Black History Month: Looking Back at "The Brother From Another Planet"

As February is Black History Month, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some screen projects that have been overlooked, unsung, or considered also-rans in the canon of African America film.

Brother From Another Planet (1984)
Written, Directed and Edited by John Sayles
Starring Joe Morton

This film is a personal favorite of mine. Eight years after David Bowie was The Man Who Fell to Earth, and the very same year that Jeff Bridges portrayed an alien who just wants to get home in Starman, Joe Morton made his breakout performance in this John Sayles indie as a dreadlocked, goodhearted alien who crashlands on New York's Ellis Island and tries to understand what earthlings are all about. His journey is complicated by the fact that he is mute and can hear the voices of humans embedded in the objects they used. He appears mostly human, but his three-toed feet -- not to mention his extra-sensory perceptions -- mark him as different.

He manages to cross the Hudson and arrive at 125th Street in Harlem, where his skintone helps him blend in. But soon he is assaulted by the sounds of multiple languages, hip-hop, salsa, and video games, and confronted by images of a crucified Jesus, street crime, and drug use. Living by his wits and an alien ability to heal wounds and manipulate machinery, the Brother is helped by a local social worker (Tom Wright) and winds up with a job and a place to live with a chatty single mother (Caroline Aaron) and her young biracial son.

The brilliance of this film is that we see the complete absurdity, violence, variety, vice and mayhem of contemporary life through his eyes. What's more, in the presence of a man who doesn't speak, nearly every person he runs across becomes a virtual motormouth, giving sway to their beliefs, fears, prejudices, memories, and hopes as he listens, wide-eyed and agog.

As it turns out, the Brother is a fugitive from his planet's justice, and when white bounty hunters in black arrive (played by David Strathairn and Sayles himself) it becomes clear that on his planet, he was held as a slave.

Perhaps best known today as "Papa Pope" on TV's Scandal, Joe Morton is in nearly every scene and he is absolutely brilliant. His eyes say everything about the predicament he finds himself in, and his physicality communicates the sensory discomfort and surprise of being in unfamiliar surroundings.

He is surrounded by an ace troupe of reliable stage and screen character actors, including Broadway and recording legend Dee Dee Bridgewater as a local singer who turns on her love light; Carl Gordon (known as Charles Dutton's father on '90s sitcom Roc) as a romantic rival; busy character actor Bill Cobbs (seen on Greenleaf) as a barroom philosopher; funnyman Leonard Jackson (Carwash, Boomerang, The Color Purple) as another barroom pal; Caroline Aaron, who's appeared in dozens of films and plays the mother of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; and Tom Wright, a stalwart from dozens of TV shows (including Punch from Ray Donovan) as a helpful social worker. Even Josh Mostel shows up for two minutes as a Casio keyboard vendor.

Sayles has made a career of making independent movies that look at the impact of race, sex, and class on the intersected lives of community members (his 1996 film about a Texas border town Lone Star and a southern Florida town in 2002's Sunshine State are other personal favorites). He also adds clever references to other films, including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre ("we don't need no stinkin' badges!"), the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and other films. Here Sayles makes us consider just what we have wrought as a society.

While we have a long way to go in terms of a truly harmonious planet, freedom from bondage on Earth -- strange as it is -- looks like Heaven to this Brother.

Black History Month: Looking Back at "Paris Blues"

As February is Black History Month, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at some films featuring African American actors and African American stories that have been overlooked, unsung, or also rans in the pantheon of favorite or important films about us.

Paris Blues (1961).
Directed by Martin Ritt
Starring Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, Joanne Woodward, Diahann Carroll

A product of the post-civil rights sensibility, Paris Blues has to take place across the water to show us how we can really all get along.

The film is about two expatriate American jazz musicians, trombonist Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) who leads his own combo, and his saxophonist Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier), who live in sophisticated, freewheeling, bohemian Paris. The pair sketch out new compositions by day and hold court nightly as the main attraction in a fashionable jazz club into the wee hours. What are they performing? Music by Duke Ellington, naturally, though it is credited to the Ram Bowen group.

Ram initially meets two pretty American tourists, Lillian (Joanne Woodward) and Connie (Diahann Carroll), when he goes to meet the train bringing in noted jazz player Wild Man Miller (played by Louis Armstrong) who will sit in with Ram (as if the great Armstrong could play second fiddle to anyone on a bandstand). After a flirtation with Connie, who introduces him to Lillian, Ram invites the ladies to show up at his gig, which they do.

After some initial bad behavior and crossed signals, romance ensues along "race-appropriate" lines. Lillian makes a calculated play for Ram, impressed by his commitment to his music. Eddie finds himself drawn to Connie. As feelings deepen, the two couples must decide what happens when the ladies' two-week vacation is up. Do the women stay in Paris? Or will the mad lads return to America?

