious melodramas[4] such as The Blood of Jesus (1941) that cuts scenes and aspects of his films[5] while assembling major and minor moments into a portrait reflecting 1940s Black America.[6]

Production

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Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art as part of their program “A Road Three Hundred Years Long: Cinema and the Great Migration”,[7][8][9] Thom regraded his movie as[10]

"a kin to Walker Evans' photographs of sharecroppers' homes in the 1930s and George Orwell's essays on English working class interiors".

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Harris, Brandon (2015-06-08). "Black America's Forgotten Film History". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  2. ^ "THE MELBOURNE CINÉMATHÈQUE | Dedicated to screening rare & important films in their original format". www.melbournecinematheque.org. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  3. ^ "Juke--Passages from the Films of Spencer Williams | IFFR". iffr.com. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  4. ^ "MoMA | One Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series". www.moma.org. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  5. ^ "Rotterdam 2016. In Praise of Wang Bing and Spencer Williams". MUBI. 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  6. ^ "Juke / The Blood of Jesus". Harvard Film Archive. 2015-10-23. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  7. ^ Hoberman, J. (September 2015). "J. Hoberman on Thom Andersen's Juke". www.artforum.com. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  8. ^ Hoberman, J. (2015-05-29). "'A Road Three Hundred Years Long': A Cinema Stirring Amid an Exodus". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  9. ^ "Interview: Thom Andersen". Film Comment. 2015-06-04. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  10. ^ "Juke: Passages From Films By Spencer Williams". LUX. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
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