This is for you, Njai Kai...
I fondly remember seeing this film by auteur Julie Dash first on PBS. I was struck by its imagery and visual richness. Back then, VHS tapes were the thing, and I recorded it along with the filmmaker's interview. Recently, I saw it again and thought now would be a good time to share a few comments.
The amazing thing to me is how Julie Dash got funding from PBS' AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE to the tune of $800,00.00, after having her proposal for a film rejected by Hollywood Executives, and by all accounts put it to superlative use. DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) is to be commended for extending the range of black female characters in cinema without evoking the familiar stereotypes of 'Sapphire' and 'Black Mammy' as it sails away from the last vestigial traces of minstrelsy. No maid or cooks need apply.
The images, particularly of Nature, are often awe-inspiring and made me recall the photography of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, but have a vigor and dynamism particular to Dash's intent to probe the angst and profundity of Gullah Family Culture. I remembered when I first viewed this work of cinema, the images of Black Women in all shades and hues seemed like an endless parade of the best covers from ESSENCE magazine presented with dignity and respect. Arthur Jaffa, the cinematographer, deserves much credit for the lushness of the visuals. I believe Roger Ebert was correct in his assessment of Dash's film as a tone poem. She attempts to convey through the visual, as any good filmmaker worth his or her salt would do, the story more in the recurrence of poetic nuance than with any other consideration. The pictures she displays are often sharply poignant and arresting.
I don't believe Julie Dash meant for her film to be this astounding cultural artifact it has become. Something that Amiri Baraka AKA Everett Leroi Jones mentioned in one of his essays comes to mind again. The difference between Art as an artifact and as a process. When I first saw Dash's film on educational television and dutifully recorded it on VHS tapes, I saw it as an introduction to characters we would later revisit in sequels. DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST was her first foray of engaging in a process meant to change perceptions as well as hearts and minds. I thought it was only a matter of time before we would have DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST II and DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST III, in the manner of Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg, Jackson, and Leone. In other words, I thought she had won access to the infrastructure of film-making enough to evolve and process her craft to its fullest potential.
So far, this has not been the case. And so, we have these celluloid images, as evanescent and ephemeral as a snowflake or a soap bubble as you run your hand through the sudsy bath water you are preparing for your infant toddler, and attempt to keep an ear out for the latest episode of DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST is a great groundbreaking film, but reminds me a little of the conversations my mother would have with our female next door neighbor over the backyard fence. Several times I would observe one or the other of them state, "Well, I won't keep you any longer-", and then go on to gab for another half hour or more. DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST is like that. It is a series of loosely connected resolutions or 'goodbyes' or 'fare thee wells' sandwiched in between a TRISTRAM SHANDY non-linear narrative that would certainly catch the attention of Lawrence Sterne and validate the assertion of one of my Detroit mentors that women love to nurse an emotion.
There is plenty of evidence of this here, and I would like to thank my high school classmate Njia Kai for all that she contributed to the making of this film.
I fondly remember seeing this film by auteur Julie Dash first on PBS. I was struck by its imagery and visual richness. Back then, VHS tapes were the thing, and I recorded it along with the filmmaker's interview. Recently, I saw it again and thought now would be a good time to share a few comments.
The amazing thing to me is how Julie Dash got funding from PBS' AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE to the tune of $800,00.00, after having her proposal for a film rejected by Hollywood Executives, and by all accounts put it to superlative use. DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991) is to be commended for extending the range of black female characters in cinema without evoking the familiar stereotypes of 'Sapphire' and 'Black Mammy' as it sails away from the last vestigial traces of minstrelsy. No maid or cooks need apply.
The images, particularly of Nature, are often awe-inspiring and made me recall the photography of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, but have a vigor and dynamism particular to Dash's intent to probe the angst and profundity of Gullah Family Culture. I remembered when I first viewed this work of cinema, the images of Black Women in all shades and hues seemed like an endless parade of the best covers from ESSENCE magazine presented with dignity and respect. Arthur Jaffa, the cinematographer, deserves much credit for the lushness of the visuals. I believe Roger Ebert was correct in his assessment of Dash's film as a tone poem. She attempts to convey through the visual, as any good filmmaker worth his or her salt would do, the story more in the recurrence of poetic nuance than with any other consideration. The pictures she displays are often sharply poignant and arresting.
I don't believe Julie Dash meant for her film to be this astounding cultural artifact it has become. Something that Amiri Baraka AKA Everett Leroi Jones mentioned in one of his essays comes to mind again. The difference between Art as an artifact and as a process. When I first saw Dash's film on educational television and dutifully recorded it on VHS tapes, I saw it as an introduction to characters we would later revisit in sequels. DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST was her first foray of engaging in a process meant to change perceptions as well as hearts and minds. I thought it was only a matter of time before we would have DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST II and DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST III, in the manner of Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg, Jackson, and Leone. In other words, I thought she had won access to the infrastructure of film-making enough to evolve and process her craft to its fullest potential.
So far, this has not been the case. And so, we have these celluloid images, as evanescent and ephemeral as a snowflake or a soap bubble as you run your hand through the sudsy bath water you are preparing for your infant toddler, and attempt to keep an ear out for the latest episode of DAYS OF OUR LIVES.
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST is a great groundbreaking film, but reminds me a little of the conversations my mother would have with our female next door neighbor over the backyard fence. Several times I would observe one or the other of them state, "Well, I won't keep you any longer-", and then go on to gab for another half hour or more. DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST is like that. It is a series of loosely connected resolutions or 'goodbyes' or 'fare thee wells' sandwiched in between a TRISTRAM SHANDY non-linear narrative that would certainly catch the attention of Lawrence Sterne and validate the assertion of one of my Detroit mentors that women love to nurse an emotion.
There is plenty of evidence of this here, and I would like to thank my high school classmate Njia Kai for all that she contributed to the making of this film.