Newman and Woodward, already married in real life, portray the primary story in this black and white film, and Ram and Lillian's struggle is purely about the artistic freedom (not to mention a dalliance with a world-weary French chanteuse) that Paris affords Ram in his career as a composer and performer. While Lillian presses for a commitment, Ram isn't interested and initially breaks it off.

After confessing their love, Eddie and Connie talk marriage but can't agree on a future. Connie has a teaching gig to return to that's she fought too hard to get. She's also deeply connected to her roots, her family, and her home; regardless of the problems back in the U.S. of A., she is committed to being part of the solution. Eddie has been in Paris five years, finally feels free, and has no interest in a return. In a painful scene, Eddie tells Connie that he will never go back to America, where racism, segregation, abuse, and disrespect await a black man. "I don't beg for anything anymore! I'm not interested in The Cause," he says, "I'm only interested in us." "No, you're only interested in you," Connie responds.

Meanwhile, music is the great harmonizer. The Ellington soundtrack is swoon worthy, and a scene where Wild Man enters the subterranean jazz club with his entire band blowing their hearts out in a challenge is totally jazzalicious. Resplendent in its hand-clapping abandon, the music percolates with Satchmo displaying all the trumpet skills he's known for. Both Newman and Poitier studied with noted players to make their performances look authentic.

In addition to being a great travelogue of Paris by foot, Paris Blues is supposed to be about the travails of love, but the romances are too easily tied with a bow. The flick is about the cost of freedom. Unfortunately, the issue of freedom for African Americans is relative: Stay in America and Love it, defend it, and fight to change it, or leave its shores for a country where tolerance for racial differences seems to be higher. Even today, Paris is filled with numerous African American expats who came to shake off the shackles of America's deeply ingrained racism.

Valentine's Viewing: Black History Month Edition

I have conflicting emotions regarding the holiday named for St. Valentine. A former boyfriend from my teenage years once remarked, "You know what you are? A romantic cynic." And that about sums up my attitude.

I reject as a matter of course the syrup-sodden, pink and red, cutesy-poo Cupidfest that has subsumed our national tribute to romantic love. During times without a significant other, the holiday makes a mockery of my singlehood. Still, even if I am "boo'ed up," I'm flummoxed by the Valentine's thing; the challenge is in how to mark the occasion at a level appropriate to where the relationship stands -- without tumbling over the Cliffs of Sentimentality into a hot cloying pool of Kissy Kitsch. My gag response is too easily triggered.

But underneath my crusty exterior, I'm a softie. A bouquet of posies from that certain someone acknowledging whatever warmth lies between us can definitely melt away this cynical exterior. A cleverly worded missive -- rarely found in the annals of Hallmark -- can make me smile. I too have launched a few of the heart-shaped cards at moving targets over a few Februarys. But my general policy is to carry on as though these public displays aren't necessary or even that practical.

I suffer from a similar gag response when it comes to romantic movies. Anything too stuffed with corn, dipped in schmaltz, or shot through with formulaic sugar is generally to be avoided. So my list of favorite romantic flicks is short. But I'm only human, so there are other films -- corny, schmaltzy, predictable and dripping in Hollywood cliche goo -- that still get under my skin. I'll address those in another post.

Being that February is Black History Month, I thought I'd name a few black romance classics appropriate for Valentine's Day viewing.

(Note: While I enjoyed The Best Man films, Why Did I Get Married, Just Wright, Love And Basketball, Brown Sugar, the About Last Night remake, Jumping The Broom, Something New, and the like, I wouldn't call them classics. At least, not yet.)

1. Love Jones(1997)

Nia Long and Larenz Tate get into a little sumthin' sumthin'

I don't think I've seen a movie before or since that captures contemporary black love in quite such an affecting way. Artsy young Chicago professionals Nina Mosley and Darius Lovejoy -- as played by Nia Long and Larenz Tate -- are great to look at and their chemistry is tangible. In their love scenes, you can feel the yearning, the sizzle, and the lust. The story allows us to see how their romance unfolds through events that we recognize -- the spoken word club, the friend's house party, the badly timed lingering exes, going dancing. It's the dialogue and inclusion of so much of African American culture sets the film apart. Much in the way that another Chicago-set romance that I'm fond of -- 1986's About Last Night with Rob Lowe and Demi Moore -- examines 20something love from every angle and includes a Greek chorus of negativity from those who would break up the lovers for their own selfish reasons, so do Nina and Darius face embittered people and setbacks that almost convince them that love "ain't shit." Doubt, distrust, jealousy, insecurity, missed signals, denial -- it's all there, set to a fantastic, evocative soundtrack melding alternative R&B and classic jazz. In the end, Darius realizes that that elusive joy that you create with that one special person is too precious to throw away, and we know that somehow Nina and Darius are going to work it out even as she leaves on the evening train for New York. Notable for great performances by Lisa Nicole Carson and Isaiah Washington as the respective best friends. Hard to believe the film is almost 20 years old.

