Newsletter sign-up: 
Get Breaking News on your cellSXSW 2008: Checking 'The Black List'
3:31 PM Tue, Mar 11, 2008 | Permalink |
E-mail News tips
 |
 |
 
|
|
July 2008
Recent Posts
'The Dark Knight' breaks opening weekend record 'The Dark Knight' raking it in Batman car rolls into Dallas on Friday Chris Vognar on KERA's 'Think' Categories
GuideLive.com
Entertainment Blogs |
Elvis Mitchell has been a film critic (most recently for The New York Times), a brodcaster (currently as host of the KCRW film show The Treatment) and a magazine editor (Interview). Now, with The Black List, he can add "filmmaker" to his resume. Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders directed the doc, which places African-American movers and shakers including Colin Powell, Chris Rock, Toni Morrison and Al Sharpton against a gray background to answer questions about their lives and their race. But it's Mitchell asking those questions, always off-camera, guiding the relaxed vibe that dominates the film. "If you have six and the white man has five, then he wins," says Rock. Dancer Bill T. Jones explains a question he often asks himself around white people: "Am I telling you the truth, or am I seducing you so you don't know how fearful I am?" After Monday's screening at the Alamo Ritz, Mitchell explained his need to stay off- camera. "These aren't my stories," he told the audience. "These are the stories of the people in the film. Doing this film gave me a chance to live out all of my obsessions" - like asking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar why he was always so hard on Mitchell's beloved Pistons. The Black List will play March 29 at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival, and will air later this year on HBO.
|
 | |
|
Spotlight
|
|