2. Claudine (1973)

Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones get that lovin' feelin'

Some would say that this film represents another kind of '70s blaxploitation, in that it exploits the trope of a black single mother on welfare in the hood who is cheating the system with a maid's job. But I don't care -- Claudine is a gem because it gets real. Hard to believe that movie makers at the time thought Diahann Carroll was a little too glamorous to carry off the title role, but Diahann -- who was raised in Harlem -- hits all the necessary notes as a mother of five who finds herself falling against her better judgment for a garbage man with a raft of problems of his own. Far from the Romeo & Juliet drama of young Harlem lovers like those portrayed by Kevin Hooks and Irene Cara in 1975's Aaron Loves Angela, directed by Gordon Parks Jr., Carroll's Claudine and James Earl Jones' Rupe are hampered by grown folks' problems: troubled and rebellious children, the grind of menial gigs, roach infested dwellings, and the government interference that poor people are sadly all too familiar with -- welfare in Claudine's case and child support in Rupe's. To consider marriage under these conditions would be to throw away everything Claudine has known, including the monthly welfare checks she depends on, and she isn't sure that Rupe will stand by her. But in the end, it's Carroll and Jones making eyes at each other and trying to make an unworkable situation work that convinces you that their love is worth the risk. Black love wins out -- neither the social worker nor the police will stop these two. Curtis Mayfield's soulful and thoughtful score, performed by Gladys Knight & the Pips, adds to the emotion of the film by voicing the thoughts of the characters. "Keep Away From Me, Mr. Welfare," "To Be Invisible," "The Makings Of You," and "Make Yours A Happy Home" are timeless classics.

3. Boomerang (1992)

Eddie Murphy as Marcus: What more would a woman need?

Not a typical romance, Boomerang is a clever, slickly-produced comedy about how complicated the road to love has become in the modern era. Directed by Reggie Hudlin, produced by brother Warrington Hudlin and stuffed with a who's who of African American talent -- Eddie Murphy, Robin Givens, Halle Berry, Eartha Kitt, Chris Rock, Geoffrey Holder, Grace Jones, Martin Lawrence, David Alan Grier, Tisha Campbell, Lela Rochon, John Witherspoon and Melvin Van Peebles -- this is the tale of a notorious Big Apple ladies' man who finally finds the girl who makes him hang up his playboy dancing shoes. The film is a testament to '90s upward mobility as the upscale characters explore dating, racism, the wages of celebrity, and the bonds of male friendship as Eddie Murphy's bad boy ad exec, Marcus, finally learns that it's no fun being on the receiving end of the deceptive seductions he's been doling out to most of the females at the ad agency where he works.

Robin Givens as Jacqueline: "God, Marcus. I was so tense when I got off the plane, but you really relaxed me. See ya."

Robin Givens is perfect as the conniving career woman determined to break Marcus down (I think her next best screen role was as Imabelle in A Rage In Harlem, a tour de force performance in which she is utterly convincing as a 1950s gold-stealing femme fatale who ultimately falls in love with the mild-mannered funeral home assistant played by Forest Whitaker). Eddie Murphy also gives the film some great quieter moments, as in his scenes with Berry and in chopping it up on the issues with his friends. There's a streak of feminism to the film in the way that Givens' Jacqueline and Halle Berry's Angela -- and though played for laughs. even Grace Jones' extreme character Strangé and Eartha Kitt's cosmetics company head Lady Heloise -- are all committed to owning their careers and their sexuality, albeit in very different ways, in a male- dominated world. The sets, costume designs, makeup and smooth soundtrack by Marcus Miller combine to give the flick a shiny immediacy, while the ace performers offer up countless golden moments of comedy that have become oft-repeated classics (some only need one word: "Marrrrrr-cus!" "Coooor-dinate!" "Strang-e!") While Marcus ultimately walks off into the Brooklyn sunset with the Halle Berry character, having professed his love, we're only 99 percent convinced that love really will bring him home the next time he's tempted.

4. For Love Of Ivy (1968)

Abbey Lincoln as Ivy: Ma'am, what part of "I'm leaving" did you not understand?

This romantic comedy is more than a bit dated, but it was a breakthrough coming just four years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. A black romance that white people could accept, the lighthearted yarn centers on another maid, this time played by stunning vocalist Abbey Lincoln in one of her few screen turns, while the usually upright Sidney Poitier -- just past his Black Saint period in film -- plays a character with a couple of skeletons in his closet. Ivy Moore is the beautiful, dutiful and smart 20something live-in housekeeper for a Long Island businessman played by All In The Family's Carroll O'Connor and his family, including their "hip" 20something son, played by Beau Bridges. (Two years later, Bridges would portray the "hip" son of a rich New York family who buys a Brooklyn brownstone and embeds himself among his black tenants to disastrous results in the simultaneously hilarious and sobering film The Landlord, which also featured the late, great Diana Sands. He has also played the father of Tracee Ellis Ross' Rainbow character in an episode of TV's Blackish.) When Ivy decides that after nine years she's had enough of the maid game and plans to leave to attend secretarial school in New York, the family is sent into a tizzy, because, naturally, they consider her "family" and immediately plot ways to dissuade her. Despite this being a brazen attempt by whites to stop a black woman from liberating herself from servitude or gaining agency over her own future, their meddling is depicted as sweet, loving and in her own best interest. Beau's character decides that what Ivy needs is a suitor who will distract her but not whisk her off. Because, what else would keep a black woman from pursuing her dreams but a man? And a trifling one at that? The son blackmails playboy trucking magnate Jack Parks -- because he may be shady but he's black! -- who reluctantly agrees to take Ivy out on a date.

They go but she's a sheltered Southern girl and he's a smooth big city slickster secretly running an illegal casino operation out of the back of his trucks, and it doesn't seem that things will work out. Still, Jack is captivated by Ivy's simple directness, modesty and beauty. For the love of Ivy, Jack is willing to give up his double life. And just in time: In order to take Ivy away with him to New York, Jack hands over the operation of the casino to a pal and is no longer connected when the casino is busted by the police. What saves the movie from complete corniness is the chemistry between Lincoln and Poitier; Lincoln's character may be sheltered, but she knows exactly who she is. While I love Abbey Lincoln's realness, she doesn't have the same easy comic timing as the rest of the performers so that makes the tone a bit uneven, but it's still a cream puff of a flick about black romance during the swinging '60s.

5. Black Orpheus (1959)

First time actors: Brazilian Breno Mello and American Marpessa Dawn the morning after

I cannot say enough about the total magic of this film, which earned the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1960. Shot entirely in the favela of Morro de Babilhonia and the city of Rio de Janeiro, the film adapts the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to then-modern times. Combining the beauty of the Afro-Brazilian people, the traditions and music of Brazil, and a tragic and timeless love story, Black Orpheus is a delight to the senses. Beautiful Eurydice arrives by boat in Rio, where residents are busy preparing for Carnaval. On the streetcar she meets the conductor, Orfeu, a fledgling musician who has reluctantly committed to marry his outgoing girlfriend Mira. Orfeu guides Eurydice up the hill to the favela where she will stay with her cousin, who is awaiting the return of her sailor boyfriend.

But Eurydice has a secret -- she left home to escape a specter in a death mask who is trying to kill her for reasons that are never revealed. Soon enough, Orfeu and Eurydice fall in love. They head to Carnaval to dance in the samba school competition in their costumes, trying to hide from both a jealous Mira and Death, who has appeared to claim Eurydice's life. When tragedy befalls his beloved, Orfeu -- still clad in his sexy sun god Carnaval gear -- embarks on a physical and spiritual journey across the city to reclaim her. What could be more romantic? Alas, the myth ends tragically. But when three small children greet the sunrise with music and dancing, hope springs eternal. And the music throughout -- by national treasures Luis Banfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim -- is sublime, as the soundtrack includes carnaval sambas, bossa nova, candomblé ritual music, and ballads. The film has detractors who say that it is French director Marcel Camus' attempt to exoticize people of color and romanticize their poverty and dysfunction (much in the same way that George Gershwin's Porgy & Bess, another classic black love story, has been reviled for being a white New Yorker's version of Southern black life, "Negro" dialect and all). Some viewers may be put off by subtitles, while others may be confused by the story's many moments of magical realism owing to its mythological roots. Watch anyway.

Honorable hearts & flowers mentions to:
- 2014's Beyond The Lights, reviewed here
- 1960's Carmen Jones, where Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte make beautiful operatic music together until murder gets in the way
- 1994's Jason's Lyric, where Allen Payne and Jada Pinkett Smith struggle to get out from - under family and gangland trauma in Houston to make a way together
- and 1972's Sounder, where Cicely Tyson's devotion to sharecropper husband Paul Winfield is palpable.